Page 2132 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 22 June 2005
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The main reason for consulting is to get feedback from our clients about our policies, programs and services. The benefits of consultation usually far outweigh the effort involved. Consultation builds trust between the Department and its clients and ensures a better policy or program fit.
Again, I quote from the Johns and Roskam report. It says that we must remember that the ability of NGOs to participate in the policy process is not only provided for in departments’ outcome measures, but that in a number of cases it is enshrined in legislation. The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act requires the minister to take into account comments from “any person” in specific circumstances.
NGOs also have a specific right contained in the legislation to challenge a decision under the act. NGOs are bodies valued by government departments for their information and expertise. They are significantly more than the sum of their parts, so their capacity to contribute to setting national priorities is substantial. However, the government has decided to pull back from funding the councils to do any of this work, and that is despite the value that its own departments see in consultation with those same bodies.
Liberal senator Garry Humphries stated on ABC radio recently that, “What the government is doing federally is to say that our business is to fund environment activities and heritage activities through this grant program. We are not actually about maintaining organisations to make policy, or to engage in advocacy activities.” You will note that this is in direct contrast to the department’s own assessments of their dealings with NGOs.
Mr Humphries went on to argue that, “You raise awareness best by actually getting out there and doing things in the environment, not by talking about it, but by actually planting trees, and by getting people to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty. That’s the real awareness raising exercise you need to engage in.” That is a smooth but facile interpretation of the invaluable advocacy and policy work that the Conservation Council of the South East Region and Canberra has been doing for a number of years. We have Greening Australia, in fact, that does this work in this territory and, I must say, does it very well. I should say that if the conservation council were to intrude on this territory it may not be well favoured.
Specifically, general funding has allowed the Conservation Council of the South East Region and Canberra to provide meeting spaces, photocopying and other support for member organisations, and updated information to members and the wider community through newsletters and websites. It has coordinated numerous policy submissions to government, drawing on the extraordinary expertise embedded in the myriad community and scientific groups that belong to the council. It has run numerous awareness raising programs and has a history of substantial policy research and development. These are the activities the federal government does not wish to support.
There is a deeper issue of democracy at stake here. Good government is guided by the people out there doing the work. For the environment, that includes all the many nature and conservation groups throughout our community. For social services, that includes the countless organisations working in the areas of health, housing, welfare and participation. Peak bodies such as the Conservation Council of the South East Region
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