Labor has announced a new $115 million plan to tackle Indigenous health.
The package aims to reduce the number of Indigenous children dying of suicide and rheumatic heart disease, along with preventing other diseases affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
The plan will give the Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations a primary role in delivering culturally appropriate and regionally specific primary healthcare services, and will review their funding agreement with the Commonwealth.
Senator Patrick Dodson says Labor will ensure Indigenous Australians have access to the same quality of services as their non-indigneous counterparts.
[Senator Patrick Dodson: "For too long this has gone on. For too long we have been asked to get the second best. To cop something less than everyone else in this country."]
The coalition is pledging an additional $8 million in capped grants to help upgrade driver-reviver stations across the country.
The funding will go towards improving amenities at the 175 existing sites and supporting the establishment of new sites.
Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack is urging drivers to take care on the roads over the Easter long weekend.
He says stopping at driver-reviver stations can mean the difference between life or death.
[Deputy PM Michael McCormack: “Each and every month we lose 100 people on Australian roads, and that's 100 people we don't need to lose. Of course we're working towards zero road fatalities by 2010. It's a goal that our government is investing record amounts of money in. Better infrastructure, better roads to get people home sooner and safer.]
The Greens have announced a $50 million plan to increase the ability of migrants and new arrivals to Australia to access English language support.
Central to the plan is a bid to reform the Adult Migrant English Program, or A-M-E-P, which provides migrants over 500 hours of English tuition to help them settle in the country.
The A-M-E-P has been in operation since 1948, but contracts began being outsourced to various providers in the states and territories in 1997.
Greens education spokeswoman Mehreen Faruqi says the privatisation process has seen the program become about money, not migrants.
[Senator Mehreen Faruqi: ”For example, in (the NSW town of) Bega, the TAFE NSW, as part of the Adult Migrant English Service, lost the contract in June last year to a private provider who are now closing down. There will be no program in that area. So we must make sure that we have an urgent review of the program and reverse the outsourcing of services.”]
