Page 181 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 14 December 2016
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The ACT Labor government is reflecting our city’s progressive and inclusive values through our policy agenda, whether it is in mental health, housing, exclusion zones around abortion clinics, managing the effects of climate change on our environment or, as a basic condition, ensuring our schools are safe for all children. We took to the election a comprehensive suite of policies which reflect our progressive and inclusive city, and we will deliver on them in the next four years with our parliamentary partners. We will also continue to advocate so that the federal parliament must act for Canberrans by delivering progressive policies in its areas of responsibility but also to allow us to legislate in ours. I commend the motion to the Assembly.
MR BARR (Kurrajong—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development and Minister for Tourism and Major Events) (4.44): I thank Mr Steel for raising this important matter today, and I thank him for his passion for and commitment to a more progressive and inclusive city. I need to put on the public record that I do not believe Mr Steel’s election was mundane; I think it was the result of an incredible amount of hard work. I always thought it would be the case, and I am delighted to welcome Mr Steel to the Assembly. What we have just heard gives members an understanding of the sorts of values and commitment that he will bring to this place and to this city to make it more progressive and inclusive.
It is an important motion that goes to the type of city and community that we are, and what we aspire to be. Let us be very clear, Madam Speaker; just two months ago Canberrans voted overwhelmingly for a progressive and positive vision for this city, a city that is inclusive and a city that is welcoming. I am particularly proud of the socially inclusive community that this city has, and I am proud that this government has a long track record of promoting that social inclusion. It is a strong social inclusion agenda that has achieved amazing things in this place for this city over the last decade. Let me be clear that this approach will continue and will pick up pace in the Ninth Assembly.
This government has delivered so many reforms to address formal barriers to inclusion and has put in place many protections to promote inclusion within our community. It started way back in 2004 with the ACT Human Rights Act, which was the first of its kind in Australia. It means that we have a legal imperative, not only a moral one, to do everything we can to ensure that all citizens can be active participants across all aspects of our society. This is also supported by a strong Discrimination Act that supports the identification and elimination of discrimination in our community.
The government introduced further amendments to strengthen this act in the last Assembly. The amendments introduced new protected attributes, including intersex person status, records of sex being altered, and subjection to domestic and family violence have also been acknowledged, amongst other reforms. These amendments reflect changing community values and recognition that individuals may be the subject of discrimination on multiple grounds.
Whilst we all know that legislation provides a legal framework to allow people in our community to feel safe and to participate, it is not, in and of itself, the end of the story.
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