House debates

Monday, 17 August 2015

Constituency Statements

Solomon Electorate: Darwin Skills Development Scheme

4:01 pm

Photo of Natasha GriggsNatasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Today the people of the Darwin Skills Development Scheme will be making final preparations to open their new premises tomorrow. I was delighted to receive an invitation to the opening, but I had to send my apologies because I am here in freezing downtown Canberra.

Darwin Skills Development Scheme provide a valuable service to our community. Their disability employment service offers genuinely engaging, meaningful roles for people with challenges in their lives. This is not a service to railroad people into jobs for the sake of meeting quotas. In looking at Darwin Skills Development Scheme, the one thing that comes out over and over again is the sense of individual dignity they treat their clients with. If you click through their website, as a disabled job seeker would, there are questions about your career, your aspirations, your skills and your qualifications. I am really proud to see Darwin Skills Development Scheme empowering people and giving them a sense of self worth and identity. There are many people of all kinds in Darwin and Palmerston who devote so much of their energy to helping others. I am grateful to them, and I wish them all the very best for their opening tomorrow.