Page 5206 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 29 November 2017
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Coalition of the ACT, 62 per cent of respondents between 18 and 21 years of age said that they wanted to pick up more work. Yet this government has admitted that it has no specific programs in place to target this problem.
Mr Pettersson also wants us to celebrate the territory’s high economic growth. It is a substantiated fact that as the economy has grown so has government revenue. In fact, in the past five years rates revenue has more than doubled, from $209 million to $450 million, whilst conveyance revenue has increased by a third, from $239 million to $316 million. Has this growth in revenue seen an equivalent increase in government funding for the provision of basic services to vulnerable and needy Canberrans? No.
It is another substantiated fact that two-thirds of community service providers recently reported to ACTCOSS that their current funding levels are not enough to meet demand. Lack of adequate resourcing means that a number of providers have been forced to cut services. For example, as has been currently reported, the Conflict Resolution Service has been forced to halve its output this year, owing to funding constraints.
Lack of adequate government commitment to community services also impacts youth. It is another substantiated fact that government funding in the ACT has not kept pace with demand for youth support programs. This would include mental health supports for young people. I have personally spoken with parents who have been forced to travel to Sydney to find adequate mental health care for their child.
These are not the only issues facing the territory’s young people. It is another substantiated fact that the number of Canberra children in out-of-home care has jumped by more than 30 per cent just in the past three years, a figure that Professor Morag McArthur at the Institute of Child Protection Studies has labelled “distressing”. Also of concern is the fact that the ACT now has the nation’s second-highest rate of Indigenous kids in care, behind only the Northern Territory.
The number of kids in out-of-home care is not the only concern within the area of child protection. It is a substantiated fact that many care and protection decisions in this territory are not reviewable on their merits, as they are in other jurisdictions. The ACT Human Rights Commissioner Helen Watchirs last month told ABC Radio that this makes such decisions difficult to defend.
Finally, I wish to note that an incident of violence in Bimberi Youth Justice Centre last year resulted in three youth workers being taken to hospital and four workers being stood down. It is a substantiated fact, Madam Speaker, that 17 months later this government still has not been able to complete its investigation into this troubling event and, as far as I know, the investigation is still ongoing. I can only imagine the distress experienced by these workers as they have spent the past year and a half being subjected to this probe, a concern also shared by CPSU.
I could go on, of course. Those of us on this side of the chamber all could. It is, after all, our job as the opposition to speak truth to the comforting fictions and half-truths that this government likes to tell about itself. Those opposite positively love to label
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