Page 781 - Week 02 - Thursday, 12 February 2009
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certainly thank Ms Bresnan for actually bringing forward this matter of public importance.
The ACT government is, of course, very aware of the magnitude of the impact that the global financial downturn has had, or may have, on the ACT community sector. The community sector is, of course, utterly central to how we, as a community, look after each other. It is utterly central to how we support each other, how we share burdens and how we share information. It is through the community sector that we show our best selves as a society—not just in times of emergency or crisis, but day after day, in suburb after suburb, making a difference in life after life. The ACT government is acutely conscious that fluctuations in the fortunes of the economy penetrate quickly through to the community sector in the form of increased demand for its services and increased pressure on its resources.
That is why one of Labor’s very first acts on resuming government last year was to fulfil an election commitment to appropriate $3.5 million to provide a significant injection of funding into the welfare and charity sectors. This money will help the sector provide emergency assistance to some of Canberra’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged. It will allow the sector to give financial advice to struggling households that will help them adjust to their changed circumstances in this changing world. And crucially, it will support the carers and volunteers who are the bedrock of the sector, those who use their money to fill their cars with petrol, to transport clients across and around town and between appointments. I am referring to those who crisscross the city to lend a hand to those who cannot fend for themselves as well perhaps as they would like.
Madam Assistant Speaker, the government has considered the issues raised in The impact of the global financial crisis on social services in Australia, but we did not, of course, consider the report in a vacuum. For as long as we have been in government we have been working to ensure the viability and sustainability of the community sector, working to ensure that it is able to continue doing the work it does right at the front line—out in the community, out in the suburbs where people live. And we have pursued this work collaboratively with the ACT community sector.
I just remind the Assembly of some of the long-term structural measures that the government has in place to secure the viability of the sector. In 2008-09 and in the 2008-09 budget we announced portability of long service leave for the ACT community sector. This was a direct bid to increase the attractiveness of the sector to workers and an encouragement to those already working in the community sector to remain there, even though they may choose to change employer. It sends a message that work in the community sector is valued work, that it is professional work and that it involves a career path.
The ACT government is currently working with the sector to introduce the scheme. The government has also allocated $500,000 to review the adequacy of wages and conditions provided by community service organisations and to provide an improved industrial relations environment for non-government organisations in the ACT. The ACT government has also introduced a new formula for annual indexation of funding of the community sector which has seen a significant increase in support for the sector allowing it to meet rising wage and administration costs. The government, along with
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