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ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER ELECTED BODY

(Reference: Estimates process 2014-15)

Members:

MR ROD LITTLE (The Chair)MS JOANNE CHIVERS

MS JOANNE DONOVANMR MAURICE WALKER

MR ROSS FOWLER

Apologies:

MS DIANE COLLINS (The Deputy Chair)MR FRED MONAGHAN

TRANSCRIPT OF EVIDENCE

CANBERRA

WEDNESDAY, 3 DECEMBER 2014

Committee contact officer:Ms Margaret BeattieATSIEB SecretariatOffice of Multicultural, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander AffairsCommunity Services DirectorateGPO Box 158CANBERRA CITY ACT 2601

APPEARANCES

Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate........................1

Community Services Directorate..............................................................................28

Environment and Planning Directorate...................................................................57

The elected body met at 9.30 am.

Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development DirectorateLeigh, Ms Kathy, Director-General and Head of ServiceNicol, Mr David, Under-TreasurerOverton-Clarke, Ms Bronwen, Acting Deputy Director-General, Workforce

Capability and Governance DivisionPeffer, Mr Dave, Deputy Director-General, Policy and Cabinet DivisionRutledge, Mr Geoffrey, Director, Executive Director, Strategic Policy and

CabinetDawes, Mr David, Director-General, Economic DirectoratePriest, Ms Jenny, Director, Sport and Recreation ServicesRake, Mr Gary, Deputy Director-General, Arts, Business, Events, Sport and

Tourism DivisionHartley, Ms Laura, Senior Manager, Small Business and Skills, Innovation,

Trade and Investment BranchKobus, Mr Jonathan, Deputy Director, VisitCanberra, Arts, Business, Events,

Sport and Tourism Division

THE CHAIR: First of all I would like to do an acknowledgement of country and pay our respects to the original owners, and particularly the Ngunnawal peoples, whose lands we are meeting on today, and express our gratitude for having this meeting on their lands today, which is a very important meeting.

We have apologies from two of our members, Fred Monaghan and Di Collins. For personal reasons, they are not able to attend these hearings, but they certainly had some contribution throughout the year.

We would also like to make a statement about our functions and roles under the act. As you know, we are able to call these meetings and invite the directorates to come forward and answer some questions, to get an idea of what kind of work has been done over the year and then set some priorities for the next 12 months. In our last report, as you know, we have come up with a number of priorities. From the last report and the strategic plans you can see that we have progressed over time.

We have three new members of the panel here today. I will get them to introduce themselves today. As you know, we had elections in July, and I want to extend a warm welcome to you guys to your first hearing on this side of the table. I will start on my left; Jo can introduce herself.

MS DONOVAN: I am Jo Donovan. Health is my portfolio. I have been in the public service for 37 years, and left to start my own business. I am quite excited about being on the elected body.

MS CHIVERS: I am Jo Chivers, and my portfolio responsibility is the Community Services Directorate. I have been a commonwealth public servant for almost 23 years, having moved here from Tasmania almost 23 years ago. Like Jo, I am also very excited about having been elected to the current elected body.

ATSIEB—03-12-14 1 Chief Minister, Treasuryand Economic Development Directorate

MR WALKER: I am Maurice Walker, returning from last term. I have switched roles this year. I am looking after the Environment and Planning Directorate. It is good to be here again.

MR FOWLER: I am Ross Fowler, obviously a new elected body member. I have spent over 2½ decades working across state, territory and federal governments, and also working within community-based organisations, both here and in Sydney. I currently hold the portfolio of the Education and Training Directorate, so I work heavily with Di Joseph and her team. I currently work in the Justice and Community Safety Directorate, in the Office of Regulatory Services.

THE CHAIR: Thank you for that. Most of you guys would know me. I have been here from the start of ATSIEB hearings. I work regularly with all of you guys as part of my responsibilities. Are there any opening comments you want to make, Kathy?

Ms Leigh: I might just say on behalf of everyone that we really appreciate having the opportunity to have this meeting so that we can do a stocktake and look ahead for the year. We also appreciate the elected body having come to strat board, I think it was in September, from my Head of Service perspective, and our regular meetings with you.

THE CHAIR: We will ask a series of questions. You have some generic questions up front. If there is anything in particular you want to respond to briefly in those generic questions, that would be appreciated. If you want, we can just go straight to the questions that we have prepared for you, for now.

Ms Leigh: In terms of the generic questions, have we not provided you with written answers?

THE CHAIR: Yes.

Ms Leigh: I am happy to go through those but that does not seem like a particularly good use of our time.

THE CHAIR: No.

Ms Leigh: If there are things in our responses that you would like to follow up on, we are happy to take that up.

THE CHAIR: No, that is okay. But if there is anything specific that you want to alert us to, that is fine. We will peruse those, and if there are other questions we will follow on from that.

I will be leading on this, and members will chime in with follow-up questions as they see the need. The first question I have is around the RED strategy. The Chief Minister’s office have the carriage of this. Are you able to inform members of the status of the review of the strategy and will there be an action plan that articulates the intentions of the government to rectify the missed targets?

Ms Overton-Clarke: Yes. As you know, it has taken a long time—this whole year, really—to review the RED strategy. The decision to extend the timing past June was


to really be able to make sure that we had a comprehensive input from a range of stakeholders, not just a limited number of written submissions, which is what we had received by midyear. So the extra time has really allowed us to talk with a whole range of additional stakeholders.

I am expecting the report on that later this week. The whole idea was that, by before Christmas, we would definitely have the draft report. We are very mindful, in terms of both the review and leading into the next calendar year, that we need to have a set of actions and strategies for how we go forward in a really practical way with all the directorates.

There are a number of strands that go to this. The heart of your question was about how we increase the numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees in ACT government. Both Kathy and I are acutely aware that, with missing the targets, ambitious though they were, we need to put a big amount of effort into working with the directorates to say that voluntary take-up and looking at ad hoc ways of doing things really need to be strengthened into a more systemic approach.

Kathy and I have had lots of discussions around that. We are also very aware that the emphasis needs to come from the top down. So whatever approach we go forward with—and we are discussing things like performance indicators and numbers for directors-general and so forth—we will make sure that D-Gs are responsible and are pushing those efforts down through the directorates.

We have had a number of strategies in the past. One of those was the traineeship program. As you know, we have now taken that back from CSD, so it is going to be run from Chief Minister’s, with support in terms of the mentoring side from CSD. I am sure they can talk to you later about that.

The traineeship program will continue to be an important pathway into the service, but we want to make sure that we have some certainty around that, so that people know at the end of it that there is a permanent job. In its later iterations that was not so secure.

I am very happy to go on and talk about the employment pathways that we see. It is not just about the traineeship program; it is also about cadetships, apprenticeships and so forth. So I can talk in detail but I will stop there.

THE CHAIR: No, that is fine. The other thing about this is the concern about the missed targets. You have mentioned putting more emphasis on the directors-general to ensure that these targets are met. We have had some conversations about how we do that. We would be interested in conversations around performance assessments and so on, or whether it could be considered as part of their contracts, in terms of their performance, to meet those targets.

The other thing that we have said over time has been that it is not just around the entry kind of things. It is about career development and pathways; once you are in, what pathways are there? We have often mentioned, and we will mention it again, the senior management positions, of which there is a very low number in the ACT public service. We certainly want to have more of our people in those positions where they


are able to influence decisions, and make this part of the decision-making.

Ms Overton-Clarke: Yes.

THE CHAIR: Thank you for that one.

Ms Overton-Clarke: There was some confusion this year around—even at entry level, we need at all different levels to have an emphasis. So we need to have a greater push in terms of the graduates around how we get entrants in at that level. It is one thing to bring them in at a lower level and having different pathways, but at all levels we need to make sure that we have a really concerted effort on bringing staff in at different levels. The graduate program is an avenue to ensure that we have senior representation in a more accelerated way. So we are looking at all of those levels.

THE CHAIR: Thank you.

Ms Leigh: I might make an additional comment, to say how important I do think this is. As Bronwen said, we have had a lot of discussions about how we can make that quantum leap. I was quite disappointed when I realised where the figures were at this year and that it was not something we could turn around within this period. There are things like bringing the traineeship program back into the central agency. It just makes sense, when we are doing whole-of-government employment, that that is part of it; then we can make sure there is a real focus on it. We are certainly very keen to make that difference and to actually talk numbers with directors-general and work out practical ways that we can lift our numbers.

THE CHAIR: Okay; thank you for that. The next question is around the employment inquiry by Dr Chris Bourke. We were considering the generic questions and the matter of the ACT public service performance in meeting targets in recent times against the recruitment targets, which are to pretty much double by 2017, I think. how has the recruitment of people with disabilities progressed and how does it compare with the recruitment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people? There were two target groups. How do the disability targets fare when compared with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander targets?

Ms Leigh: We have a real job to do in the disability area as well. The comment I made applies there as well. It was not something that we could turn around quickly but Bronwen and I have been having quite detailed discussions about how we can make that change.

THE CHAIR: What is the status of that report?

Ms Leigh: The report from that committee?

THE CHAIR: That inquiry, yes.

Ms Overton-Clarke: We have responded to it and we are implementing the recommendations. Most of the recommendations are being implemented.

THE CHAIR: The next question is probably a fairly broad one—that is, the elected


body’s capacity. We have talked about this in each term. You will realise that we have found that our business has certainly increased over time. Now that we have some very clear directions and strategies that require quite a bit of time and effort, in meeting with directors-general and so on, there is quite a demand on the membership. It has been raised constantly, and it was raised at the last cabinet meeting we had with the government.

When will the elected body be taken seriously, to ensure that our capacity is commensurate with the kind of demands that are placed upon us to improve outcomes and the lives of our people? We have had a great relationship so far but there is still quite a bit of effort that needs to happen. We are committed to doing that. We have had conversations at our regular meetings about capacity. In our last hearings we heard that the review of the body and the model is on the agenda, but now that we are working towards the whole-of-government agreement, a lot of work will come out of that.

I am flagging to you that we see this work coming. How do you think that the elected body’s capacity can be enhanced? By informing you through the budget process and so on? That is the question. How can you see your way to influencing support to enhance the capacity of the elected body?

Ms Leigh: First of all, on the comment you made about being taken seriously, I would like to assure you that we take that relationship and your role very seriously and we always find it very helpful. In terms of the exact resourcing of the elected body, you understand that I cannot actually give you any undertaking in relation to that. That is not within my capacity.

In terms of how we might make sure that the elected body can engage as effectively as possible, and recognising the significant demands on elected body members, one thing that I think we can do, using the whole-of-government agreement, is identify areas which are the priority areas, and then make sure that we really get value for your time in engaging in those areas. We need to work out particular things we want to achieve and make sure that you are fully informed about work that we are doing on that. We need to get as effective an outcome from the time you put in as possible, so that we are not having too many process meetings and we are actually using your time on the specific outcomes that we want to see achieved. That would probably be the most concrete suggestion that I can make.

THE CHAIR: As you know, each one of us meets with directors-general on a regular basis.

Ms Leigh: That is right.

THE CHAIR: But there are working groups, there is a subcommittee, there is a whole range of things—and then there are the demands from elsewhere for our engagement, on an advisory body and those kinds of things. Hopefully, with the review, it will start to expose some of those key, practical things that need to be considered, and perhaps there can be some consideration about resourcing. Some communication has already been exchanged between CSD and the elected body. But as an overall responsibility of the service, I think it is good that we flag that with you


now. Thank you, Kathy, for that one.

Our fourth question is in relation to the overarching bilateral implementation of the Indigenous plan that is under the national framework of partnership relationships and so on. ATSIEB is familiar with this arrangement coinciding with strategic directions and alignment with our community priorities. Also, we have a reasonable understanding of the monitoring of the strategic board and the subcommittee. That is all embedded in that agreement.

Fundamentally, our question is: can you please explain to members how the outcomes and the improvements for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Canberrans will be reported and how will the impacts be measured?

Ms Leigh: Which particular contacts are we talking about? The most immediate one from my point of view is about the whole-of-government agreement. Once we have moved to settle that then it is within our power to agree on how we want to do that reporting. We are certainly very keen, and I am sure Natalie Howson would be happy to discuss with you in detail what you would find most useful. There is always that balance between holding people accountable to do what they say and not using up the resources in reports that nobody looks at. I am very open to—

THE CHAIR: So, just to clarify the process at the moment, the subcommittee reports to the strategic board as part of that full process.

Ms Leigh: Yes, that is right.

THE CHAIR: Thank you. Plus, at what stage will the body be consulted on the next close the gap report?

Ms Leigh: I am not sure I can answer that in terms of timing. It is probably something that it would be better to raise with Natalie Howson.

THE CHAIR: Okay. I raise it here essentially because you are the chief of staff—

Ms Leigh: Yes.

THE CHAIR: and lead the strategic board responsibility—

Ms Leigh: That is right.

THE CHAIR: across the board. CSD for us has a particular role and function in some of those program areas and service delivery. But the overall responsibility, we assume, lies with—

Ms Leigh: I would say it is a bit more complex than that, because, while I have got head of service responsibility, particular directors-general lead whole-of-government responsibilities in their areas. To give you another example, Alison Playford has whole-of-government responsibility for emergency management and security. So, when there is a meeting in relation to emergency management, Alison chairs the committee of directors-general and she has got the lead for whole of government. It is


certainly the way I like to think of the team of directors-general, as being a team and everyone has things that they take the lead on. So I see Natalie as taking the lead in this area and as having whole-of-government leadership, not just her directorate.

THE CHAIR: Okay.

Ms Leigh: I support her on that and I expect her to bring to strategic board in terms of that being formally recognised in the same way as Alison might bring emergency management matters to strategic board. But Natalie has the status of leading the whole-of-government responsibility.

THE CHAIR: Thank you. The final question for this part, and then we will move on to Treasury, is around the cross-border issues and particularly the services that we provide to Jervis Bay. We understand there have been some negotiations going on. Are you able to expand on the progress to date of the cross-border negotiations, and can you explain to the members how this might affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families in Jervis Bay?

Ms Leigh: First of all, the Chief Minister has been very clear that she wants to ensure that there is no disadvantage to the Aboriginal community in Jervis Bay. It has been of some concern to her and she has raised that nationally as well.

In terms of the actual process, we have been having discussions for quite a long period about what is the best way to ensure services to that community. There are real disadvantages for the community of being serviced from the ACT just in terms of the geographical distance, and that means that people are not there on the spot to support the community.

As you know, those discussions have been going on with the commonwealth and New South Wales about what the best model is to resolve that. I understand that the draft report on that is likely to be released quite soon. The Chief Minister is happy for that to be released as soon as the other ministers have agreed, and I understand the process is underway at the moment to get that agreement. We would like to get that out so that we can then discuss the content and the issues.

THE CHAIR: Any other questions, members? We can move on to Treasury.

MR WALKER: Do you know how engaged the Jervis Bay community was in that report?

Ms Leigh: My understanding is that they have been consulted in relation to that. I do not know whether David can add—

Mr Peffer: The community was certainly engaged. There were quite a number of roundtables—I went down for some of those consultations—in the territory. It was a series of question and answer sessions. I think New South Wales and commonwealth officials also attended those. It was an opportunity for the community and members of the community to ask questions about what the future might hold, to assist officials in framing the document which will then go out to consult on the options that governments have for the future service delivery. So there was ongoing engagement.


I understand the process going forward is to release that document, again going out for consultation to assist governments in taking a decision on the option going forward and then, following the decision being taken, there will be a further round of community consultation on the implementation mechanisms for giving effect to whatever that decision may be.

MR WALKER: I guess we have got some correspondence about the concern from the community about the school and some of the progress that they have had down there. They were really shattered by what might transpire in relation to the school. Was that brought up a lot? Like I said, one of the members down there wrote to the elected body for support and would like to know that part of that negotiation would be around looking at some of the strategies that would keep those programs going for the community.

Mr Peffer: Certainly the school has been front of mind in terms of the discussions that have taken place. It was an issue that was consistently raised. It is fair to say that the community places a great deal of importance on the role of the school within the community, which seems to be broader than just that general education role.

In terms of the future of the school, it is fair to say that no decisions have been taken on what would happen with that school. I know the Chief Minister has made it very clear that she supports the operations of the school. She has certainly written to the Prime Minister raising that very point and drawing his attention to some of the successes in terms of kids attending class and then getting results from that. She is thinking about that as well.

THE CHAIR: We will just ask a couple of questions of David. The first one is around the budget process. I just want to put on the record that we welcomed your early communication about the budget process and thank you very much for that. That was really good. A priority of ours under governance and leadership is to improve understanding of direct input into the budgetary process and to embed our priorities into that process as well. I guess that, once we complete the whole-of-government agreement, that will have our priorities embedded in that. So we anticipate that the consultation with that agreement and other priorities would be taken into consideration in the budget process.

Would you be willing to continue this dialogue through our regular meetings or would a workshop activity be worthy of consideration to work towards the embedding of those priorities in the whole of government and, I guess, some of the decision-making for the budget process?

Mr Nicol: Thanks for your question, Rod. I think, one, we definitely want to continue the dialogue, and the idea of a workshop is worthy of consideration. Let me think about logistics and who should come and how we should do that. If you would like, I can give you a bit of an update on some of the things we have done in the budget process so you know what is going on.

We have placed more emphasis this year on community consultation. We have actually had a session in cabinet whereby ministers and the Treasurer present to


cabinet a bit of a snapshot of what they think the main points out of the community submissions are. So any submissions that you put in now will actually get explicit recognition through that process. We think that is very important, and ministers were very keen on that so that they actually air some of the ideas that are being voiced and presented.

Just for the committee’s information, for the board’s information, when we collate information for cabinet on the budget priorities each year, we look at a range of factors in terms of highlighting issues that we think should be brought to ministers’ attention. They range from election commitments to parliamentary agreement items, but they also include Indigenous issues; Indigenous issues are a specific thing that we raise with cabinet. Once the agreement is finalised, that is another thing we will add to that piece of advice to cabinet. If proposals come forward that go to implement issues in the agreement, they will be highlighted to cabinet, so cabinet get that array of information when they decide on their priorities each year.

THE CHAIR: Terrific.

Mr Nicol: But can I get back to you on the idea for a workshop and we can talk further about how we might convene that, the best timing and which directorates should be involved? I am happy to run a couple, actually. I can imagine running a preliminary one at the start of the process—we have missed this year in that sense—to get the ideas exchanged, and then one perhaps later on when we are focusing on particular priorities that the government wants to implement in terms of how we design it, our communication strategies and those sorts of things.

THE CHAIR: That is welcome. Thanks, David, for that. The other question that I have is about the Indigenous expenditure report. We have just had the outcome of this management report released. I understand that the expenditure report is due on 12 December, to be released from the Productivity Commission.

Our preparation for our hearings generally includes that to inform our questions, and we drill down to the expenditure at the jurisdiction level, and to inform us about our progress. Obviously the OID report has changed somewhat this time around a little bit. As this is due after the hearings, the report enabled us, as I said, to drill down to specific ACT expenditure.

What assistance can your directorate provide to enable the elected body to analyse specific expenditure and consider whether investments are meeting the community needs and priorities?

Mr Nicol: I might ask Geoff Rutledge to give a few comments. I am very happy to think about ways we can do this. One thing that comes immediately to mind is whether we can work together to identify areas of interest to you, because even we struggle with evaluating the effectiveness of every dollar spent across government, so we have to prioritise where we put our efforts.

I think in this space, as I said, my first reaction is let us talk together and see where your priorities are and we can align our priorities with yours and work together, to the extent that we can, to look at these issues. We are very keen to improve the


effectiveness of every dollar we spend, I can assure you, from the Under-Treasurer’s point of view.

THE CHAIR: Absolutely. In terms of priorities I just want to flag that we have the priorities from our last report. There are about five of those and there are some subsections of those priorities, and there are some key priorities out of those. But overall there is our community priorities document, which is what we are aiming to embed into the whole-of-government agreement, so there is a good start for you.

Mr Nicol: One idea: I have a review team, which stretches across all sorts of government activities, and we have a program. For example, we are doing ACTION, ESA and corrections at the moment and we are looking at what they do and how they do their business. I would be very happy to talk about putting some priorities that you have, in terms of Indigenous spending space, on that agenda some time in the next couple of years.

THE CHAIR: Yes, that would be good.

Mr Rutledge: I sit on the steering committee on the report of government services, and the Indigenous expenditure report is one of those publications. I have said to board members, but I will say it again because we have got new members, that it is a really complex report and it is really difficult to understand. There are probably about two people in Treasury that understand it, maybe three people in Australia that actually understand it. But, that said, when it is released on the 12th—and you are right, Rod, that it will come out on the 12th—there is a little bit of a hullabaloo: why are we spending all this money on Indigenous people? Certain commentators say that and then other more, I suppose, policy minds say, “What is behind those numbers?” That is where it is really a companion document to the OID. The OID sort of shows and tries to evaluate and mark progress in policy outcomes, and then the expenditure report is really an input measure: how much cash is going in.

When it comes out in a couple of weeks, this will be the third report and I think we as a government are getting better at identifying programs of Indigenous expenditure. So the headline figure will be a larger figure than the previous report, and that will be a larger figure than the report prior to that. That is probably because, one, the government is investing more in Indigenous services and, two, we are also getting better at identifying those costs. I imagine that when the report comes out you will have many, many questions about what went into it, and we are happy to come and talk you through that. I think last time we put an additional specific report into what went into that for the elected body.

The more interesting point is what David Nicol was talking about: rather than checking those inputs, how do we evaluate the outcomes of that money spent? That is where I think the work of the overcoming Indigenous disadvantage report is actually the more meaningful of the two reports, in that that is actually measuring progress.

The report comes out every two years. It will come out in a couple of weeks. We will no doubt put together some further analysis for you, but I would, I suppose, plead, recommend that we spend more of our time trying to work out how we evaluate, rather than spend time working out what inputs we put in, because those inputs are


going up. But what is interesting is: are we inputting that cash into the right programs? That is where I think the work of the elected body and the advice of the elected body are more valuable to government. The input measures that are understood by the economists at the Productivity Commission and a few people in Treasury are of less interest and of less value to government as a whole, I would say.

THE CHAIR: So with that, would you be, along the lines of what David was saying, having these kinds of workshops to have a discussion around that? The IOD report highlights some key areas, and one of those is the consultation with the representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples interpreting the data and also developing and designing, in collaboration, those measurements.

Mr Rutledge: Yes, I think we should do a workshop. I think that would be of value. It is just that, if we let the workshop be driven by the expenditure report, it will have a certain focus. If we have a workshop on policy evaluation or program evaluation, that will be a different focus and a different lens, and I think that one would be more valuable. That said, I am happy to do the workshop and take you through.

I will say further that the steering committee is really not concerned, but trying to make the reports more user friendly, because they are really difficult to understand. So this year there is additional work done on the fact sheets, what goes in and additional explanatory notes. You will recall, Rod, and others, that we had the Productivity Commission come and talk to the elected body through that process.

THE CHAIR: Yes; that was good.

Mr Rutledge: So we are doing all we can, but I think we are starting from a bunch of economists and a bunch of accountants and we are trying to communicate a message to the population, and the difference is quite large.

THE CHAIR: Thank you very much, David and Geoff, for that.

Short suspension

THE CHAIR: We will start. First of all, thank you for your time today; we look forward to seeing Mr Dawes shortly. We will jump straight into questions. We have a question relating to sport and rec. This is probably one for you, Jenny. Members understand that you applied for funding under the Indigenous advancement strategy. Can you please explain what is the total amount of funding applied for and what the desired outcomes are?

Ms Priest: Our application, made along with everyone else in October this year, entailed three key components, the first component being to support the continuation of our inclusive participation officer, which includes our Indigenous sports development officer, our ISDO. That has up until this point been funded under the Indigenous sport and recreation program. As you know, that has been discontinued and merged into the new AIS funding program. That is the first component.

The second component relates to the interim role that we have played over the last 12 to 18 months working with the commonwealth and with ACSRA around an


Indigenous sport and recreation program funding that ACSRA were recipients of or have been recipients of to date. In terms of ensuring that there is ongoing support for Boomanulla Oval and what is happening there, we have put in, I guess, an interim application for the continuation of that funding arrangement while a number of matters are currently being considered, looked at and addressed.

The third component of our funding application is to provide support to ACT sport and recreation organisations, AFL New South Wales and royal life in the delivery of targeted programs for the Indigenous community. We have worked up that component of the application that goes to—

THE CHAIR: Sorry, what were they again, Jenny?

Ms Priest: They were AFL New South Wales/ACT as an entity and the Royal Life Saving Society ACT branch. The funding requested relates to programs that they would be delivering and that we would be working with them in the delivery of. Our funding application was for—sorry, I would have to come back to you on the exact figure. I do not think I have got it in front of me. It is between $400,000 and $500,000, which entails those three components. I could come back to you with the full amount and the breakup of each of the components.

THE CHAIR: Let us go through each one of the desired outcomes. There is the ISDO. That is a position that has been in there fundamentally facilitating sport and recreational activities or specific sports activities.

Ms Priest: That is right, and working with Indigenous sporting bodies and, indeed, other peak sporting bodies to ensure that the programs that they are developing and delivering are targeting, and ensuring that they get involved with, the Indigenous population as part of that.

Also, that officer has a fundamental role in relation to IPGP—the inclusive participation grants program. It is a grants program specifically focused on Indigenous and culturally and linguistically diverse communities. It is part of our broader sports and recreation grants program. That officer has a key role in relation to promoting and helping organisations understand how to get into the application process for that program and working with them throughout that process.

THE CHAIR: Those programs and activities you are talking about are under that inclusive grants program—

Ms Priest: That is right.

THE CHAIR: for part 2, is it?

Ms Priest: Yes.

THE CHAIR: Are you able to explain any of those initiatives that are in those activities at the moment?

Ms Priest: In the grants program?


THE CHAIR: Yes.

Ms Priest: Things that we have delivered on so far?

THE CHAIR: No, that are in your submission.

Ms Priest: Sorry, just so that—

THE CHAIR: The program or the activities within your Indigenous advancement strategy submission.

Ms Priest: So what we are proposing?

THE CHAIR: Targeted activity, yes.

Ms Priest: Yes, I guess that broadly what we are wanting to do, as well as continue on with the role that inclusive participation officer has had, is look to forge and develop stronger links and relationships between sport and recreation outcomes and also Health and justice. We recognise the important role that sport and recreation play and can play in the overall wellbeing of people in the community. We are looking to see how we can better link with and tie in with outcomes in relation to those two areas in particular and continue with our ongoing discussions we have had with organisations such as Winnunga and Bimberi and making sure that, in developing our future programs, we have that front and centre in our deliberations.

THE CHAIR: Do the proposed activities within the advancement strategy submission identify the outlook? Are they going to address the needs identified in the elected body’s strategic plan and community priorities?

Ms Priest: That document––there is some work still being undertaken in respect of how we particularly target those things—definitely is a key strategic document that we will build into the planning.

We have overarchingly said what we will be targeting and what we will be aiming to do, but certainly, in alignment with the elected body priorities, that document is what will be taken into consideration and addressed as part of that.

THE CHAIR: I guess my question is: was it considered before you compiled––

Ms Priest: Yes, it was. There are other meetings that I have attended since submitting our application, within the ACT government, with a view to sort of really having a look at and focusing on that. There is another piece of work that is happening within government that is really looking to home in on and target that.

THE CHAIR: Okay.

Ms Priest: And I have been part of that working group, yes.

THE CHAIR: Welcome, David.


Mr Dawes: I do apologise for my lateness.

THE CHAIR: That is all right. Any other questions from members on sport and rec?

MR WALKER: Yes.

MS DONOVAN: I just wanted to know who the inclusion officer was.

Ms Priest: That is Phil Turini at the moment, within our office—Phillip Turini, yes.

MS DONOVAN: All right.

THE CHAIR: Is he Aboriginal?

Ms Priest: No, he is not.

THE CHAIR: Is the inclusive sport participation officer position in jeopardy if you are not successful with the advancement strategy funding? Is this position identified?

Ms Priest: Sorry, and is this?

THE CHAIR: Is that position an identified position?

Ms Priest: Yes, it is an identified position within our structure, but it is funded at the moment in part by commonwealth funding. Sport and Recreation Services co-fund or the ACT government co-funds the position. If you give me one minute I will be able to tell you what the breakup of that is.

Yes, it is $55,000 that has been funded to date by Prime Minister and Cabinet, and approximately $30,000 by the ACT government, by Sport and Recreation Services. It does have a reliance at the moment on commonwealth funding, which is why it has been so important that we get that application in under the Indigenous advancement strategy.

THE CHAIR: If we are not successful with this funding, is that position in jeopardy of being lost?

Ms Priest: There would definitely be some level of risk and we would have to revisit where we sit in relation to that because at the moment our budget only provides for $30,000 funding of that position.

Mr Dawes: If, for example, we were to lose that particular funding, one of the things we would have to look at is how that might be managed within our existing footprint as well. I think always in these sorts of circumstances we need to look at budgets. We are under tight budgetary constraints but to me this would be important and it would be a priority.

THE CHAIR: Thanks for that. Before we move on, I think you will have received a number of generic questions. I assume that you responded already to those, and thank


you for that. There was one, I think, that Jo wanted to explore a little further. After she asks that question, is there is anything in particular you want to highlight with us from those generic questions?

MS CHIVERS: There is one thing that I picked up in the generic response. Besides being a member of the elected body, I am also the current chairperson of the Canberra & District NAIDOC Aboriginal Corporation. Both Maurice and I have been members of the corporation nearing a couple of decades now, and I have been the chair for the last six years.

I think that what came to my attention is that under the generic response, in relation to economic participation and development, it talks about a number of initiatives in the centenary of Canberra Indigenous cultural program that promote Indigenous artists and performers from across Australia to a wider audience, including the Indigenous Showcase.

This implies that the ACT government is in some way responsible for the initiative of the Indigenous Showcase. That is not true. I, Katrina Fanning and quite a few other people within the NAIDOC committee actually pushed for the Indigenous Showcase. We coordinate it and it will be our fifth year in 2015. That was actually something that we came to the ACT government with.

I guess that I am just a little bit disappointed that the generic response actually implies that that is an ACT government initiative when it is not. It was actually driven from our local community. Apart from the odd bit of grant funding that we get under a number of ACT government programs, the NAIDOC committee, through sponsorship or commonwealth funding through other programs, actually funds totally the Indigenous Showcase ourselves.

THE CHAIR: Is that just a comment or do you have a question?

MS CHIVERS: I guess the question is: why would that be included as an initiative of the ACT government, when it is not?

Mr Rake: First, I apologise if we have overreached in our statement there. It certainly was not meant to claim the majority of credit, or even more than our share.

MS CHIVERS: I do not think you have any share.

Mr Rake: I will have to take on notice the detailed motivation and come back. But it is very clear where people have overreached. So I would apologise for that and look to come back with a correction.

THE CHAIR: Thanks.

Mr Dawes: I echo Gary’s words there as well because I do remember that was done through the former deputy director-general when the approach was made. We supported where we could as much as possible, even sponsoring one of the Indigenous business awards as well a couple of years ago at NAIDOC. Obviously we have had some ongoing involvement. Just briefly reading that, it has been overstated.


The fact that we have responded and supported, I think, would have been more to the point.

MS CHIVERS: I certainly acknowledge that you have supported the Indigenous business award and NAIDOC Week activities but they are quite separate to what is done around the Indigenous Showcase.

THE CHAIR: Are there any specific things you would like to highlight from the generic questions we sent as a lead-up to this, David? Just before that, if we have questions around the arts, is this the right directorate to be asking those kinds of questions?

Mr Dawes: It comes under our portfolio, but we do not have an arts representative here this morning. I am happy to take some questions if we can answer them, otherwise I am happy to take them on notice and come back to you.

THE CHAIR: If you do not have anything in the directorate you want to highlight for us we will go to the pre-hearing questions. I will move to a question around Boomanulla Oval. Members are aware of recent efforts—we appreciate being kept informed—with the situation with ACSRA and have indicated our position. Another of our community priorities includes advocating for sustainable strategies to support Boomanulla Oval as a community facility and asset. We have been kept informed continuously and we really appreciate that, so can you briefly outline your intentions on the next steps towards realising this priority?

Mr Dawes: Certainly. I will start off. Jenny has been intimately involved, as you would be aware, chair. I appreciate the fact we have been able to engage very much with the elected body on this very, very important issue. We recognise the importance of the oval to the Indigenous community and that has been our priority right through. I appreciate that you have worked with us as well to try and resolve that particular issue. Jenny might like to bring the committee up with the latest on where we are up to.

Ms Priest: I have had feedback from your most recent meeting. In terms of where we are at, we have mentioned the Indigenous advancement strategy and the fact we have a continuation of the old funding application rebadged under the Indigenous advancement strategy. We also signalled to the commonwealth a number of months ago in initial discussions leading up to us putting our application in and subsequent to that, since there has been an evolution of things with ACSRA’s situation, that we might come back with some additional emergency funding applications. We have put that marker into the system and flagged it as well as it being part of our application.

So funding application in and a marker that there may be a need to come back and ask for some additional funding. If we were to do that, the focus would be on capital upgrade funding to ensure we get the oval back to a state that is able to be safe and fit for purpose.

We have had further discussions with both the commonwealth and the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations. As recently as this morning I have spoken to both the federal commonwealth agency people and also with ORIC. We are currently


looking to schedule a meeting over the next couple of weeks. It is just a little difficult because they have people from their office travelling interstate—Cairns, WA et cetera—so we are just trying to pin down a date so we can explore what opportunities may sit before us in terms of the current situation with ACSRA and how we can collectively work together and with the ongoing input of the elected body to get to a satisfactory and workable resolution to things.

I am sorry I sound a little bit vague, but until we have those conversations it is a bit hard to anticipate what those outcomes might be. But that is where we are with them. There will be a meeting in the next couple of weeks where we try and crack that nut. I also anticipate we will have some further discussions with the commonwealth around funding.

As you guys would know, the Indigenous advancement strategy funding announcements have now been deferred until March, which is a little disappointing on the one hand, but it may actually provide a window for us to have a bit more input into that process in the meantime. We will look to explore that as well. That is where things are at. Do you have any further—

THE CHAIR: Yes, mainly clarity for communicating that back to the community on those next steps. But, like you say, you want to try to achieve a couple of things in the next few weeks.

Ms Priest: Yes. There is one other element I forgot to mention and that I know we have given you an update on and you have given us some feedback on as well—that is, establishing an interim community working group. The feedback you have provided, we are having a look at that. We will put forward some recommendations as to what the appropriate composition of that group might be and have further discussions with our minister’s office. The Minister for Sport and Recreation is also the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs.

We are looking to get the first meeting of that interim working group set up ASAP. We have already looked at some tentative dates to try and get markers in peoples’ diaries. It may be a little bit challenging to do that before Christmas in terms of people’s movements and the co-chair responsibility which sits with you and David. So it would be very early in January that we would be doing that if we cannot make it happen beforehand.

THE CHAIR: To be very clear now, this is the first step in the process.

Ms Priest: Absolutely.

THE CHAIR: And there are other steps to take. We get the foundations of the way forward.

Ms Priest: That is right. The main focus is on the outcome. We all want to get the right and most sustainable outcome for Boomanulla Oval. That is front and centre in the way we are approaching this and in our ongoing engagement with you and the federal agencies.


THE CHAIR: This consultation will definitely include consideration of the current body, ACSRA?

Ms Priest: Yes.

THE CHAIR: That is always at the forefront of our thinking.

Ms Priest: Definitely, and that is the subject of discussion with ORIC and further conversations that need to happen.

Mr Dawes: Just to reiterate, I see our role as trying to facilitate a very early outcome. We certainly are there to assist, whether it be ACSRA in the longer term or if there is going to be a new entity that might end up managing the oval. I particularly understand the importance the oval has to the community and we would certainly like to ensure it is passed back to the community as quickly as possible but with the right structures and governance, and what we then can do to assist the body that will take it forward. It is very important.

THE CHAIR: Any further question, members?

MR WALKER: You answered one of my questions, but just a statement firstly. We also want to make sure that whatever structure is put in place is going to be strong. One of the hot topics around the community is around leadership and governance. It is really important that an organisation with as long a history as ACSRA’s is strong. Those of us who have lived in the community for years know of some of the difficulties that have built up until this point. We certainly want the organisation to be strong in that respect. The question is about the support around getting that kind of training with people who eventually want to be part of the new structure moving forward.

Mr Dawes: I say again that it is going to be important how we do that. I see it being very much of that training and putting quite a lot of effort into ensuring that we have the right governance and that everyone is up to speed to be able to manage that. Again, I do not feel we will walk away from that. We will be very much in the background, helping monitor that and working with the body to ensure if any additional training or work needs to be done it will be done. It is an ongoing thing. We can put some things in place, but then it is how we follow through and work with the body that will manage that.

We want to see it sustainable for the long term. We do not want to have something that falls over in another year or 18 months or whatever. I want to see it established for the long haul. We will put in some governance around how we monitor and ensure all of those things are happening. No doubt the elected body will have a key role to monitor and ensure that as well. If we are interfering too much, no doubt we will be told that. It is not a matter of us being in the way; it is a matter of how we can facilitate. I see our role very much as one of facilitation.

THE CHAIR: We might move on to another question. This one is around tourism and business. Economic participation is an important element of our community priorities, in particular tourism and supporting local businesses. What strategies or


opportunities exist for the encouragement and utilisation of local businesses and services to enable employment and growth in our community? What strategies or opportunities exist for the encouragement and utilisation of local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses?

Mr Kobus: First and foremost the most direct opportunity is for those businesses to have a close working relationship with VisitCanberra. Our role is to undertake a range of marketing issues that help get a message out on behalf of businesses to assist business interaction and to access markets those businesses would not otherwise be able to do themselves. There is a range of things businesses can do working in closely with us, and we encourage them to do that. We do that on a number fronts with Indigenous operations.

An example would be the Murrumbung Yurung Murra cultural tours. We have had a number of discussions with the people involved with setting that tour up. Whilst it may not be at the point of being independently commercially viable, direct guidance is provided to the tour operators about being ready to operate as a tourism business and, in particular, a tourism business that can cater to the needs of the international market, which is more highly relevant to the Indigenous businesses.

THE CHAIR: Your overall strategy has a component for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander—

Mr Kobus: Yes. Overall, VisitCanberra has a 2020 tourism strategy, the aim of which is to grow overnight expenditure in the ACT to $2.5 billion by 2020. That strategy has a number of key pillars, one of which is around experience development. The importance of Indigenous experience development is a part of that 2020 strategy. Some of the things we have done to help facilitate that is, for example, working with the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve in the development of their experience development strategy. There are a number of opportunities to enhance the way Indigenous experiences are delivered through a site such as Tidbinbilla.

VisitCanberra has a role on the advisory board for Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, and Wally Bell is the Indigenous representative. An experience development strategy has recently been completed and it will go through the implementation phase in 2015, which will include opportunities to look at how the Indigenous experiences at Tidbinbilla can be made more relevant to both interstate and international audiences.

Mr Dawes: Can I just add to that, if I may? I think it provides us with some great opportunities. I know there were some discussions that we had with Maurice earlier—it was late last term; you lose track of time. I think there is a really good opportunity to work more proactively with tourism and Indigenous bodies to look at how we also do it as we are embarking on attracting direct flights into Canberra. We are looking to that international tourism and even interstate tourism. How can we ensure a wonderful experience, whether it is Tidbinbilla or some other areas? Indigenous groups doing a welcome to country, and showing the country as well. There are some good opportunities. We just need to be working more closely. There is a great opportunity to work more closely with the groups and the elected body to bring those sorts of things to fruition.


THE CHAIR: Ross?

MR FOWLER: Thank you for that, David. I notice there is a lot pinned on Murrumbung Yurung and the Tidbinbilla stuff. What about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Centre on Lady Denman Drive and the impact that has and could have on tourism in the ACT? It has an art gallery attached to it. It has the Australian Indigenous Leadership Centre. It also has a space that can be booked out by groups—cultural groups and international visitors—to host events here in the ACT. I am just curious as to whether you could tell members what your idea may be around increasing the support and perhaps the services out at the cultural centre.

Mr Kobus: Yes, absolutely. VisitCanberra has had some discussions with the people that operate the cultural centre and certainly made it clear what opportunities are available to promote that cultural centre through VisitCanberra channels. For example, it is free to put a product listing on the Canberra website—which, in the 2013-14 financial year, had nearly two million visitors to it. There are some easily accessible opportunities to help get the message out about a product. All we need is content on what that product is and imagery to support it. Then we can do everything we can to get a message out about it.

In addition there is the Canberra and Region Visitors Centre on Northbourne Avenue; just over 160,000 people a year go through the visitors centre. It is a great way to showcase not only that facility but any Indigenous product to people coming into town who may not have made decisions about what they are going to do. That is a very good way to get some easy conversion and get people to realise what might be on show that they otherwise would not realise.

Mr Rake: May I add a couple of points there as well? By listing the cultural centre on the register of destinations, visitor attractions for people who come to Canberra—

MR FOWLER: That is what I was looking for; thank you.

Mr Rake: That database is also drawn on for some new technology. There is a smart phone app called the Canberra guide which can show people places of interest on a map. By including information about the cultural centre on that database, it is automatically drawn into that.

One of the other services that we fund generally across the community is the Canberra Convention Bureau, which helps manage the promotion of venues for conferences and events. That can be an important part of the underlying business model for the cultural centre; they can raise money by renting out rooms for business meetings and events.

MR FOWLER: Exactly.

Mr Rake: We fund the Convention Bureau to work closely with those destinations. I would take it on notice to make sure that the Convention Bureau are actively in discussion and doing what they can there, just to make sure, because it is such a valuable part of the business model if some dollars can come in.

MR FOWLER: Just to interject and add one more thing, once we get an international


airport in Canberra, there is going to be the impact that is going to have, because everybody wants a piece of Aboriginal Australia. That is going to increase our services out there, but to be able to do that we need government to support that and to support businesses to achieve those particular outcomes.

The other thing, as part of tourism—this might be a TAMS thing; I do not know and I might be blurred here, so correct me if I am wrong—is that signage is important as well in getting to tourism. It is great having smart phone applications, but when we talk about older citizens and visitors, they do not care about a smart phone; they like their old map they can look at and free buses so they can get around town. So there are other avenues besides smart applications.

But I am thinking around the lines of the impact. Once we become an international airport, there could be dual branding and advertising at the airport—Aboriginal history and culture, with a welcome to Ngunnawal country, local images and stories by local elders as such. That is just an aspect that you could consider as part of that tourism—

THE CHAIR: Last term we had an economic development workshop at the cultural centre; there are some findings out of that and some suggestions for some priorities moving forward. Some of those are included in our community priority. I still have a couple more questions that relate to this one.

MS CHIVERS: A lot of the strategies and things that you have just spoken about are really connected to businesses that have a tourism focus. What I am really interested in is what strategies are in place for local businesses that do not have that tourism focus. You gave examples that were very tourism specific, but we have a lot of other local businesses that are not connected to tourism in any way. What are the strategies around those?

Mr Rake: That one does fall outside Jonathan’s area. We have a general policy for growth diversification across the territory. In each of those programs we look for opportunities to tailor the work. We would be looking for opportunities to support Indigenous-specific businesses. The director-general mentioned the NAIDOC business awards, an opportunity not only for us to recognise those that have succeeded but also, in networking, to identify those that are on the cusp. We can then work out how we tailor a response with our mainstream programs.

We have recently rebuilt the way that we deliver support to emerging businesses in Canberra. We have established the CBR innovation network. It is designed to help bring bright ideas into commercial reality. Whenever the word “innovation” is used, people think it has to be new technology or IT. It can be a new way to communicate a message; it can be a new way to mow a lawn. What we are really trying to do is encourage people to come up with ideas, and then put a wrap around them to help them turn that into something viable.

Ms Hartley: I meet regularly with, and have a very good working relationship with, our 2014 NAIDOC business award winner, Dion Devow, from Darkies Design. We are working through a bit of an analysis now, and a bit of a business plan, in terms of where the market gaps exist. At this stage we have 24 identified Indigenous


businesses. We have a Supply Nation registration that the ACT government have facilitated. We are trying to get members on that, because we only have two—as of last week, three, because I managed to get Dion to register also. Dion is helping us work, and I want to help with you people to work, through some of the gaps in the market, in getting our Indigenous businesses into our mainstream support advisory services, which are very strong.

I also work with IBA, Indigenous Business Australia, in those workshops and getting our local businesses onto those workshops. We managed to get the last set of workshops close to Canberra. We were having them at the cultural centre, but there was an issue with the transport and the buses to the cultural centre, so we held them in Queanbeyan. We did get some ACT Indigenous businesses attending there.

THE CHAIR: I might go to Jo; then I will finish off with a couple of questions for Ms Hartley.

MS DONOVAN: Following from what Jo said and the strategies we might have in place, how are people to know that you exist? How are you advertising that? I know some people that have a small business, and they have never heard of any workshops that have been planned, had or whatever.

Ms Hartley: We promote the IBA workshops on our––

MS DONOVAN: Sorry, not the IBA workshops. You only work with IBA in the workshops that IBA put forward to run businesses?

Ms Hartley: At the moment, yes. There has been an identified gap with what IBA deliver and what possibly is needed by Indigenous businesses in Canberra. The IBA workshops––it is my understanding; I have not attended a series of them––run over a three-month period and the Indigenous businesses attend over that three-month period. A gap has been identified where a condensed one or two-day workshop would be ideal for Canberra businesses.

MS DONOVAN: Separate to IBA?

Ms Hartley: Yes.

MS DONOVAN: What do you do? What does the economic development directorate do, separate from IBA, to engage with the Indigenous side of the business?

Ms Hartley: We are doing an environment scan. I engage at the moment with Darkies Design, with our NAIDOC winner, to identify the businesses. We are putting a plan together to try to work out how to disseminate information to the Indigenous community. I also have contact with Robyn Forester in the Community Services Directorate, to try to facilitate. We recognise that there is a gap existing in getting the information out there—fact sheets, for example. We need to encourage the Indigenous community to also access our business website and our Canberra business––

MS DONOVAN: Just quickly, Laura; sorry, I have to wrap it up. Did Dion, Darkies Design, contact you or did you contact them?


Ms Hartley: I have contacted them on the back of them winning their NAIDOC––

MS DONOVAN: Okay. There were other NAIDOC winners that have never been contacted through that. You probably should look that up too.

Ms Hartley: I will; thank you for that. I have taken on responsibility for Indigenous business in the last six months. On the back of attending the awards, I approached Dion and said, “Can we have a chat?” to help me to understand what is needed and get into it that way.

THE CHAIR: Maurice, have you got any questions?

MR WALKER: Just to follow on from that question about the 24 registered Indigenous businesses, is that list confidential—

Ms Hartley: No, and it is just an environment scan, Maurice. They are not 24 registered with Supply Nation; we have only got three registered with Supply Nation. They are what are known to me at this stage—of 24. But I still have the feelers out searching with Katrina Fanning and a few others that I have contacts with.

MR WALKER: We know of three, but where are the 24?

Ms Hartley: I am happy to share the list; it is just a list I have been compiling.

MR WALKER: Can we get a copy of that list?

Ms Hartley: Of course, yes.

Mr Rake: It falls into some general work that we do with all of our business support programs where we try to think who is out there that might benefit from our support or our information that we are not getting to. It is the nub of that. If we are not getting to them already, our methods are not right for them. It is then a matter of trying to uncover who they are, how we get to them, and how we know what help we can offer. The discussion with Darkies helps there. We do the same across other sectors of the community as well where we know we are missing people.

MR WALKER: The promotion and awareness of that stuff you are talking about is really important, because if you have organisations that are just operating and have operated for a long time on their own, and that struggled to get established, if they know that this information or this assistance is there, it would be great.

Ms Hartley: Yes. We do have a link to Indigenous Business Australia on our mainstream business ACT website, and when their workshops are on we do blogs and social media posts. But there is more that we need to do in connecting.

MR WALKER: I have just one question about the visitors centre. There are no Aboriginal people working there at this point in time?

Mr Kobus: No, there are not.


MR WALKER: What kind of introduction, then, do visitors get to Aboriginal community if they are visiting? What did you say is the number of people coming in and out of the visitors centre?

Mr Kobus: It is around 160,000 per annum.

MR WALKER: What sorts of things have we got there that introduce the Indigenous community?

Mr Kobus: In terms of physical displays, there are limited opportunities for visitors to interact. However, we do display Indigenous cultural history brochures. There is one that is produced by TAMS that is on display at the visitors centre. In addition, our visitors centre staff and volunteers are well briefed on the Indigenous experiences available in the ACT and the surrounding Australian region. They conduct famils in places like Tidbinbilla. More broadly, the role our visitors centre plays is also communicating the national Indigenous story that is available through a lot of the national attractions. So they are well briefed and educated on the diversity of the Indigenous experience available in the ACT, right through from the national collection of the National Gallery of Australia to hands-on tours at Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve.

MR FOWLER: Do these individuals go out to these sites and visit them before they actually advise potential clients?

Mr Kobus: Yes, they do. We run quite a holistic familiarisation program throughout the year. That takes into account a broad range of products and experiences that are available in the city. The Indigenous component is a part of that. In conjunction with that schedule, we include famils that involve Indigenous experiences.

MR FOWLER: Does that also include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural awareness?

Mr Kobus: Yes. All the staff have undertaken cultural awareness training.

THE CHAIR: Some members touched on some of the questions. One of the next ones is about whether there are any formal arrangements between the ACT government and Supply Nation, like an MOU. Do you have those? There is the option for small businesses to register with Supply Nation, but does the government have any sort of formal arrangement with Supply Nation, particularly around services and procurement of services?

Mr Rake: Unless Laura has the answer, I need to take that one on notice.

Ms Hartley: Yes. The ACT government facilitated registration of Supply Nation, but, in terms of a formal MOU, I know the management of that registration does not sit within our directorate, so we will need––

THE CHAIR: Where does it sit?


Ms Hartley: My understanding is that it is Shared Services.

Mr Rake: But we are happy to take that on notice, to find an answer and come back.

THE CHAIR: Particularly from the aspect of procurement of services and engagement of small businesses for the provision of those services.

The other thing, which I mentioned earlier, is about the workshop we held last year. There were lots of recommendations and suggestions out of that. I suggest that you be provided with that to explore some of the ideas that you have already flagged, but it might also strengthen your pursuit of those outcomes as well.

Ms Hartley: That would help me with developing an enterprise development plan, yes.

THE CHAIR: Some of those were around tourism, certainly around signage, around particularly the airport, and also around the establishment of a local Indigenous business chamber that has a relationship with the Indigenous council of Australia.

Mr Dawes: Just further to that, Rod, perhaps that is something we might look at again next year. That would be very useful—that we conduct a workshop with all of us there as well across various parts of government. That could be quite beneficial and fruitful. With the prospect of international flights coming into Canberra as well, it would be very good to be on the front foot on a number of different levels. I think it would probably be worth while having a follow-up roundtable and discussion and a workshop.

THE CHAIR: One of the things that I think would be very useful in that discussion would be having a look at the market research and identifying the gaps. That might stimulate ideas for small businesses and so on. The other—which I think might not sit within your directorate, but members have talked about the cultural centre—is that you have one sort of small business there which might be an attraction, but the actual management and operations of the facility to accommodate the small businesses and the tourism stuff would not be the role of the occupant, of the facility. Nor would it be a responsibility of the leadership centre.

I know the management of the facility is within the government. It was previously going to tender for the management of that. We would hope that that would be reconsidered so that it creates a business opportunity for somebody to run a facility like that, organising tours and so on.

One of the other important conversations, which I think you mentioned, Laura, was about transport and access to that facility, even to run workshops.

Ms Hartley: It is an issue.

THE CHAIR: It is one of the difficulties—getting in and out of that facility when you have an occupant there that does not provide any of those business opportunities or cultural things. There are a number of other things which we will communicate to you about—and perhaps, in those discussions about the whole site, we need to have a


conversation with a number of people. Thank you for that.

I am conscious of time. I want to move to the last question. This one is about Towards our second century. That is the big plan of government. We note that a strong, dynamic economy, a sustainable future and high quality services are key strategies. How will your directorate ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses and services are afforded opportunities within these strategies?

Mr Rake: I think it is stitching together each of the individual programs that you have heard us talk about here today. In our engagement with the new Canberra Business Chamber and its connection to general Canberra businesses, I think the idea you have just raised about an Indigenous business chamber is one we should discuss with the broader business community and work out how that best comes together.

We look at business opportunities across our full portfolio. Within the arts space there is a strong community and cultural theme through that, but there are also business opportunities for arts practitioners in the sporting space. It is good for our health and wellbeing, but there are also opportunities for people to make their living within that. Every one of our programs carries that. And then Laura’s team is responsible for providing the connections to underlying business skills to work out how to turn your sports coaching ability and interest into a paid job.

Mr Dawes: Just to follow on from that, as you know, we launched Growth, diversification and jobs back in April 2012; we are in the process of revamping that. The restructure and the realignment of economic development in the Chief Minister’s portfolio, as well, have made a difference. And the fact that we now have responsibility for digital Canberra, study Canberra and having the arts linking in with the whole of our activities is a great opportunity for us to do that. We will be, again, running a series of little workshops and focus groups as we develop and revamp that policy. That will be growth, jobs and diversification stage 2. I think we will be able to sweep a lot of that up.

THE CHAIR: Just to finish off on this, you mentioned the arts and so on there. There are regular rounds of arts grants funding rounds. How often do they occur? Is it just annually?

Mr Rake: We run one annual round, but we also have a couple of programs that are open for applications out of round, so people can apply at any time.

THE CHAIR: And they generally are smaller activities?

Mr Rake: Generally smaller ones, yes.

THE CHAIR: Are recipients of the funds advertised on your website?

Mr Rake: They are publicly disclosed, yes.

THE CHAIR: Are some of those advertised as to whether they are addressing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander needs and aspirations as well?


Mr Rake: That I am not sure of. I will need to take it on notice and come back to you. I am not aware of that.

THE CHAIR: And then the final question on that: how are these outcomes reported? Could you take that one on notice as well?

Mr Rake: Yes.

THE CHAIR: We have some questions around that, but we want to be sure that we are asking the right questions. We want to be informed of the process, to begin with, and then about how our community are getting their needs and aspirations met.

Mr Rake: Sure.

Mr Dawes: Just in addition to that, one of the key things is that, as you know, we are developing the Kingston Foreshore. We are looking at that becoming an arts hub down there as well. We are just going through some finalisations to the master planning for that. That now has fallen back to responsibility for economic development, and working with the LDA as well, which is another natural synergy there. We will be able to take a lot of that into account in how we develop that cultural precinct, to build on the success of Megalo, which is there now, and the Glassworks, and how we can make sure that that becomes a real cultural artists hub.

THE CHAIR: Any further questions? Any final comments?

Ms Hartley: Thanks for the opportunity.


Mr Dawes: Again, I just want to thank you for the opportunity. I think there are opportunities for us to be working together over the next 12 months; we can probably talk a bit more about some of the successes we might have had over the last 12 months as well. I think there is a whole lot more where we can be proactive in going forward. We look forward to that.


Sitting suspended from 12.13 to 1.00 pm.


Community Services DirectorateHowson, Ms Natalie, Director-GeneralSheehan, Ms Maureen, Executive Director, Service Strategy and Community

BuildingMatthews, Mr David, Executive Director, Housing and Community Services

ACTWyles, Mr Paul, Director, Early Intervention and Prevention ServicesCollis, Dr Mark, Executive Director, Office for Children, Youth and Family

SupportCollett, Mr David, Executive Coordinator, Public Housing Renewal, Asset

Management BranchWhitten, Ms Meredith, Disability ACTMaguire, Ms Kerry, Senior Policy Officer, Officer for Aboriginal and Torres

Strait Islander Affairs

THE CHAIR: Thank you, Natalie and team, for coming along. I guess all of you know the members. We have Ross on the end, Maurice, Jo Chivers and Jo Donovan. We have apologies from Fred and Di, who are absent for personal reasons. Thank you again for coming in to respond to some of our questions. Previously we have had the privilege of creating a number of significant documents, such as our strategic direction and priorities, and building on to that. Now we have the whole-of-government agreement going forward. So things have moved along since our inception.

I will hand over to Jo Chivers shortly to lead this session. This is one of the largest sessions we have, so questions will be fairly broad. With other directorates we have asked some generic questions beforehand. I understand that you guys have responded to most of those. There might be something significant that you want to flag with us from those generic questions, and members might want to raise something from them. Otherwise we will go to other questions. Over to you, Jo.

MS CHIVERS: I want to start by asking a series of questions around the Indigenous advancement strategy. Which areas within CSD applied for funding under the Indigenous advancement strategy and what was the total amount of funding applied for?

Ms Howson: If you do not mind, chair, I might make a few introductory remarks—

THE CHAIR: Yes, sure.

Ms Howson: and then I will pass to my colleague Ms Sheehan, who will be able to answer those questions.

At the outset I would like to acknowledge that we are meeting on the land of the traditional custodians, the Ngunnawal people, and pay my respects on behalf of all my colleagues here to the elders past and present, and again demonstrate our respect for the continuing culture and the contribution they make to the life of this city. It is also a great privilege to be here.

ATSIEB—03-12-14 28 Community Services Directorate

You know that I am particularly supportive of this whole process, and you will have the full support and cooperation of me and my colleagues in answering the questions that you have. If we cannot answer them here today then we will certainly endeavour to get the information to you. I think this is an amazing process that we have in place here in Canberra, and it is certainly an honour to be part of that.

Going to the question about the Indigenous advancement strategy, you were interested in which part of CSD may have applied for funding through that program. Maureen will answer that.

Ms Sheehan: Thank you for the question. On the whole, the commonwealth government has not funded Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander programs provided by the Community Services Directorate and over the years we have had a very small amount of funding. We had a small amount of funding under the community housing infrastructure program for some community housing, and more recently we have had the national partnership on Indigenous early childhood.

With the Indigenous advancement strategy being the consolidation of commonwealth funding for programs, excluding health at this stage but with health to come in the future, the Community Services Directorate has not been in the position of needing to really re-tender for funding that was previously provided by the commonwealth.

However, as the elected body would be aware, the national partnership on Indigenous early childhood has ceased. Because that national partnership has funded the construction and some of the staff in operation at the West Belconnen Child and Family Centre, the issue for the ACT government is how we can continue those services. We have seen the availability of this funding as an opportunity to see what we can do to augment those services.

With respect to our own provision of services, the only bid that we have been involved in really relates to operations at the West Belconnen Child and Family Centre. Mr Wyles, who is the director of early intervention, can speak in more detail on that particular bit.

Mr Wyles: There are a couple of things worth saying. One is that yesterday we received advice from Prime Minister and Cabinet that they would extend for another six months the funding provided to the Smith Family through to the West Belconnen Child and Family Centre for two positions. That is the IPS funding, intensive parenting support funding. So it is really good that we can continue to provide that service until 30 June next year.

In relation to the Indigenous advancement strategy funding, there are two proposals we have been involved in putting forward. One is with the Smith Family to continue and extend that program, and the other one is an Education and Training Directorate-led proposal for workers who would work across the Koori preschools and the child and family centres, really helping to engage and support families into education.

MS CHIVERS: Just following on from that, can I ask who you actually consulted with in developing those applications?


Mr Wyles: The Smith Family were the lead for that proposal. They certainly consulted extensively with early intervention and prevention services. I cannot detail beyond that who they might have consulted with. Education and Training were the lead for the other proposal. My understanding is that they consulted quite broadly, and certainly worked back through the Koori preschools.

Ms Howson: It would be fair to say it was quite a truncated process. I think the endeavour was to engage with as many stakeholders as possible, but the time available to do that and meet the deadlines that were in place by the commonwealth meant that it was probably less than ideal in that situation.

THE CHAIR: Do you know if the elected body’s community priorities were referred to or consulted in terms of the drafting and development of submissions?

Mr Wyles: My understanding is that both Aboriginal staff and managers in CSD and Education and Training were involved in that consultation. My assumption is that they would have referred—

THE CHAIR: Are you able to follow that up and confirm that?

Ms Howson: If you are asking whether there was a reference to the elected body in the submission—

THE CHAIR: Yes, and whether the priorities are reflected in that submission.

Ms Howson: I could be confident that certainly the thematic around stronger families is a key focus of that particular submission. The fact that we have just gone through an extensive consultation process through your body with the community has really made it very clear that stronger families and strengthening families is an important thematic through that particular agreement. In terms of the specific reference to the agreement itself, from the point of view of government officials, until it is actually ratified through cabinet it is only the consultation findings that we would be specifically able to refer to.

THE CHAIR: I am more interested in whether the priorities had been consulted in the development of the initiatives—not necessarily who you have spoken to, consulted, but as part of the process of identifying priorities within the community, we have some specific community priorities. There are some people who were pursuing submissions under IAS that came to us for support, and we developed a supporting letter, but the emphasis was about capturing the priorities. This is the very broad consultation process that we have gone through to represent our electorate. So that is the essence of it. It is not who you consulted with; it is more about whether you have consulted the key priorities of the elected body.

Ms Howson: I believe we have, yes.

Ms Sheehan: One of the priorities that ACT government agencies generally had was to not be competing with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander providers for funding. So the Community Services Directorate took the lead on convening a whole-of-government meeting where all agencies came and we identified that was the main


concern—not to be competing.

The second concern was: which agencies do we currently work with that receive commonwealth funding, which is up for grabs, and how can we support them to re-tender for the money that they are looking for? Each directorate identified organisations either that they funded themselves or that they had a relationship with. Through that process we were able to identify that each organisation that would be subject to its funding going to tender had the support of a directorate or another agency to submit their tender.

MS CHIVERS: In relation to the funding that you applied for, can you give us an indication of what the potential ramifications of not receiving that funding are going to be? What is the actual impact, particularly in light of the fact we know that a lot of our Indigenous families use the West Belconnen CFC, for example?

Ms Howson: Again, if you do not mind, Ms Chivers, I will take that question and Paul might add to my answer. We have certainly known for some time that the agreement with the commonwealth was for three years and that there was no signal provided that there would be an extension of that. So we have been planning and preparing for some time to be able to ensure that we can continue the provision of services through west Belconnen and make adjustments around the reduction in funding, or I should say the ceasing of funding, that is associated with that national partnership agreement.

Consequently, the Office for Children, Youth and Family Support have been working on a service model redesign for our child and family centre program, not just for west Belconnen but inclusive of Gungahlin and Tuggeranong. Through that program we are confident that we are able to maintain a suite of services and actually augment the access to additional agencies that will co-locate with us in the child and family centres. Mark, would you like to talk about that?

Dr Collis: The awareness of the cessation of the national partnership funding provided an opportunity for us to revisit and, for the first time, look at the CFC service system as a whole and see what we needed to do to have a sustainable and quality service system into the future.

Of course, West Belconnen is for us a reservoir of excellence in regard to relationships with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. We have consciously, both in the model and previously, been utilising the capacities that have been built within the west Belconnen area to develop engagement and access right across the service system in Gungahlin and Tuggeranong, and Shona has led that out there. I was talking to Shona the other day and the language is that this is everyone’s business, not just west Belconnen’s. As you know, west Belconnen was set up not as a dedicated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service but as a lead services centre, a centre of excellence.

That service design is going to focus to a great extent on vulnerable families. It will still have a universal access capability but it will also take leadership in the governance of the local area service delivery in child development. It is fortunate at the same time, of course, that we have the better services trial at west Belconnen,


which is doing the really in-depth, thorough work around service mapping, service need and governance. We are attempting to take the learnings from that area and apply them over the course of next year right across the ACT.

We see the CFC service system becoming a leader in the governance of child development and a leader specifically in the quality engagement for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. Having regard to how that looks on the ground at the moment, we are still working through that. I was just made aware this morning that we still have access to the program with the Smith Family.

In terms of doing this service design model we discovered that for every one position we have in the CFCs, 2½ other positions are in the CFCs working with us, working either from other government agencies or from the community sector. So we really want to build that as a flashpoint kind of access to the community. By all means absolutely at the centre of our service design is to make sure we have quality engagement and quality service provision with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.

MS CHIVERS: Do any other members have any follow-up questions in relation to the Indigenous advancement strategy or funding of the CFCs?

MR FOWLER: I want to ask one question. I know that West Belconnen is achieving quite good results, and that is fantastic to hear. I know the director-general mentioned other development in Gungahlin and the Tuggeranong area. I suppose it is alarming to me that there is a lot of work going into the north side of the ACT but it seems to be limited on the south side. Both sides have vulnerable families—not just Indigenous families but vulnerable families. The south side in particular has vulnerable families of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background. I am curious to know what the direction is for the south side model and whether it is going to mirror Belconnen or whether we take south side residents to Belconnen to use those services. If so, how are you going to achieve that?

Dr Collis: Thank you for the question. Central to the new service model is actually a local governance arrangement. What we have identified, partly out of the evaluation conducted by west Belconnen, was that our community said where they wanted the service delivered—they wanted it in a place where they felt safe, they felt they could go there and they felt ownership of that place.

One of the key elements of our service design––and we took the lead from the human services blueprint principles––is to get our services designed to be delivered in place and to meet that local community need. With respect to one of the key elements, I mentioned the governance structure. It will be key to bringing the community together and mapping the services for that community.

I fully acknowledge that there are real pockets of disadvantage across the ACT community, including in Tuggeranong, and we are aware of that in the child protection space. Likewise there are similar pockets in West Belconnen as well. When you look at a postcode and drill down, you can see that when you aggregate it up just to north-south, it looks fairly even. But when you go to pockets of postcode it can be very different. I fully acknowledge that.


The distinction is very different, having regard to what the community bring to each of our centres. The nature of migration into our suburbs is quite different in the north compared to the south. Different cultural communities are moving in and there are different Aboriginal communities as well in that space.

We are hoping that with the service model being local and having a local governance focus it will be able to pick that nuance up and address that. That is one of the things we think we can do better into the future, rather than having a less targeted or skilled understanding of the needs of our community.

Mr Matthews: I have some additional information about a housing related bit. In the context of what Ms Sheehan was describing before about making sure that we did not bid against other service providers, and recognising the issues where Housing ACT is the largest provider of housing for Aboriginal people in the territory, we did put in a submission to that process for some housing related assistance. That submission was very much based on the work that we have been doing with the elected body to date, particularly about supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to age in place. So obviously we have been engaging with you about site selection and building replacement properties that are suitable for people as they age.

The commonwealth’s money does not allow for capital funding, so we are not expecting to get money for houses per se from the commonwealth government, but certainly support and making sure that we are able to provide a culturally appropriate service delivery to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as they age is something we are very keen to develop further, and that was subject to the bid that we put forward. I am just seeking to confirm the details for you, but it was essentially for a small number of FTE—so staff—to be able to engage with our tenants. Certainly, from our point of view, if we were to be successful in that, we would want to work with the elected body about how we could roll out that service delivery to make sure that it complemented the work we have been doing with you on the form of housing.

Mr Wyles: I must give a couple of examples following on from Dr Collis’s comments about responding to local area need in Tuggeranong. The child and family centres have this year partnered with Gugan Gulwan and the YWCA to jointly provide a group for young mothers. I understand that is working exceptionally well and those women are really feeling they are getting good support and the connection to services they require.

The other thing you may remember I put forward was that, as part of the normal practice of the work our centres do in Tuggeranong, they connect with local schools and preschools, and as part of that process the manager visited the two Koori preschools in Tuggeranong and spoke to the teachers about their concerns in relation to children’s language development in those schools. As a result, the manager connected with Therapy ACT services and there was some promotion done around families accessing speech drop-in services through Tuggeranong child and family centre.

MS CHIVERS: Given what Mr Matthews just touched on, the older persons housing project, the next question I have is in relation to that. As Mr Matthews also touched


on, we have recently been engaged to have a look at some further sites around that. Given the significant delays in progressing the project, can you give an indication of how Housing ACT is going to mitigate possible further delays for this important project?

Mr Matthews: Thank you, Joanne. I will make a start and my colleague Mr Collett will also come to the table to help give you the information that you are looking for. Essentially, the key message obviously is that site selection is the most important element of this whole project. Once we have got site selection undertaken that you are happy with—and I understand we have reached that point—we can obviously give you very early advice about any issues around site remediation, which will not be expected to be a significant issue in this case, then the next important stage is about engaging the architectural firm that we have been working with you on and then moving to construction.

The key point that I would like to make before passing over to Mr Collett is that we certainly have got that money reserved in our budget, both for the design work and then for the subsequent construction. So it is certainly not a funding question; it has been an issue of site selection and now it will be a matter of working through that design and construction phase.

Mr Collett: I guess it could be fair to say that we shared your frustration with the overlay that was applied to the site that had been selected that made it unavailable for Indigenous housing. Whilst that represented a significant delay to the project, we are now working with the new elected body on the site selection and, as Mr Matthews referred to, we were delighted to hear that earlier this week the Kambah site had been selected. We have already got an architect engaged and, after discussions with the elected body, have agreed to engage Architecture for Humanity to provide a conduit, if you like, between the elected body and our architects, who have also been selected.

Now that the site has been confirmed, we will be able to engage those architects to start on the preparation of a development application prior to Christmas. So that is a particularly good outcome. We will be making sure that the support group is also in there making sure that we have a culturally appropriate solution. So we are pretty excited about getting on with the project.

THE CHAIR: We are too.

MS CHIVERS: Do other members have any further questions around the older persons housing project?

THE CHAIR: I just want to flag something. I guess this is a long-term sort of project for us too, and when we first identified the sites in the previous term we looked at the plan Bs. This would have a number of residences available for us. As we know, people get older and require these services, and we are looking a little bit into the future about some of those other sites as a future plan and how we secure those as future planning. That is probably the first thing.

One of the things that we have already discussed is that involvement in the design of the fit-outs and so on. We raised some particularly interesting things about the heights


of cupboards and things like that as just fundamental. So I am sure we will have an opportunity to have a discussion around those as well.

Mr Collett: Absolutely. We have got high expectations of Architecture for Humanity in helping us to come up with culturally appropriate design solutions. I would anticipate that some of the lessons that we might learn from this exercise will flow back into our general housing stock and new stock that is identified for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

One of the elected body members has already done some early work with us about appropriate design and taking that to the next stage in terms of developing a suite. It might be worth noting that we have design guidelines around maintenance, around accessibility and around environmentally sustainable development. To add culturally appropriate design to that list of requirements would flesh out our brief and help us to create more flexibility in our stock in terms of housing a wider range of people.

THE CHAIR: My next part of that question is then the management of the facility and the running and operations of it. We certainly had a conversation earlier about building the capacity of our peoples to work in those facilities, provide services and be carers as well as all of those things. But we have also had conversations around—this might not be the area at this point to be talking with you about—the construction and providing employment and training opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to participate in training and gaining those construction skills and/or the employment skills to be able to provide services in there as well. But they are another stage, I guess, to it.

The issue of management and facilitation, I assume, will be primarily the ACT government’s and your area. That is okay. But we also have had some discussions in terms of management of housing and so on, which I am sure we will get to in a moment. When we get to that topic about the housing project, there are some management questions we might have there.

Mr Matthews: If I can very briefly, Rod—I think we might have said this in the past—we are very keen to use our contracting opportunities to look for employment outcomes. We have now included in our total facilities management contract—that is our maintenance contract for the housing portfolio—some particular employment outcomes. So these are targets we have had in previous years that we have asked Spotless to work towards.

Again, I am really happy to say that in the last financial year that resulted in 10 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people being employed in association with that contract, as well as 30 public housing tenants, 37 people with a disability and 95 young people. So that is a very good start for us to look at how we can use our contracting and funding role to leverage outcomes for the people that we are trying to work with.

MS CHIVERS: Fantastic. The next series of questions I have are around the genealogy project. Has phase 2 of the project been finalised?

Ms Howson: Unfortunately, I should apologise for Robyn Forester, who is unwell


today and unable to attend, but Ms Sheehan will be able to respond to that initially.

Ms Sheehan: Thank you for that question. The next stage of the genealogy project will be a series of workshops which will be conducted by Dr Kerry Arabena, who I think is well known to the elected body and well known to the community. She will be facilitating workshops with the local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community—I was going to say Ngunnawal community but I mean the local community—to talk to them about the way forward.

There is an issue which the elected body is very familiar with: the distinction between establishing who the traditional custodians of the land are in the minds of people who believe that they are traditional custodians and then genealogy questions more generally. So the first phase of the project, which established family histories which were handed over to families, was really looking at that genealogy issue. What we are trying to progress now is to work more generally on the traditional custodian issue. So we do see that those two things are not the same but they are—

Ms Howson: Do you mind if I just clarify the question? What Ms Sheehan has touched on is an issue that has flown, I think, from the genealogy project.

MS CHIVERS: Initially the question was whether phase 2 had been finalised.

Ms Howson: This is in terms of the publication of the genealogy reports, the documents. My understanding is that there are still a couple of genealogy documents. The books that have been produced that set that out are with families for final ratification of the accuracy of their presentation and any further issues that still need to be addressed with families, and we are awaiting that. As soon as families get back to us and confirm that they are confident about that publication, we will produce the final bound copy of those books and provide them to the families.

We have been exploring opportunities for having that information properly archived for the benefit of future generations and we have come to an agreement—I might just ask Kerry to back me up here—with the ACT records registrar. Kerry, why don’t you come to the table and answer these questions? So this material is recorded. It is available in an electronic form and then future generations do not need to actually identify the hard copy but can come to the registry and access that information as they see fit.

MS CHIVERS: Just following on from that, and we have slightly touched on it, what is the ACT government going to do with the information that is being obtained through the project?

Ms Howson: Most importantly for us, it is acknowledgement that this information belongs to the families; it is not government’s information to broker. It is very important to us around that principle—we have done this in, again, a respectful way in consulting with the elected body and others on direction about archiving—that we make the information accessible to future generations in a way that protects privacy and allows people to access this information in a way that they are comfortable with and that is sensitive to their particular needs. So that is the first and foremost issue.


The intent, as we have come into this agenda, is really to facilitate access to that information to families and to allow families to come to it and apply it to their own understanding of their sense of belonging and their connections as a community. Again, it is not for government to draw an analysis from that and make any decisions or assumptions from it. I think we are very clear that our role is a facilitative role and that we seek the direction of the community in terms of their understanding of kinship. So really the second stage is closing off that research effort and ensuring accessibility to the information.

Is there anything you would like to add to that, Kerry? Did I get the registry right? I was not sure I referred to it correctly.

Ms Maguire: Natalie got it right. We talked to the territory records manager and she has agreed that it is a cultural resource that should be archived appropriately, so it will not go anywhere but into the archives. The ACT cultural heritage library has offered to manage it, including maintaining restrictions for privacy purposes into the future, probably for 30 years in terms of restrictions. So, yes, that is correct—everything; I confirm it.

MS CHIVERS: I think Ms Sheehan had already started to touch on this as well but the question that I have now is: what effect will the information obtained through the project have on the ACT government’s current policy regarding recognition and acknowledgement of the traditional owners of this region?

Ms Howson: I reiterate my earlier comments that the government’s interest is in facilitating a discussion, if that is what the community’s intentions are, and we are stepping into this again, I think respectfully and with some sensitivity. Our intention with the engagement of Ms Arabena is, first and foremost, in a constructive, sensitive and respectful way, to allow the community to have a conversation about whether this is an issue that they do want to take further. We will take the lead from the community and certainly be looking for the counsel of the elected body through this process.

MS CHIVERS: The next couple of questions that I have are in relation to the cultural centre. At the 2013 elected body hearings Mr Manikis indicated that the government’s disposition is to eventually hand the cultural centre to the community. I guess our question is: when will this happen?

Ms Howson: We do not have a firm date on that question. The Office for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs are committed to developing a strategy with the elected body and the community around cultural strategy, and I understand too that that has been reflected in the consultation process that has occurred with the community. In 2015 we see it as an opportunity to develop further that question about the cultural strategy for the ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community, of which Yarramundi Reach is an important component. What aspirations does the community have for that place, how do they want it used into the future and what would be the appropriate organisational construct to support that outcome?

MS CHIVERS: The community have also indicated to the elected body that they are interested in finding what the process would be for acquiring the land between the


cultural centre and the lake. Is this something that the directorate could assist us with exploring further?

Ms Howson: The short answer to that is yes. If you have questions of that nature, the directorate would be very happy, through the Office for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, to assist the elected body to identify whether that is a possibility and what would be the options for progressing that discussion.

MS CHIVERS: At the 2013 hearings the tourism potential of the cultural centre was raised in the context of its proximity to the arboretum and the National Zoo and Aquarium. Ms Howson undertook to facilitate discussions with tourism ACT. What were the outcomes of those discussions?

Ms Howson: Again, I would have to take reference from the Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs. We will take that on notice to answer that quite specifically. I add though that the aspirational discussions about what can happen in that place are very exciting and it is certainly something the directorate is interested in developing with the elected body in your term and seeing if there is an appropriate case to be put to government.

THE CHAIR: A couple of hearings ago we gave notice to the previous Economic Development Directorate of these kinds of aspirations. There is certainly some keenness there. I urge that that conversation happen fairly quickly because of the opportunities that may present themselves in coming years, certainly during this term. We explained to the directorate that we had an economic development workshop last year, and a few of the recommendations out of that added value to the conversation we had before. Now there are expectations of discussions and what next is starting to arise.

Ms Howson: To gather some momentum, yes.

THE CHAIR: You will see that we have indicated this in our priorities about continuing that momentum but then exploring business opportunities coming out of the cultural centre which could be on a par with the zoo or the arboretum. There is something else that could be on offer which also would create the employment opportunities and business opportunities for this community.

Ms Howson: Yes, I can see all those attributes. Ms Sheehan has just reminded me that the physical asset at Yarramundi Reach is now being managed by Property Group under economic development, so they have more stake in the future of that particular site. We have identified across a number of fronts with economic development further work we want to do together. Thank you for raising it today; it continues to keep it as a priority.

MS DONOVAN: You are probably aware of it already, but I want to point out that if we are looking at having businesses down there or developing any sort of program, be people might need to look at a change of the crown lease agreements.

Ms Howson: Some of those land issues will be complex, and we would certainly need to engage with the National Capital Authority. My short answer is yes. We are


certainly in a position to provide advice to the elected body on the pathways that need to be explored before we can test the feasibility in the future, and we will do that.

MS CHIVERS: My next question is just in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff within CSD. In April 2013 Mr Manikis indicated that a component of the new OATSIA office would be a capability team whose role would include supporting other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees in CSD. I understand the structure of OATSIA has recently changed, but can you advise if one of the new teams still has this role and, if so, can you give an indication how this is done?

Ms Sheehan: Thank you for that question. As you identified, the Office for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs was restructured and supplemented starting from 1 July 2013. At that stage the decision was taken that the office would be headed up by a designated senior executive service officer position, which was very important for us.

Initially in doing that redesign we established three teams. In working with the three teams over the 12-month period, and even before the end of the first 12-month period, the new director, Robyn Forester, formed the view we were spreading our efforts too thinly and that the community would be better served by having two dedicated teams—essentially a strategic policy team which would support most particularly the assistance to the minister with government functions and development of strategic policy and a second team which would have responsibility for community engagement.

I think the elected body would understand that if you spread your resources too thinly you end up not having enough grunt in the areas you want to have it. We are better off identifying a number of things we believe are achievable with the resources we have rather than, as I would say, overpromising and underdelivering. We feel reducing those teams from three to two will really concentrate our efforts, put the resources where they need to be and provide support, hopefully, to the elected body in a way which serves your goals.

MS CHIVERS: In relation to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff in the office, is there still that role of supporting other Indigenous staff within CSD?

Ms Howson: The second part to your question is: is there a role in the office supporting other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff across government?

MS CHIVERS: Last year Mr Manikis indicated that that was going to be a component of the new office and that one of the teams would do that.

Ms Howson: That is correct.

MS CHIVERS: Is that still part of the role of one of those teams within the new structure of OATSIA?

Ms Howson: So the short answer is there is a vertical integration. There is not a specific team that is articulated as the team working on cultural proficiency, but the


office still see that as one of their key functions. There is a specific reference to the activities that relate to that cultural proficiency objective in the business plan for the Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, which we would be happy to provide as evidence to the committee.

Further to that, the role of the office in very practical terms over the last 12 months has been to engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees across the ACT government through the employees network. They have been working to ensure that network maintains its presence and supports that network to build the confidence of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees across the government and also to be seen as a legitimate forum for consultation on issues that affect the community. That has certainly been happening, and we provide the secretariat for that staff network through the office.

We also have established an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees communication network using an intranet system within government. We are able to keep that network abreast of issues that are pertinent. I am sure there is more we can do to exploit that, but we have essentially been establishing that platform for communication with employees.

I know the office field almost on a weekly basis queries coming in from other agencies about the appropriate way to engage with the elected body, the appropriate way to conduct consultations with the community and advice on issues that come up from time to time. It is important for the Community Services Directorate at large to provide some leadership on what organisations should be doing around cultural proficiency.

For example, we have the highest proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff than any other directorate within the ACT government. We are exceeding the ACT government’s target for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees. We are attracting some very excellent workers that are informing our approach and guiding the way we are delivering our services.

We are also building in expectations around proficiency within the performance agreements of executives, and we are tackling that issue through the lens of our service model and our approach to service delivery ensuring access for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. Each executive director is being asked to examine the status of what they would consider to be the cultural proficiency of their service arm and set objectives and key priorities for this year to work towards improvement in that area.

MR FOWLER:. Ms Howson, can you step back and explain again to members CSD’s actual involvement through OATSIA on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff employee network?

Ms Howson: My understanding is we provide the secretariat for that network.

MR FOWLER: I thought I misheard you. I just wanted that clarification, thanks.

MS CHIVERS: The next couple of questions are in relation to homelessness. I


understand all ACT specialist homelessness services are contracted to provide evidence of service sector initiatives to improve engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service users to contribute to improved housing outcomes on an ongoing basis. Can you give some indication of what type of evidence these services provide in doing that?

Mr Matthews: I will start with a bit of context. We obviously think our homelessness services play a really vital role in supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. In the last financial year a total of 662 people were assisted through our homelessness sector, which is 14 per cent of all service users. It is one of those numbers where there is an overrepresentation of the people we would want to see in homelessness services, But on the positive side, it is also demonstrating that those service providers are taking very seriously their issues around making sure they can provide crisis support to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

What we do as part of our reporting obligations with the sector and through our work with providers under our joint pathways approach is very much to promote ongoing conversations around cultural competence and awareness. We ask people to give us broad evidence that they are meeting community need when they are reporting to us. That would include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. In addition, we fund a number of services that are targeted in terms of meeting the specific requirements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Those service providers play a vital role as part of those network of services to assist other providers to become more culturally competent in the way they are providing their services.

These topics are discussed through our interagency forums and through training and assistance provided through the peak bodies as well. To answer your question very specifically, we require service providers to report periodically to us under their contract around what they are doing. It is something we will continue to see as a priority as we go forward. We will continue to make sure the sectors are working with each other to support the needs of the community.

MS CHIVERS: Following on with that theme, all specialist services have provided those reports?

Mr Matthews: I would have to confirm what material we have received through reporting. I would be happy to do that for the committee. Would you like me to give you a summary or a precis of the issues that have been reported through?

THE CHAIR: Yes.

MR FOWLER: David, you said service providers within their contracts report back on how they engage with Indigenous people. What does it actually say in that contract around the requirement for them to work with and consult right through to implementation?

Mr Matthews: Again, I would have to check the specific contractual wording, but essentially we ask providers to be aware of their obligations to provide a culturally competent service and to make sure they can meet the needs of all of their service users. In the case of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, we would certainly expect


that to include appropriate policies and procedures, training for staff, links to the local community and to Indigenous service providers and additional measures that would reflect the specific needs of individuals. For example, if they are housing larger families with kinship responsibilities or if they are providing support to couples without children that the accommodation they provide is appropriate.

THE CHAIR: Can I explore that a bit more? In summary, David, and you might have mentioned it earlier, in terms of the users, are you able to provide some evidence about the volume of users of those services? That would be useful so that we can do some comparative—

Mr Matthews: There is a national data collection for homelessness services, so there is data that is available for the last financial year. We can provide you with an overview of the patterns of access of homelessness services by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Ms Howson: I might just put on the record that for 2013-14 the ACT specialist homelessness sector assisted 662 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, which is 14 per cent of all service users.

THE CHAIR: Okay.

Mr Matthews: The other data that we have is through our First Point service. First Point is the service that people come through to get access to either crisis accommodation or support. The First Point data for last year showed that 239 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families presented for support last financial year.


MS CHIVERS: The next question I will ask is one that we actually had from a community member. It is in relation to children and young people in care and protection. The question is: will a holistic approach to the land concerned with the Ngunnawal bush healing program incorporate programs for children and young people in care and protection?

Ms Howson: My understanding is that the bush healing farm is being directed particularly to health outcomes. In that sense, I think there has been some discussion about young people having some access to those programs, but I would have to take that on notice. It might be a question you would specifically like to refer to the Health Directorate, if they have not already had their hearing.

MR FOWLER: Wouldn’t that be both agencies—both CSD, through their care and protection issues, and Health, through health and safety?

Ms Howson: It is a good point.

MR FOWLER: It is a dual partnership.

Ms Howson: It is a very good point. I think it is this continuum of early intervention and prevention through to statutory support. I would expect that the bush healing farm


would play a much stronger role in the context of early intervention. What we are doing in the statutory service space is increasing our effort in family preservation and assisting families with the range of issues that lead to concerns around the safety and wellbeing of children. In that respect, it is certainly in the context of child protection, but it may not be a specific care and protection statutory service response.

MR FOWLER: Not part of a care plan as such, or a cultural plan?

Ms Howson: Exactly. And, more importantly, part of the early intervention work. We are certainly focusing on early identification and targeting of support for families before child protection issues become a point of crisis.

MS CHIVERS: The next question is in relation to the Office for Ageing. How does the Office for Ageing specifically engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander older persons and encourage them to participate in programs that are targeted to older persons?

Ms Sheehan: Thank you for that question. The Office for Ageing has recently been involved in a process for 12 months which culminated in an older persons assembly, which I believe the chair of the elected body attended and you attended as well.

MS CHIVERS: No, I actually did not.

Ms Sheehan: It was held here in the Assembly, in the chamber. In the process of getting ready for that particular assembly, it was quite different from the first assembly, which was two years earlier. In the previous assembly, there was a general expression of interest that went out, and then pretty much anyone who wanted to come for the day to have a legislative-like experience could come along. And then issues emerged.

The thing about that was that it was quite a scattergun approach and it was not possible then to always marshal the resources to address all of the issues that were raised. So in doing the second older persons assembly, the decision was to have a series of consultations right around the community and through Canberra to look at the main themes that older people were raising and then to develop up those themes into a series of resolutions which would be debated on the day of the older persons assembly. In that way, many more people could be involved in the consultation process because they were not confined to just coming on one particular day but could attend community forums throughout the whole of the year.

By the time we were getting to the point of actually conducting the forum, it was a smaller number at the forum but a larger number that had an input. The resolutions were discerned from all of those consultations right across the ACT. Then the resolutions were distributed to people, and they were able to consider what speeches they would make. Then on the day there were particular champions for different resolutions, as you would know from your participation.

I know that is a little long winded, but I wanted to give the picture of a very broad-based approach to consultation with older people right around the community, including culturally and linguistically diverse communities and Aboriginal and Torres


Strait Islander communities, to get a picture of what older people were concerned about.

The main themes that were coming through included transport, which has been a very big issue for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and is identified as an issue for accessing services generally. That is an issue that older people have identified as well.

It was also the safety of the urban environment—safely being able to access public transport, safely being able to be at bus shelters in order to access public transport, making sure that footpaths are safe for older people to walk on and those sorts of things that might seem basic to other people. If you are not older and experiencing it, you take it for granted; it does not matter if the footpath is a bit bumpy. But if you are an older person on a walker, it is very difficult for you.

Having that really broad-based approach to the consultation, so that you are taking a whole year to get people’s views, has proved to be really effective. And we would like to have a look at numbers. I have not been able to give you today the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that were consulted along the way, but we need to make sure that, although those themes ring true for themes that the elected body has been able to discern from its broad consultations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people did have the opportunity to participate in those forums.

I can confirm, because we did take a question during annual report estimates about this, that there were forums all over the ACT. It was not that you had to come into the Theo Notaras Multicultural Centre to participate; forums were held right around the ACT.

MS CHIVERS: As you and Rod have mentioned, I actually attended, and it was a very interesting experience. It was great to have a chat to a lot of the delegates. But I was talking to some representatives from the ministerial council who were part of that community forum process. The reason I ask this question is that they raised the issue that they felt there had been a lack of Indigenous representation as part of those community consultations. How will you then perhaps review that and look at instigating other strategies that would mean in the future that there would be more Indigenous participation?

Ms Howson: I think there is room for us to do better in this area and I think we would again look for the council of the elected body in directing that. I think it is most pertinent in relation to the work that is going to be done around the older persons’ accommodation and ensuring that on specific initiatives we are much more targeted in our approach. I keep using the word “accessible”, but in a context where people are comfortable being able to contribute, are interested in that particular issue and have views that they would like to prosecute through that.

Again, once we are in a position to roll out on the themes around the whole-of-government agreement, we need to make sure that there is broad-based representation across the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community, and we are doing that much more effectively.


MS CHIVERS: Can I just ask how the actual community consultations were advertised?

Ms Sheehan: My understanding is that it was advertised through social media, through advertisements in the newspaper and through distribution networks of the Office of Ageing, such as older persons clubs, centres and so on. We can certainly provide you with more detailed information about how that information was distributed.

I also want to add that we need to be mindful that with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander services, because of issues around a lower span of life, services are provided for older people who are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from the age of 50 and so on. We need to be very mindful of that in making sure that we are getting input from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from that time on.

Ms Howson: Another example where I think this is really important is in the work that we are doing in out of home care and, most importantly, kinship care support. I might just ask Mark to comment on some of the things that we are doing to improve our relationships and communication with the Aboriginal community.

THE CHAIR: Just before you do, Mark, can I just ask one quick question. With that Office for Ageing, what are the next steps that you will do from all of this consultation? Could that be communicated with some of the other things that you have suggested so that we get a clear picture of the process from here on? But picking up on those other bits, it is specific things about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples so that we can inform our elderly people that here are some coming opportunities. To pick up Jo’s points, it is just so that we have a clearer picture of the overall next steps.

Ms Howson: I would be very happy to take that on line, but maybe the first commitment is that the Office for Ageing seeks to attend one of your future meetings to set out what is happening in terms of the priorities that are currently articulated and how we might better engage with the older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community on those initiatives.

MR FOWLER: Can I add another suggestion: to maybe also consult with the United Ngunnawal Elders Council.

Ms Howson: I was going to mention that too.

MR FOWLER: They are our leading elders, and they are custodians, representative of family groups under the Ngunnawal umbrella, so it might be good if they are consulted in some form.

Ms Howson: I will take that suggestion on, thank you.

THE CHAIR: In particular, when would another forum be available so that we can be a part of that—taking those messages out to our community as well? That sort of notice would be good too when the next––


Ms Sheehan: At this stage the minister has not made a commitment to another assembly in two years, but he is certainly thinking about it and will be asking the community what they want to do in order to take the opportunity to have a broad consultation and then a way forward.

In terms of the way forward from what happened at the last assembly, the minister did not just want to get suggestions for the sake of it, and older people who participated would be very disheartened indeed if they could not see progress against the outcome of the resolutions. So the next steps are looking at how we can marshal the resources right across government to address those sorts of issues. Really importantly, it is not just making the ACT an age-friendly city, which it is; it is about, every time you are spending some money, with every program that you are designing, thinking about how older people might access the program. If you are doing that, it is just good policy and good design. Then it is not an afterthought; you do not end up retrofitting the form or retrofitting your policies so that older people can access it.

MR FOWLER: You would not put an aged care facility in a three-storey building—put them all on the top floor.

Ms Sheehan: Not usually.

MS CHIVERS: Were there any further questions you want to ask?

Mr FOWLER: No.

MS CHIVERS: The next question is in relation to the national disability insurance scheme. What is being done to ensure that the six providers that were recently announced are able to provide culturally appropriate services in the ACT for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with a disability?

Ms Sheehan: Thank you for that question. I felt like breaking into song—“these are a few of my favourite things”—because I love to talk about the NDIS and I am really delighted to have the opportunity to talk to the elected body about the NDIS.

With the six providers that were announced to pick up early intervention services, the focus with those providers was that the department of education had services for children who were pre-preschool with a disability. Some of those were for children with autism and others focused on helping children who might otherwise find it very hard to move into a school environment and to relate with other children in a way that would have them playing with other children. The services were getting those children ready for those group environments and really ultimately for school.

In moving into the national disability insurance scheme, the services that will be available for those children are far broader than—admittedly, they are good programs to get children ready for school, but that is not the only thing that those children need. They need other early intervention services as well. At the moment, Therapy ACT are providing some of those services.

All children under school age will actually enter into the national disability insurance scheme in the first six months of this year. What we needed to be mindful of is: what


is the totality of things that those children will need as they come into the national disability insurance scheme? The reason that we wanted to give you the broader picture is that what we are trying to achieve is culturally appropriate services for the totality of things that those children will need, not just really $2 million worth of services.

The process that the National Disability Insurance Agency has gone through to make sure that there were actually providers on the ground, as education started to transition out and making sure that there were community providers, was that there was a tender process. As part of the tender process, which was a commonwealth tender process, providers are required to spell out their service model. That is their opportunity to say how it is that they are going to provide culturally appropriate services. That is one of the assessment criteria: to make sure that services are culturally appropriate.

The other really important thing is that all the services must comply with national standards. They must comply in the educational setting with the national education standards which have the requirements around culturally appropriate services and similarly for the national disability standards. Some of this would not apply to children but it applies more generally. The home and community care program, HACC, will transition into the national disability insurance scheme and the services must comply with those national standards.

That requirement for quality and safety and quality services is sitting with the ACT government because, in the intergovernmental agreement for the national disability insurance scheme, each state and territory took on the responsibility to maintain all of its existing quality and safeguards. So the responsibility to make sure the standards are met—that includes those culturally appropriate services—sits with the ACT government. The funding over time transfers across to the National Disability Insurance Agency. They then give the funding to the individuals. The individuals choose what services they want, but we will retain that responsibility to make sure that standards are met, including that they are culturally appropriate.

I also wanted to say that the National Disability Insurance Taskforce, which is based in the ACT, has some considerable sector development funds available. As part of sector development funds, we have been able to place, or to pay for, a full-time worker at Gugan Gulwan. Obviously, we are very hopeful that that worker will assist Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, young people and adults as well, but particularly focusing on children and young people who may well have not accessed services in the past because they have not known how to do that. There are many people that have not accessed services in the past. But that worker will help them on that journey to the National Disability Insurance Agency to start making a plan about what they would like to achieve and what services might help them to do that.

Then on the theme of providing culturally appropriate services, we are really hoping that that position at Gugan Gulwan will encourage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, as part of our workforce planning, to actually become employed in disability services so that we have more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers in organisations that are providing disability services because, of course, that is another very important way of providing culturally appropriate services.


THE CHAIR: One of the questions I think we had at the beginning was about registration, which you mentioned.

Ms Sheehan: Yes.

THE CHAIR: We had the discussion before about getting an understanding of the people within our community that actually need these kinds of services. Could we get some kind of feedback about the percentage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that need these kinds of services? You have mentioned children, adults and so on—

Ms Sheehan: Yes.

THE CHAIR: and the kinds of categories that require these kinds of services. I am not talking so much about the detail but could you give us a sense of the need in the community? That will then help us take into account the ratio of the people that are requiring the services and/or whether we would have one full-time person to provide support and to give that advice. We also want to understand what the requirements are for the services and the support for those services.

Quite often we see with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander services and needs that the ratio of workers to the number of clients requiring housing, health and those things is minimal. There is quite a lot of pressure on those individuals to provide adequate services, particularly when we are talking about culturally appropriate services. If you have one person delivering these services or providing the support or the information, that is quite a lot of drain on an individual when we are talking about broadening or increasing the employment ratio within the whole of the service. Can you provide that kind of evidence as with housing?

Ms Sheehan: Yes.

THE CHAIR: That would be very useful.

Ms Sheehan: Yes; thank you for that question. Of course, the two statistics that I have not brought with me are from the existing—Meredith has them.

Ms Whitten: In terms of our 2012-13 data that has been reported in the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, there are about 216 people who identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander who are service users of disability and therapy services in the ACT. But I think the opportunity with the national disability insurance scheme is that there may be no doubt other people with additional need.

I think that the enhanced service offer that was run by the NDIS task force and Disability ACT this year has given us some indication that there are other people who need services. We have got those statistics; I am just not sure whether we have got them here.

Ms Sheehan: We can certainly provide two important figures: the figure that Ms Whitten was talking about and, secondly, the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders identified with a range of disabilities across the ACT population. The


thing that we know for sure in the ACT is that, based on existing service use, we are thinking that we may even double the number of people across the whole population that receive a service from the NDIS compared to who is getting a service at the moment.

We already know from sources, including from your consultations with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community, that there are many people with a disability who are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander that are not getting a service at the moment. It is not possible for me to definitively say at the moment that 260 people had some type of service but we actually think up to 1,000 people might be entitled to a service.

We do know that in the enhanced service offer there were 180 people that applied who were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and that 91 per cent of those people were successful in getting a grant. That is a very important figure.

THE CHAIR: Yes.

Ms Sheehan: It was a real focus for us in the enhanced service offer. It was the biggest grant program we had ever had—around $7 million, but $7 million is nothing compared the $340 million that we will have in the full scheme. But given that it will take a long time—it takes two years for people to get into the scheme—it was really important to get something out there fast to people that did not have a service at all.

We can get an idea where we expect people who have not had a service to be coming from because we can see them in other service systems where we know that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are. For example, if you look at individuals and families that are subject to repeated cycles of homelessness, very often we know that some of things that would be going on there might be related to a mental illness. They might be related to an acquired brain injury or intellectual disability.

We see those groups of people overrepresented, not only in the homeless systems but in correction systems. It is very likely that those people would be eligible for some type of service under the NDIS. We can see that they are extremely disadvantaged by the bits of the service system that they are in. We are very hopeful that by taking the journey with those people to the National Disability Insurance Agency, assisting them to get plans and then getting services which could be fully funded under those plans, that can help to start to break some of those intergeneration experiences of disadvantage. That is why it is such a wonderful thing that the resources are doubling, that it is very individualised in that people are not in a rationed system anymore.

There are not unlimited funds, of course. The supports are what is reasonable and necessary but it relates to what the individual wants to achieve in their life and what services can be engaged to achieve those very individual goals.

Ms Howson: I think the other important comment about the NDIS is this concept of controlling choice. Aboriginal people are applying—testing eligibility—and they are moving their way into securing the support they are entitled to. We will drive this question—I think we all have—about how we actually see more culturally proficient organisations or, for that matter, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dedicated


service providers.

We will be working, again with the elected body, to ensure that people understand what is happening under the NDIS. Taking full advantage of securing those individual packages puts that person front and centre in terms of making a call on services they want as opposed to having to take the services that they are provided with, if that makes sense. If we can work further with you on this question, I think it is an extremely important one.

MS CHIVERS: The next question that I have is actually in relation to the child welfare organisation. The ACT government’s response to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elected Body’s third report advised that the Office of Children, Youth and Family Support was working with its New South Wales counterpart and the Aboriginal Child, Family and Community Care State Secretariat to develop a regional Aboriginal childcare agency. What is the status of the agency at this point in time?

Dr Collis: The status of the agency is that is not progressing. The community have not come back and wish to work around developing, yet, an ANACA. In respect of the development of the out-of-home care strategy, one of the trials that you may be aware of that we have commenced now is the panel of Aboriginal advisers. If we think of ANACA as one end of the continuum in terms of autonomy in decision-making about children in welfare and children in care and then just liaison and information at the other end, our consultations with the community—I believe I was at the consultation that was facilitated by Rod last year in relation to this matter—was that at this point in time there is not a sector or a group that feels it has sufficient capacity to develop into a child welfare agency.

However, what we have done in recruiting to the panel of advisers and then engaging that panel of advisers in a real decision-making element in real time is a kind of a halfway house, if you like. It is a kind of place of autonomy in decision-making that is along that continuum. I was at the training of those advisers at Yarramundi Reach a couple of weeks ago. In fact, I know that this discussion came up in that forum. People were really excited to develop the panel of advisers to move that trial along and potentially use the kind of capacity that occurs within that to springboard off to a future Aboriginal child welfare agency.

Certainly the position of the ACT government is to encourage that. We would support in any way the development of the community to move in that space. We are excited about that trial. We are excited about the potential that that has to deliver great outcomes for Aboriginal children and families, and just as significantly great outcomes as they engage with our workforce in real time decision-making, and we are hoping that it will lead to the development of a capacity to move a step forward.

I take this opportunity to thank and acknowledge George Villaflor for his leadership in this space. I note that the great enthusiasm and optimism around the way this has commenced has, I think, exceeded everyone’s expectations from the feedback that I have at the moment. But in relation to the Aboriginal Child Welfare Agency, that is still out there.

MS CHIVERS: The next question that I have is in relation to the early childhood


integrated service delivery project. We were wanting to know if you could provide an update around what has happened in the eight months within the ACT.

Ms Howson: I am sorry, I missed that.

MS CHIVERS: The early childhood integrated service delivery project.

THE CHAIR: I think that is part of the national partnership. As heard earlier, that is coming to an end. What is happening with it?

Ms Howson: I think that is a question that goes to what we do with our child and family centre service. In the context of our discussion around the early intervention program for children as is relates to therapy and disability, there are some interesting developments there. If it is relevant, we would be happy to provide some update on that in the child development area.

Ms Whitten: As part of the transition of therapy services to the non-government sector, one of the decisions that the government made was that there are some mainstream services or assessment services that still need to be retained by government in Therapy ACT.

In terms of therapy services and the transition of therapy services to the non-government service as part of the national development of the community sector in the ACT for the national disability insurance scheme, one of the elements that will actually stay within government is a development service, which will be an assessment service for all children, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

That will still be retained by government and will allow all members of the community to seek an assessment in relation to that service. If a child may be eligible for the national disability insurance scheme, that child and their family can be referred to the national disability scheme. If they do not need that level of service then they are referred to another mainstream service.

We are still working through that at the moment. We have got agreement with our colleagues in the Office for Children, Youth and Family Support, with our colleagues in Health, and with the Education and Training Directorate to develop a whole-of-government service which we will start working through at the beginning of 2015. But in the meantime, Therapy ACT will continue to provide the services that they are currently providing until December 2016, and that includes the speech pathology and occupational therapy services that are provided for children at the Koori preschools as well.

MS CHIVERS: The next question is in relation to housing. In the last term the elected body, in collaboration with Housing ACT, embarked on a process for consolidating evidence that would inform the establishment of a sustainable housing model for the ACT. Can you provide an update on the status of that housing model project, which was discussed with Housing some 12 to 18 months ago following the AHURI report, and explain the process from here for realising this priority of the elected body?


Mr Matthews: I am happy to make a start on that. I will have to seek some advice about that particular project, given that it was before my time, but referring to the earlier comments made by my colleague Mark Collis around how we support community-driven, community-owned service delivery, we are very keen to look at what options we have to support a range of housing choices for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We have to look at what would be making a viable housing provider, who might be the people that would have the expertise to do that and what support they might need from government. If I can be really frank, they are the questions that are still outstanding.

As I reported before, Housing had 780 tenancies of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as at 30 June, and that was housing 1,643 people. Housing ACT is, of course, by far the largest housing provider to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our community. I can report that since 30 June that has increased to 808 tenancies in total. Even that total number of tenancies—800 tenancies—in and of itself would not necessarily make a viable housing provider.

If we look at the developments around housing across the different states and territories, the strongly emerging evidence from all the research and regulatory work that has been done is that housing providers need several hundred if not thousands of properties to be able to be sustainable in terms of their funding operations. That is, of course, if they are acting as a stand-alone housing provider; otherwise, they would have to engage in a range of different mixed business activities to be able to get enough scale to operate.

I know you are very conscious of those challenges as well, and they are a set of issues we are keen to continue to explore with you to better understand what would be the right solution for the ACT. Certainly in the context of what Ms Howson was talking about before, absolutely Housing ACT needs to develop its cultural proficiency as a service provider, given that we are providing that level of assistance. We have committed to doing that as part of our business plan for this year and are really happy to continue to engage with the community more generally and seek your feedback about how we can do that better. That, of course, is a journey for us; it is not a destination point.

We have an amount of money that was previously provided to Billabong for community housing. That money is the equivalent of about $104,000 per annum, which we are still holding for a suitable housing solution. I emphasise that that money is still being held in our budget for reaching the best solution we can around Indigenous housing provision in the ACT, in consultation with you.

An amount of money has been rolled over from the quarantining of that previous funding. We have a reasonable amount of money to think about what we can do to enhance housing provision, whether that be looking at a community-run organisation and how they might develop their capability with all of the challenges that I highlighted before, what we can do to make sure other public and community housing providers continue their work on cultural proficiency and also what other solutions are in the mix, so how we can support people in private accommodation or in other forms of housing tenure to achieve home ownership.


From our perspective, we are really open to any of those discussions with you. We would like to take the opportunity to engage with the elected body on the back of the work we are doing around one project, which is the suitable older persons accommodation but to look for those other opportunities that we can deliver as a government provider but also what else might be suitable to deliver.

THE CHAIR: It is important to reflect on the original terms of reference we developed. Notwithstanding what you said about the feasibility of a housing model, that is one of our priorities—to look at a model. We felt the AHURI project activity did not hit the mark or did not pick up what we were trying to say there as what we wanted. We understand limited stock available and that that is not going to make a viable housing organisation. But in terms of the aged care facility, an out-of-home care kind of facility, the cultural centre, the healing farm, all of those, this might be like a management model for those kinds of facilities—that is, not managing the facilities and providing the services but, in essence, like a body corporate manages facilities. We want to explore that option because then it becomes more of a viable approach.

Ms Howson: More of a cooperative-type model.

THE CHAIR: Yes.

Ms Howson: Yes. I think we should explore that with you, and it is probably the thing that may suggest it would be viable within the ACT jurisdiction. Specialist agencies in every category sends us down the same path of problems around sustainability. The great thing about the ACT is we have got to keep pushing the envelope in trying to be creative about how we get to the outcome without thinking we have to replicate what happens in every other state and territory around Australia.

THE CHAIR: That would be great if we can explore that a little bit further. We have got things coming along in the future where we might be able to do that. There are all the benefits that come out, with job creation, service provision and all sorts of things.

Ms Howson: If you take the long view, something like that can grow people’s skills and expertise and then, as the population grows, it could be the springboard for some of the specialist organisations.

Mr Matthews: We would certainly be really happy to engage in that conversation.

MS CHIVERS: Did members have any further questions on the housing stuff?

THE CHAIR: Yes. I am not sure whether it is CSD, but we attempted to have a register of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander membership on boards and committees. I understand we had commenced that kind of register. Our recommendations or participation are often sought on different boards and committees. I am not sure whether the office can develop some kind of repository of that information, not necessarily the names but the things we can inform community of.


We want to inform the community of opportunities where they might be able to apply their expertise or experience in a particular field. We just want to know, because it is constantly coming up and wanting our advice. It is in step with our governance and leadership and development opportunities. If we could develop some information on that, it would be good.

Ms Howson: We have models; for example, in the Office for Women there is a register for women interested in being considered for board placements. If you are talking about something like that, that is certainly within the realm of possibility. I am happy to take that on board, too, and to work with the office about looking at where we can fit that into the work program. I think it is an excellent thing that you are being inundated with requests. That is a good thing.

MR FOWLER: Trying to figure out which directorate to ask has been the other challenge. All of you take on a portfolio of boards and advisory committee, so there are questions that are not just set for CSD; they are actually set for every directorate.

Ms Howson: I would welcome your advice on how, through your theme of leadership development, we might make sure there are opportunities for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to develop the skills they need to be effective board members—and older people as well. But in the pathway of aspiring to that leadership role, that is the sort of thing we would love to work with you on.

THE CHAIR: The other one was pretty much around reconciliation action plans. This may have been a question for Kathy earlier. Do all directorates have reconciliation action plans or does the whole of the service have a commitment to reconciliation? We know that has been on the agenda for some time, but sometimes some directorates do not have reconciliation action plans. We would like to encourage that they do and then make sure that they are getting to that point of having a culturally competent workforce. Are you aware whether all the directorates have RAPs?

Ms Howson: I think you are correct: not all directorates have reconciliation action plans. No doubt you will ask each agency as they appear.

THE CHAIR: Yes.

Ms Howson: I am pleased to report that we have just launched our third stretch RAP—reconciliation action plan—which we are committed to and very proud of being classified by Reconciliation Australia as having a stretch reconciliation action plan. That largely reflects the fact we are trying to drive our service delivery approach to be much more culturally proficient and through that achieve reconciliation.

We had the discussion with the previous elected body about the concept of a reconciliation commitment statement for whole of government. Again, I am happy to bring that back on the agenda with the new body if that is still a feasible way of approaching it. That is trying to take account of the fact the ACT government has agencies at different stages of maturity. I am a strong proponent for reconciliation action plans, and I would not like to see a commitment replace the need for those.


MR FOWLER: One of the important things it might do is complement the whole-of-government agreement. If we are going to work together as a whole of government, then the whole of government should put a reconciliation statement across—sorry, they are strong words I am using there.

Ms Howson: No, no; that is exactly what we are talking about.

MR FOWLER: The whole of government should be encouraged to do a whole-of-government reconciliation statement. Reconciliation action plans sit differently with different individuals within the community and also staff within the organisations.

THE CHAIR: At the head of the whole-of-government agreement there is a statement on reconciliation and we have added a bit to it.

Ms Howson: We may have accommodated that overarching authorisation through the agreement, but, again, I am happy to talk about whether you think that would be a valuable exercise. As I said earlier, I like to see the Community Services Directorate leading by example, and we are strong supporters and proponents of reconciliation action plans.

MS CHIVERS: This morning we raised the issue of the next close the gap report, and Kathy Leigh indicated that that responsibility sat better with CSD. At what stage will the elected body be consulted on the next close the gap report?

Ms Howson: I have to gather my thoughts about that.

Ms Sheehan: We would have expected to produce a report this year, but the data source is the overcoming Indigenous disadvantage report, and it was delayed. As the body would be aware, it has only just been released. Now that has been released, we will be in a position to produce the report next year.

THE CHAIR: Early next year?

Ms Sheehan: I will consult my notes. We are looking to release it in the middle of next year, so seven to eight months from now.

MR FOWLER: End of financial year?

Ms Sheehan: Yes.

MS CHIVERS: Would we be expecting some form of consultation?

Ms Sheehan: Absolutely, yes.

THE CHAIR: The last one we did was the collaboration with the minister on putting forward some issues. We are not there yet; we still have got a lot of work to do but we have done some work behind the scenes in terms of the whole-of-government agreement and our strategic directions as the mechanisms for moving us forward.

Ms Howson: My hesitation in answering the question was around that discussion we


had about the data being relevant to the ACT community, and that is what we need to talk more about. I know one of the issues we are still working through with the whole-of-government agreement is what do we report on and what is meaningful. I know you, Rod, particularly are interested in making sure that it is able to tell the community more about itself, not just about national averages.

THE CHAIR: Yes.

MR FOWLER: A direct picture, like you are saying, Natalie.

THE CHAIR: Of course, the expenditure report is not until next week. That is how we have used those sorts of reports to inform this process as well as setting our sights on something in the future that can demonstrate our working in collaboration with government but also to enable community to see that collaboration and the focus of that work then ask the questions about the outcomes. That is all great. We look forward to the opportunity to have those discussions.

There are some key headlines in the report about where the focus is and where there has not been a lot of traction and effort. If it was about incarceration rates, that might be a focus for us. If it was about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander engagement in development policy advice or whatever, we might focus on that. We might be closer to that than some other jurisdictions because we have this current arrangement.

Ms Howson: The subcommittee of strategic board met last week, and Maurice was representing you, Rod, at that meeting. We had a conversation about that report, and one of the observations was, for example, that we have dropped off in terms of our performance around school attendance in the ACT community. Maurice can comment, but I thought we had a very good discussion around that data.

For the first meeting of next year we should bring back the intention to produce the closing the gap report by midyear and what work that committee needs to do across the full plethora of data that is available, as well as the work we have already done on, as I said earlier, the ACT perspective and view on what is happening for our community and the measures that are relevant to us. I think you will get that support from the senior levels of the government to produce.

THE CHAIR: That would be great.

MR WALKER: My comments at the meeting were around the elected body’s vision of making sure we get data specific to our own community and, given that our population fluctuates and has risen since the last stats, what sort of impact that has on us and things like that.

THE CHAIR: Thank you very much for your time and for coming along.

The elected body suspended from 2.49 to 3.13 pm.


Environment and Planning DirectorateEkelund, Ms Dorte, Director-GeneralPonton, Mr Ben, Deputy Director-General, PlanningTomlinson, Ms Heather, Senior Manager, Nature Conservation PolicyMeyer, Mr John, Executive Director, Construction and Client ServicesGurnhill, Ms Anna, Acting Manager, Legislation and Policy Officer, Planning

and Heritage Branch

MR WALKER: Good afternoon. My name is Maurice Walker, for those of you who do not know me. I will introduce the elected body—Rod Little, Jo Donovan, Jo Chivers and Ross Fowler.

MR WALKER: Jo, Jo and Ross are new members of the elected body, elected last term. Thank you for being here. Is there anything you want to say to us by way of an opening statement? If not, we can go to some questions.

Ms Ekelund: One thing that I would like to say is that we are keen to pursue further opportunities with you guys on work that we do. We do a lot of work in heritage and with the natural environment, and there is an obvious fit. No doubt in the discussion today you will see a lot of the work that we do in that space.

There are some new areas that we would appreciate greater Indigenous involvement in. The government has just signed on to the creation of a catchment management coordination group, which will see us working with key entities like the National Capital Authority, which manages Lake Burley Griffin, and also with New South Wales and local government. So it is about having a regional connection. We would like to work with you guys to see how we can connect the Indigenous community to the whole issue of water as well as NRM in the broader sense. So I think there is an area of opportunity there.

In reading through the material that we prepared to brief ourselves about today, it has become evident that there is lots of activity happening that perhaps the executive does not have line of sight about. John, Ben, Bruce and I have discussed getting some sort of regular reporting, say quarterly reporting, to you guys, which would help the executive to have greater visibility about what we do as well. We really appreciate the regular meetings with Maurice, but maybe we can do some other more formalised stuff as well, which will help give visibility to the opportunities where we can work together more.

MR WALKER: Yes; that would be great. Managing the environment and some of the issues around particularly bringing the traditional owner group into that discussion helps us feed that information to the Ngunnawal Elders Council in particular. If we get quizzed by any other group from around the region, obviously we would have information that we can provide to them. So that would be great.

Ms Ekelund: Yes, and there are little things that happen in an organisation day to day. It might be about a development application or it might be about some work that is being done for new land development and we discover sites et cetera. I think it would be really useful to keep that information flowing through. So that would be

ATSIEB—03-12-14 57 Environment and Planning Directorate

great. We will in the first instance work with Maurice on how we might do that.

MR WALKER: Thanks for that. I will take the lead on the questions, and some of the other elected body members will add to those questions or some other questions might come up from your answers. In your annual report, page 13 states:

Through its work with the community, the Directorate delivered on-ground sustainable agriculture and environment outcomes and provided technical support and facilitation services. The Aboriginal Natural Resource Management Facilitator helped build awareness and capacity in Indigenous stakeholders and others in the ACT.

Can you expand on the awareness projects you offered to the community, and which stakeholders did you engage?

Ms Ekelund: I will ask Heather to run through some of the details, but this is one of the most important areas of Indigenous engagement for us, and where we actually also have Indigenous staff and very active programs. I will ask Heather to go through some of the activities that we have been engaged in.

Ms Tomlinson: I am senior manager of the nature conservation policy area in the directorate, but also within my area of responsibilities are the NRM programs. One of the key projects of interest to you is the Aboriginal NRM facilitator project. That is funded by the commonwealth but it is part of our regional delivery program.

I will give a couple of examples of some of those awareness things. In 2013-14 we commenced delivery of a 12-month Aboriginal land management course for Indigenous detainees at the Alexander Maconochie Centre. Anecdotal evidence to date is that that is going very well, but we will do a formal review and evaluation.

There was the delivery of an Aboriginal heritage workshop and identifying and protecting Aboriginal cultural heritage in the field. That involved 48 ACT government staff and Parkcare and Landcare volunteers, so it was really important. A lot of our work bridges between natural resource management and the heritage. There are really strong linkages, and I think that is really good for the directorate.

We also had cultural bush regeneration activities with women’s and men’s groups, and that had a strong health element to it. A very successful reconciliation planning day was held on 30 May 2014 at Yarramundi Reach. We had 120 Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal participants and there were three workshops. One was weaving, one was cultural knowledge and one was planting. The level of enthusiasm was fantastic. The Governor-General also attended, so it was really good.

MR WALKER: Yes, I was at that one.

Ms Tomlinson: You were?

MR WALKER: Planting some bushes, yes.


Ms Tomlinson: There was a lot of energy there. The WhISPers Indigenous sports program links in with the Aboriginal-managed sporting club in the ACT. We had a cultural day, learning about cultural protocols, cultural landscape and bush tucker. I think it was a really good way to engage the youth more broadly.

Some other things we have done include our Aboriginal facilitators feeding into some of our policy documents, such as the ACT water resources plan, which is under development—trying to bring in Indigenous knowledge there. We had extensive consultation on the Ngunnawal plant use book that was released not long ago. So they are some of the things we have been doing.

MR WALKER: You mentioned a few people there, but can you run through those stakeholders again? One of our organisations, the Ngunnawal Elders Council, obviously is a prominent organisation around that stuff., ‘ Have they been included’?

Ms Tomlinson: There are two things. One is the stakeholders that are involved in participation, whether that is the detainees at the Maconochie or whether it is our Landcare and Parkcare groups. But then there are our processes for consultation. We have an NRM council that guides us specifically on the investments from commonwealth funding, and we have an Indigenous representative on that council specifically to advise us. We also consult with UNEC as appropriate. Our Aboriginal facilitator has a lot of networks and informal consultations with Ngunnawal people as well as the broader Aboriginal community.

MR WALKER: I will refer to some of the stuff in your annual report. On pages 13 and 49 you mention the Aboriginal transport study. What is the status of this project?

Ms Ekelund: Maurice, you are quite familiar with this project too. The project from our perspective was formally completed in 2012. The study was provided to the then Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development, Minister Corbell, and the then Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, who was Dr Bourke. So that was in 2012. The study was used to inform the operation of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander bus that operates out of Territory and Municipal Services. The bus can still be booked; hopefully, the group is quite familiar with it.

From our perspective it was a piece of work that really informed that service. We are not proposing to take that further but we will be interested in how it is operating and whether it is serving its purposes and the objectives of the study. I am happy to receive feedback from you guys about it.

MR WALKER: Is the general transport area still in your directorate?

Ms Ekelund: Yes, it is.

MR WALKER: Yes. Kristin?

Ms Ekelund: Yes, Kristin Blume.

MR WALKER: There was an additional question that I have put in there. There was a community transport study that was going to be undertaken. Is that what you were


referring to?

Ms Ekelund: I think it was all rolled in. I might defer to Ben to give a bit more detail on it. A lot of that was done before I arrived, so my corporate knowledge of it is not particularly great.

Mr Ponton: Likewise, when I took over responsibility for transport, that work was well underway, but my understanding is that it has rolled into that piece of work, which, as Ms Ekelund said, was then used to inform the delivery of the service that is run through TAMS.

MR WALKER: The way it was shaping up, it looked like it was going to be a massive piece of work around community transport. We heard from a number of our clients, and even some of the people sitting here this morning, around some of the issues that are high and that were identified when we were doing the project, when I was over with your directorate, regarding some of the priorities around older people and transport and things like that. Did we receive that report?

Ms Ekelund: I understand you will be talking to TAMS tomorrow.

MR WALKER: We will be, yes.

Ms Ekelund: They might be able to enlighten you a bit more about how that is all going.

MR WALKER: They might be able to. They will with respect to the Aboriginal transport bus, but what about the general transport study, the community transport study that was completed?

Mr Ponton: As a separate piece of work?

MR WALKER: Yes, separate. I was wondering if Aboriginal people were included in that.

Ms Ekelund: I thought it was all rolled in together.

Mr Ponton: That was my understanding but we can confirm that for you.

MR WALKER: Is it possible to provide us with a copy of that report so that we can have a look at the recommendations around Aboriginal transport? Notwithstanding that there was already a project with specific funding for that bus, it is about transport in general and having those other six entities, including Aboriginal people, in their business.

Ms Ekelund: Sure. We will follow up on that, Maurice.

MR WALKER: Question No 3: regarding the solar farms, is there a strategy or are you considering employing local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, particularly from the traditional custodian group, the Ngunnawal people?


Ms Ekelund: With the solar farms, what the ACT government does is offer a feed-in tariff, which is basically the difference between the wholesale price that renewable companies earn from selling their electricity—and because renewable energy at this point in time is still a little bit more expensive to produce than energy based on fossil fuels, there is a need to give them a little bit of top-up money to make it worth them investing—so what the territory has done is to run a competitive process to say to the renewable energy industry, “To supply renewable energy that we can buy, how much money would you need to make it worth your while?” So it is really run by the private sector and we have just presented the top-up money.

There is a bit of work in terms of solar farms in actually assembling the solar plants, but a lot of the work is by electricians and so forth. Then during the operational life of the solar farms there are just a couple of technicians that keep it going. So there may have been opportunities through the construction process for people to be involved.

We are not aware of the Royalla one having any specific Indigenous emphasis. We are aware that there is one solar farm, which is not up and running yet, in Mugga Lane. We are aware that they have got an interest to work with communities, so that could be an opportunity to work with Indigenous communities too. The company is called Zhenfa. It is a Chinese company and it is a 13-megawatt solar farm, which is about two-thirds of the size of the one at Royalla, so it is not insignificant. It is quite big and the people have got quite a strong relationship with the Tuggeranong Community Council and want to have some sort of open display so that people can learn about renewables et cetera. Maybe there is an opportunity for them to get some understanding of the connection to country there as well, so it might be something that is worth exploring with Zhenfa.

THE CHAIR: I guess their focus is on employing, employment, rather than informing. Is there a procurement process first for people to develop or––

Ms Ekelund: There has not been to date. It certainly has not been in the policy framework.

THE CHAIR: So then the engagement process: is there a requirement to have Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, either skilled or unskilled, at this stage? You particularly mentioned electricians. We have got electricians out there as well. Will those opportunities be afforded to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tradespeople in town that may be able to put forward their interest?

Ms Ekelund: From my understanding, there have not been any specific selective requirements to require either local people or Indigenous people to be involved at this point in time. It has just been the private sector. They have done their contracting with whoever. Certainly in Royalla they used a company called ACCIONA, which is a company that has been involved in a lot of the wind farms in the district, and I think they have just used their contractors. But I could not tell you any details about the nature of the people who have been contracted.

THE CHAIR: Sorry, to explore this a little bit further, there is an identification of a farm that is going to happen and there has to be some sort of consultation and engagement with the government; is that correct?


Ms Ekelund: The only consultation really that has to happen is with the general community, as part of the development application. When we have offered these feed-in tariffs it has been up to the proponents, who are private companies, to find the land. What they have done is negotiate with farmers and various landowners to see if they can secure a lease or purchase the land. Then, if they have come up with a low price that we think is value for the territory, it is up to the proponent to lodge a development application and go through the public consultation process and respond to all the technical requirements.

You would be aware of the Uriarra solar farm, for example. It is still going through the process of assessment because of community––

THE CHAIR: So where do they submit these things?

Ms Ekelund: Just as a development application, to us. It is a normal development application and then it goes out for public consultation to the general community, like all other development applications.

THE CHAIR: My question goes back to that issue about employment. Is there a question raised with these proponents?

Ms Ekelund: There is not.

THE CHAIR: Can there be?

Ms Ekelund: At the moment it is not incorporated in the process, but it is certainly something we could take back to the government.

THE CHAIR: We are encouraging you to put it in there, because the question is about employment—not so much the process or the whole project; the ideas, by looking for opportunities. If an applicant or a developer wishes to develop a solar farm in the ACT there is a question about how, one, you engage with the first peoples around the area and, two, what employment opportunities there will be. Those are just two fundamental questions we are asking you to consider in your process.

Ms Ekelund: We can pass that back through to the Minister for the Environment about the process; that is for sure. Every time we do an auction process, we actually do review the processes that we have used. So, for example, with the wind auction that has been going on, 20 per cent of the criteria are based on community consultation and to what extent the community accepts and supports the wind farms. So we can certainly take that back to Minister Corbell to see whether, in reviewing the processes, an element of Indigenous employment should be incorporated.

MR WALKER: That would be great. It is important that we explore all options around any opportunity for employment for our peoples.

Talking about employment, I got an opportunity to look at the Oaks Estate master plan and to make some comments about that. They talked about redesigning the entrance and the exit to Oaks Estate. What is the status of this project? One of the


questions that I put in my feedback was around asking the Ngunnawal Elders Council for a narrative around the significance of Oaks Estate, in the traditional sense and former to occupation, and if anyone had been approached to provide a narrative for that site. My thinking, when they said that they were looking at designing an entrance or an exit from Oaks Estate, was that there could be an opportunity for an artist or one of our elders to provide something to that part of the country.

Ms Ekelund: Maurice, I think another area of interest is the river interface and the open space system along the river.

MR WALKER: Yes.

Ms Ekelund: We have been finalising the master plan for the government’s consideration. It is just about completed and the government will determine when it gets released. We did organise for the Aboriginal cultural heritage assessment to be undertaken for the master plan, and that included a site meeting and walk with RAOs to understand the significance of the area and, as I said, in particular, the river corridor and the river crossing.

The Buru Ngunnawal Aboriginal Corporation, King Browns Tribal Group, Little Gudgenby River Tribal Council and the Coorong Clan have all participated in the consultation with regard to the management and the potential impacts to Aboriginal cultural heritage values in there. So we feel pretty confident that when you see the master plan those Indigenous consultations will come through.

MR WALKER: You have just sort of answered one of the other questions later on about representative Aboriginal organisations. Did you just mention four of them?

Ms Ekelund: I did, yes.

MR WALKER: Thank you for that. In a report you talked about representative Aboriginal organisations, and one of the questions I had was whether you could tell me who they were, and you have just told me. And the next question, then, is that previously you have asked ATSIEB for some advice. Some of these questions, I guess, are mainly aimed for me, and that is aimed at the Ngunnawal Elders Council. I know that you guys have been consulting a lot with the registered organisations you just mentioned, and my question is: do you have an advisory group from the Ngunnawal people?

Some of the people you have on those groups are Ngunnawal, but they are registered under other organisations. From our point of view, the United Ngunnawal Elders Council is the peak organisation for that advice. One of the things that I have learnt over the last couple of days is that those four organisations are registered organisations and the United Ngunnawal Elders Council is not.

Ms Ekelund: Yes.

MR WALKER: They have heard that advice and I think they may be in the process of getting registered so that they can be sought after by you guys to provide that kind of information. My question was: do you have an advisory group from the Ngunnawal


people to seek advice and input on heritage, culture and environment issues? If not, do you intend to establish one?

Ms Ekelund: It is a little bit different between natural resource management and heritage. I might ask both Heather and Anna to say a few words. Certainly we and our ministers recognise the elders council as the peak group, but then some of our legislation, in particular the heritage legislation, requires a certain type of consultation with the representative organisations that are registered. I might ask Heather in the first instance to say a few words in response.

Ms Tomlinson: I briefly touched on this before, but for our commonwealth natural resource management programs we have established the ACT NRM council, and its charter is available on the website, under ACT NRM council. But there is a specific requirement for the composition of members to provide experience, skills and knowledge, including Indigenous land management and cultural awareness. So they are some of the criteria.

A Ngunnawal man, Tyrone Bell, is a member of the NRM council and he is very engaged and is very supportive. In terms of our NRM programs, Tyrone is fantastic. We have actually had meetings where we have discussed specifically NRM Aboriginal engagement. But we are willing to explore other opportunities and suggestions.

A number of other regional bodies across Australia have an Aboriginal reference group. Some of them have problems like distance and things that we do not have. So we have more relied on the NRM council with an Aboriginal representative and then relied more on one-on-one or discussions and networking and things like that. But we are open to consider other options and discuss that further with Tyrone and our Aboriginal NRM facilitator.

Ms Ekelund: Anna, do you want to add anything? Anna manages Heritage ACT.

Ms Gurnhill: Under the Heritage Act 2004 the minister can declare representative Aboriginal organisations and, as Dorte has already alluded to, we have four representative Aboriginal organisations that have been declared. There are a number of provisions in the legislation that require consultation to occur at certain different points between the Heritage Council and the representative Aboriginal organisations.

What often occurs is that our Aboriginal liaison officer will undertake that consultation on behalf of the council, and some of the matters that require consultation with the RAOs are around registration of Aboriginal places and objects, the declaration of restricted information by the Heritage Council around Aboriginal sites and also the declaration of repositories for Aboriginal artefacts. We also have an Aboriginal member on the Heritage Council and, even though at the moment she is not a Ngunnawal person, there is an expectation that that consultation will occur through that representative, that avenue, as well.

In recent years we have consulted more widely beyond the purely statutory requirements of consulting with RAOs, particularly in regard to things like legislative amendments which have recently occurred to the Heritage Act, in some of those


circumstances with UNEC and the elected body as well.

MS DONOVAN: I just make the point, too, that I suppose what Maurice is alluding to is, apart from RAOs and the heritage unit, it is more the natural resource management and any other areas within the directorate that need to engage with the United Ngunnawal Elders Council, who are the recognised Indigenous group for this country that Stanhope announced some years ago. So, in our realm of thinking, that is who represents the Ngunnawal people in the ACT. So I suppose we are asking: is there enough consultation happening with the United Ngunnawal Elders Council to date?

Ms Ekelund: There is probably always an opportunity for more, and I think that is one of the things that I alluded to at the beginning. There are greater opportunities and I think we also need to have greater visibility of the work we are already doing. There is quite a bit of work. I am happy to say that there is scope for more and I am happy to do more.

MS DONOVAN: But it is more that they are the recognised ACT government body.

Ms Ekelund: Yes, they are—absolutely.

THE CHAIR: I just want to pick up on and add to Jo’s comments there. The recognition of the Ngunnawal peoples is the government’s policy; is that correct?

Ms Ekelund: That is right.

THE CHAIR: And at the moment it is not specifically what you are taking on board to implement, to give you guidance?

Ms Ekelund: No, that is not true. We talked about—

THE CHAIR: I just wanted to clarify it. I am not saying whether it is true or not.

Ms Ekelund: We totally recognise the elders council as the peak group that we have the main consultation connections with for the general work that we do. Then we have the heritage legislation, which is quite specific about the organisations that we must consult with. But, as Anna said, we do consult beyond those.

THE CHAIR: So to get to the point that Anna has raised about the provisions to declare representatives, is that where you use that provision to engage with the United Ngunnawal Elders Council or others?

Ms Gurnhill: It potentially could be. In the past, as I think you have already noted, the elders council has not been eligible for recognition as a representative Aboriginal organisation because of the way it is constituted. My understanding is that the representative organisations have to be registered as an entity, as a body. I think there has been some concern in the past that the elders council, as the peak organisation, is perhaps not best placed to be considered a representative Aboriginal organisation, given the particular roles and functions under the act. If there was to be a new application, that would be reconsidered.


THE CHAIR: I think where I am getting to is that you have not provisioned to consult or for the minister to declare representative voice. You have this policy already in the government. They may not be compliant with the heritage legislation about a particular organisation, but we are talking about a small jurisdiction. The elders council represents Ngunnawal peoples within this jurisdiction, and they should be given some kind of priority preference here.

The other thing is on the return to country stuff. You are saying that there is an informal practice so you have the flexibility under the Heritage Act to engage people. What we are suggesting to you is that you use that provision to engage more with the united elders council.

Ms Ekelund: I am happy to take that on board as a practice for it to become normal. Maybe we need to talk about it becoming normalised in a procedure that we have, even if it is not legislatively sorted yet. There is nothing to prevent us from consulting.

THE CHAIR: What I want to say is that the provision is still there anyway—to declare representatives. Is that correct or not? Did I read you wrongly?

Ms Gurnhill: No, you are right. The provision is always there, but the minister can declare representative Aboriginal organisations. To date, he has declared those four.

THE CHAIR: You have mentioned representatives, not organisations.

Ms Gurnhill: RAOs, representative Aboriginal organisations.

THE CHAIR: No. You said the minister can declare representatives.

Ms Gurnhill: No. He can declare representative Aboriginal organisations and he can appoint an Aboriginal member to the Heritage Council—a representative of the Aboriginal community.

MR WALKER: It is only because they have not made an application? They have not made an application, they are not registered and that is why they have not been considered—yes?

Ms Ekelund: Correct. As standard practice, but we can make it standard practice even if they are not registered, I think.

THE CHAIR: As an organisation, yes.

Ms Ekelund: Yes.

THE CHAIR: Yes, but my point is about representation. The minister can declare a representative—not necessarily an organisation. That is a flexibility.

Ms Ekelund: A representative is in relation to the Heritage Council. That is a member of the council, which is a different thing from the organisations that we consult on.


THE CHAIR: Yes; I get that. My point is that you have got a policy there that recognises the united Ngunnawal elders.

Ms Ekelund: Yes, we do, yes. So you are saying that the—

THE CHAIR: And you accommodate that—

Ms Ekelund: I think what I am understanding you are saying is that there seems to be a mismatch between the government’s policy of recognising the elders council as the peak group that should always be consulted and the heritage framework where four specific groups have been recognised but the council is not one of them.

THE CHAIR: Yes.

Ms Ekelund: So we need to address that mismatch.

MR WALKER: For example, we acknowledged the Ngunnawal people and the lands we meet on today, but we do not acknowledge the corporations that you sought advice from for heritage and cultural. They may have individuals that come from Ngunnawal country but are outside the Ngunnawal. The ACT government as well as the elected body formally recognise the Ngunnawal elders council as the peak body.

Ms Ekelund: We understand that.

MR WALKER: So that is it. Let us move to the next question. Thanks for that, guys; I really appreciate your patience.

The Yurung Dhaura employment program, by all reports, has been a successful project for the directorate, winning a number of awards regarding caring for country. Congratulations. What is the status of the trainees that completed the project? Have these trainees been retained? If not, is the directorate investing in this project in the future? If not, why?

Ms Ekelund: I will hand over the details to Heather, but we saw that program as incredibly successful, not only while it was running and working with those individuals, but because it has been an important pathway to them securing other work and other activities. Heather will run through that. We would be keen to pursue other opportunities to do something similar, because it was very successful.

Ms Tomlinson: Yes, it was a successful project. It was conducted between 2011 and 2013. All six members who went through the program are currently in paid employment or attending university. I can give you some details on individuals.

One member won a three-year contract as an Indigenous restoration officer with Greening Australia, which will finish in 2016. That was possible through our successfully getting a biodiversity fund grant through the commonwealth; it has been an important part of our Aboriginal NRM network that has been established. Another member won a position with the Aboriginal Legal Service and is now working for ACT Legal Aid. One member won a series of land management contracts with Territory and Municipal Services; he has recently left that but has continued


involvement in cultural heritage and NRM businesses within his family. Another member won a position as a teacher’s aide with a Queanbeyan school and then moved to a Medicare Local, working on community development projects. So it is quite diverse. Another member has returned to university studies in cultural heritage and land management, and won a student position with the Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. I think she will be a future leader. Another member is now working on landscaping.

A really important part of the project was skills development and the training recognition. Three of the members—some were in it for a shorter period, but three members were in it for most of the two years—got conservation and land management certificate IIIs, which is high recognition, getting some qualifications.

None of the people have been retained within EPD, because they have been successful in getting other positions. And that was really the purpose of the program—to skill team members up so they are competitive to apply for positions in NRM, if that is where they wanted to be, or their chosen field. It is interesting to me that they actually went through the NRM, and that was the focus of the training, but they have gone into a diverse range of fields.

This project was possible through funding provided by the commonwealth under the caring for our country program. That avenue is no longer there; the commonwealth have changed their program arrangements. But we are keeping an eye out. Under the Australian government’s national land care program, they have things like green army coming out. We are looking at those to see if there are opportunities. The programs change, but the need is there.

I think we are in a better position to see those opportunities, whether they are employed within government initially or whether they are employed by some of our project partners, whether it is Greening Australia or some of our catchment groups. We are in discussions, looking at what the green army program provides and seeing what these opportunities are. It was successful, and it was the only project that has ever received a national land care award; it got high-level recognition.

MR WALKER: Any other questions, members? No. Thank you for that. As I said, for people who are watching your directorate in relation to landcare, you see this group of people working and then all of a sudden there is no group of people. Where are they? We talk about traineeships and things like that in the public service, and there are no jobs at the end. But thanks for that explanation.

Earlier you mentioned the review that you are going to be taking of the land management course, in partnership with Greening Australia. The elected body were visiting the AMC when the boys were out there with the detainees. We got a pretty good vibe that they were really enjoying what they were doing. I do not know whether this is a question for when you go about reviewing it, but what is the response from detainees and will the program continue? If so, what support will be sought?

Ms Ekelund: We are continuing into 2015, and we will be doing that evaluation. To date we have been really pleased with the level of interest, engagement and enthusiasm. I am seeing it as a really positive thing, and hopefully we can start to look


at opportunities beyond the Maconochie centre. But, yes, there has been engagement with women and men; they are quite different groups and they have different interests, but it has been very good.

MR WALKER: Is there a reason why the promotion of your directorate’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander programs has declined?

Ms Ekelund: This is a worrying perception if you believe it has declined. There is that very high profile one that we have just been talking about, where all six folk got jobs. But there is a whole heap of other stuff that has been happening, principally in natural resource management but also in heritage. We do not believe there is a decline in our activity in terms of working with Indigenous communities or the level of focus we have on making sure we address Indigenous issues.

We have already mentioned the plant use book released in October, which is a great little publication. I am sure you have probably all got copies of it. We can run through a whole heap of other stuff we are doing. I am concerned that that is the perception, and that is another good reason why we should be doing something like quarterly reporting on the level of activity from our directorate and our engagement, so that there is greater visibility. I think it is human nature that, if you do not know it is happening, you are assuming it is not. If we can improve that reporting and communications to you guys, and possibly to the elders council as well, that might be useful.

MR WALKER: The last time we did hearings we went out to community to bring in questions and we did not have any questions last time. But this time we have had a number of questions, and one of the community members who takes notice of what you are doing asked that question. That would be great if you could put that in place.

MS CHIVERS: It is not necessarily that the programs have declined but maybe the promotion. We are not saying that the programs have declined; it is just the promotion so that people in the community are aware of what those programs are and what they are doing.

Ms Ekelund: That is useful feedback. What we will do after today is regroup and think about how we up the ante in this area.

THE CHAIR: If you are doing a great job, you do not want to stop telling people.

Ms Ekelund: No. Obviously we are quite modest.

THE CHAIR: You want to attract interest in the programs you deliver, with marketing and promotion activities.

MR WALKER: In your annual reports in 2012-13 and 2013-14 you state that four policies would be submitted to the ACT Heritage Council for adoption into future council policy regarding the conduct of cultural heritage reporting, reparation of Aboriginal artefacts, consultation on the RAOs, and methodical requirement for archaeological investigations in the ACT. Have these four policies been adopted? If not, why, and can you elaborate on the significance of these policies?


Ms Ekelund: The Heritage Council has engaged four heritage consultants to prepare background reports for those four areas of policy. I will ask Anna to go through the four areas: consulting with RAOs, return to country so that we deal with repatriation of artefacts well, the cultural heritage reporting requirements, and how we undertake subsurface testing and excavations in the ACT. Anna will give a little bit more detail on each of those.

Ms Gurnhill: As Dorte said, we have engaged separate consultants for each of those different background studies, so they are at various stages. Only one of those has to date been finalised by the consultant. All of the consultants preparing each of those reports has engaged with the RAOs to develop those background studies. They have all been submitted to the Heritage Council in draft format and the council is in the process of considering each of those at the moment.

Ms Ekelund: It raises the issue of, while it is at the draft stage, whether we should run it past the elders council as well.

Ms Gurnhill: Yes, we could certainly do that. We are anticipating that, once all of the background studies are finalised, the council will prepare some further work to finalise each of those documents as they see appropriate. That process will involve further consultation with RAOs, and we will also make sure to involve further consultation with the elders council as part of that process.

The need for the four policies has come about because we are aware that, with a lot of the development that happens on greenfield and brownfield sites regarding archaeological works and Aboriginal sites, there is a range of different approaches and ways that those works are undertaken. There is no consistent approach across different developers and proponents and different archaeological consultants. We are trying to introduce a level of consistency around the way each of those different aspects occurs—the consultation, the reporting requirements, the methodology of undertaking any archaeology and the return to country policies.

MR WALKER: They are still in the pipeline then, I guess.

Ms Gurnhill: They are, yes.

THE CHAIR: What is the time line for that?

Ms Gurnhill: The one tracking furthest along the pipeline at the moment is the policy around reporting requirements. The background study of it has been finalised by the consultant. We are hoping that the council will be in a position to provide in-principle support for what the draft policy might look like in early 2015, and it would be at that stage that we would go out for further consultation before it is finalised.

THE CHAIR: What is the time target for the other reports?

Ms Gurnhill: Good question. We would hope to have those finalised by the consultants in early 2015. We would hope for the reports to be fully finalised through the council and further consultation process by the end of 2015.


MR WALKER: We understand Ms Sharon Payne is a member of the ACT Heritage Council and Aboriginal heritage task force. Is Ms Payne the only Aboriginal person representing the ACT region? Are there any plans to increase Aboriginal membership of these structures, and what will that process entail? We have talked to a number of directorates already about a register of people that might be interested in representing on some of your groups. Is that a possibility as well?

Ms Ekelund: We have in the past called for expressions of interest—who may want to be members—and I have to say we have not been knocked over in the rush. If there was a sort of broader register of people who are interested in contributing to boards and things like that, that would be really useful, because then we could go there as well as doing an expression of interest process.

MR WALKER: I think the CSD have sort of taken that on through the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander unit. Maybe they can share that one when it eventuates.

Ms Ekelund: Yes.

MR WALKER: But back to Ms Payne and her lone ranger title.

Ms Ekelund: She is, unless there is somebody on the council who has not declared that they are of Indigenous background. But, yes, that legislation requires that there is at least one person, and Sharon is the representative at the moment.

MR WALKER: All right. So there is no space on it, I guess, to increase it.

Ms Ekelund: As you alluded to, Indigenous people have got lots of different skill sets, so if somebody put up their hand to be the architecture representative or the “this and that” representative, there is a possibility that there could be more Indigenous people on there. There is certainly nothing that precludes it.

THE CHAIR: We might come back to that other point we raised about promotion and so on. The more people are informed about the roles and functions and the activities of the directorate, they might be interested, yes.

Ms Ekelund: That is an absolutely important point. If we can be seen as an employer of choice for Indigenous people, that would be a good thing, for sure.

THE CHAIR: Yes.

MR WALKER: My second-last question: in your annual report you report that the ACT heritage unit, in conjunction with the ACT Heritage Council, has facilitated numerous heritage projects, including coordinating and producing Aboriginal heritage interpretive sites throughout the ACT to recognise and promote the history of Aboriginal occupation and culture in the ACT. Is there a strategy in place to protect sacred artefacts and sites in the ACT Heritage Act? If yes, there is a scarred tree in the outward bound leisure activity area. Why has the restoration and preservation of this tree not been addressed?


Ms Ekelund: It is protected. That is my understanding. Anna can give more about this. We would also encourage the crew to apply for a heritage grant to give it stronger protection. Anna, do you want to elaborate on that?

Ms Gurnhill: Yes. Under the Heritage Act 2004 all Aboriginal places, objects and sites in the ACT are protected. The way that they are protected is effectively through offence provisions in the legislation so that, if there is any damage or harm to any of those sites, there are offence provisions that apply. In addition to all Aboriginal places and objects being protected through those provisions, particularly significant Aboriginal places and objects can be registered on the ACT heritage register.

With regard to the particular scarred tree at the outward bound leisure activity, the ACT heritage grants program back in 2010 provided funding of $4,000 to commission a condition assessment for that particular tree. The report has been submitted to ACT heritage. One of the recommendations of the report is that a further conservation management plan be prepared and that the tree be removed from its current location for better conservation protection outcomes in the long term, possibly relocated into Namadgi national park and potentially around the visitor centre as a bit of a display, interpretation, promotion opportunity.

We are, unfortunately, not in a position to undertake those works ourselves because of the particular roles and responsibilities that we have. But we would encourage anybody in the community to apply for further grant funding to commission a conservation management plan and/or, following on from that, potentially look at funding arrangements to help relocate that particular scarred tree where it can be better cared for into the future.

MS DONOVAN: Can I make a comment on that? I am familiar with that, as you would be aware. My concern is that it is one of the most significant artefacts that I have ever seen in the ACT. It is sitting there. You talked about 2010 and we are in 2014 and that is still sitting there. It is being weathered. It will come to a point where it will not be able to be lifted; it will not be able to be removed; it will just disintegrate. I think what should happen, and I would advise, is that somehow within the Heritage Council or within the directorate they protect it, they cover it, they do something to kind of enhance the life of that tree. I know that you suggest that somebody go out and get a grant and remove it and all that, and that would be fantastic—we tried to do that way back in the day—but can we just protect it for now?

Ms Gurnhill: We can certainly talk to the current land managers and encourage them to do that.

THE CHAIR: Not knowing much about this one, but I would suspect that not just the tree itself but the whole site is of significance. Would that be a fair assumption?

MS DONOVAN: It was actually removed from down a way and then brought there.

MR FOWLER: It has actually been moved from its original location?

MS DONOVAN: It was removed from the river and then brought back up. When they were doing a whole heap of development down there, they removed it because


they saw the significance of it and put it up in that driveway—

THE CHAIR: So the significant site might be down by the river?

MR FOWLER: Yes.

MR WALKER: Then move it back to the river, to its original place.

MS DONOVAN: It needs to be covered; it is weathered.

Ms Ekelund: Yes. Of course, as you appreciate, often the tension is about whether to leave things in situ, where somebody could come along and damage or whatever, or move and protect.

On the matter of the heritage grants, I guess this gets back to Rod’s view about promoting the work that we do and the opportunities there are. I would like to mention that, of 19 projects that we funded in 2014 from the heritage grants, 10—so in excess of half—of the heritage grants had some sort of Indigenous focus. Certainly parts of the community have worked out that this is a really good opportunity to be able to do restoration works but also to communicate the merit of a lot of the Indigenous heritage here. Again, maybe there is an opportunity for us to up that and promote it. Likewise, we do have environment grants. Obviously there is a strong relationship between the Indigenous community, the land, and restoration and protection of the land. So that is probably an area we can promote more as well.

MR WALKER: Thank you.

MR FOWLER: This may be an observation more than a question. Anna, you talk about the restrictions. I fully note those restrictions through legislation for a group to particularly take on the scarred tree and look after its removal, restoration and preservation.

What about a partnership with one of the galleries here? They have these bodies in place. They have repatriation programs in place. I know the museum does, as I used to work on the international repatriation program for the federal government. I am fully aware that they have those types of resources available. I am wondering whether you have considered perhaps a partnership with them where we could have that tree put into the gallery and protected, because then it would be temporised and stored in an environment that would be able to keep its longevity for the next seven generations to see this scarred tree.

I think that is what we are trying to get at: the importance. I know that to some people it is just a tree, but to Aboriginal people a scarred tree has many different meanings to the people and definitely has a meaning to the Ngunnawal people. In ensuring that those types of objects are made available, it is not only that the Ngunnawal young ones have not even seen it; this is something that they can take forward as part of their cultural knowledge and history of the ACT and surrounding regions before the ACT became a territory and all of that. As I said, it is not necessarily a question; it is more of an observation—maybe a suggestion—that, instead of waiting for a group to take action, perhaps we could have a proactive partnership arrangement. That will


probably go on to Maurice’s next question.

MR WALKER: The question coming out of that is: is there possibly an approach that you could take towards the museum about the partnership?

Ms Gurnhill: Potentially, yes. In the first instance I think we would need to speak with the Outward Bound leisure activity centre. We would probably encourage them to try and take the lead on the project. We would certainly be very keen to be involved in that, and partnership arrangements are always worth exploring.

Ms Ekelund: Thanks for the suggestion.

MR WALKER: Thank you. The last question—we briefly talked outside the committee room—can you provide an update on your RAP?

Ms Ekelund: Yes. This might be an opportunity for John to say something.

Mr Meyer: Yes, I have been listening with interest. It is time for me to have a conversation. As part of my responsibilities, I have a championship role in relation to the RAP. We are very nearly at the point of finalisation. We have been liaising with Reconciliation Australia. They have provided some commentary back on our plan, and that is due to be finalised, we believe, just before Christmas; so I think we are getting to the final stages of the plan itself.

What we have tried to do with the plan itself is to look at two things: listen to the conversation around promotion and opportunities. As Dorte was saying, there is a really good opportunity within our own directorate, much less with other directorates as well, to inform and educate our executives and managers about traditions and country.

A couple of the members of the action plan group are starting to look at actually doing things like bus trips out to sites so that we do get a better appreciation and understand the cultural heritage that we are talking about. I think that it is fundamentally important not to lose sight of that.

The other important element, and we have been talking about employment opportunities, is to start to work more closely with Chief Minister’s and with CSD in relation to employment opportunities, structure, support networks. Some of the traineeships we have just talked about are really great opportunities. That worked well and we have learned some lessons from those.

Others that we have tried have not been so successful, including some of the office-based work, which has not been particularly successful. We want to look at those opportunities and how better to provide the support structure. The education information and the employment opportunities are the key focuses of our plan.

MR WALKER: Thank you very much.

MR FOWLER: What about engagement, though? That seems to need a focus within your reconciliation action plan also.


Mr Meyer: Yes.

MR FOWLER: When you look at staff development, so opportunities—

Mr Meyer: Sure.

MR FOWLER: In that you are talking more about your alignment and relationship with CSD. Have you thought about also bringing in experienced people in middle management and senior management? There are a lot of directorates, not just yours, focused on entry level.

Mr Meyer: Yes.

MR FOWLER: There are skilled Aboriginal people out there. For example, I have three degrees. So there are skilled people out there that can have the opportunity to take on senior management, not just entry level traineeship.

Mr Meyer: Yes, that is a fair point. The actual wording is around employment opportunities within our directorate and other directorates and that cross-conversation—to take a broader approach. I certainly mentioned traineeships as being a great part of what we do. But you are right: we need to look at the higher levels.

MR FOWLER: And also retention. Yes, it is great to have six opportunities, but not one retained. I think it is fantastic because you are offering one end of it—the training and development—for an individual to gain the skill to move on somewhere else. That is fantastic. But would you not like to retain that?

Ms Ekelund: Yes.

MR FOWLER: After you do the development, would you not love to retain that development? That is a money investment.

Ms Ekelund: Yes. There are a few people that have not left yet that we really want to keep hold of too.

MR FOWLER: You do not want to waste that investment. We talk about spending money wisely.

Mr Meyer: Yes.

THE CHAIR: I want to add to that: offering placements to build that capacity of those individuals on a rotational basis or something like that. It is an opportunity for somebody to come and experience what your directorate does.

Mr Meyer: Yes.

MR WALKER: Some closing remarks from me: I look forward to working closely with you guys as the portfolio holder on the elected body. Thank you very much for coming along today and sharing your stuff with us. We look forward to building a


better relationship with you guys. Is there anything you want to add?

Ms Ekelund: Yes. First of all, we appreciate the opportunity. What I would be keen to do after today is, for the first report to you, to maybe wrap up some of the material that we would like to communicate to you that we did not have the opportunity to discuss today. That would be as a first report, then obviously we can explore other opportunities that we can work closely on with you, the elders councils and other organisations.

THE CHAIR: Just before you go, we might send through some other questions that we have not quite finished. We might send them after the hearings.

Ms Ekelund: Sure, yes; no problem.

THE CHAIR: Thank you very much.

The elected body adjourned at 4.21 pm.


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