Equal Opportunity in the East Kimberley

News story
The Commission was joined by the Health and Disability Service Complaints Office, State and Federal Ombudsman, the Corruption and Crime Commission and Consumer Protection for the Regional Awareness and Accessibility Program (RAAP) in the East Kimberley region from 30 August to 3 September. 
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RAAP officers with Warman community

Equal Opportunity Commission Community Education and Training Officer Stephen Goodall said the benefits of the program, especially for remote Aboriginal communities, was astonishing.
"Government services are generally very metro-centric, so when people in the regions have government service providers sitting down with them face to face it is really meaningful work, it really bridges the gaps," he said.
Mr Goodall said more government services needed to think outside the square when it came to service delivery.
"If you are not adjusting your service delivery so people in the regions and remote areas of Western Australia can access them, then you can hardly say you are providing a service to Western Australians, you are most likely only delivering a service to the metropolitan area," he said.
Mr Goodall said with such strong Aboriginal communities in the East Kimberley, not sitting down with them to work out how adjust service provision to better suit them could lead to indirect race discrimination in the area of goods and services.
"The communities we visited were so pleased we were out there and took the time to listen to them and show them how they could access our services in a way they felt comfortable.
"If we hadn't taken that time many of the people we sat down with wouldn't have known they had an avenue to address some of the issues affecting them," he said.
The RAAP visited Wyndam, Halls Creek, Kununurra and Warmun.