Page 782 - Week 02 - Thursday, 12 February 2009
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the ACT community sector, supports common indexation arrangements across funding programs, including commonwealth and state agreements. To that end, the ACT government has sought commensurate CWI indexation levels in negotiations with the commonwealth.
We know that some of the community sector services likely to feel pressure on their resources as the economy dips are those offering employment programs, those offering housing, financial and general counselling, and emergency relief providers. But demand is also increasing in the areas of residential aged care, housing, homelessness and family relationship services.
Tough economic times can be tough on everyone. The ACT government’s skills strategy explicitly recognises that the community sector faces peculiar challenges in a time of skills shortage. Ours is still a competitive labour market, notwithstanding the downturn. Today’s jobless figures again show this. These workforce and broader service delivery issues are even more pertinent as we are seeing major shifts in our population.
In Australian social trends 2008, the ABS projected that the percentage of Canberrans aged 65 and over will increase from 9.7 per cent in 2007 to 22.8 per cent in 2051. This has implications not just for the community sector workforce, which is ageing too along with society, but also for the sector’s clients. The most recent Australian community sector survey conducted by ACOSS found that across the country 64 per cent of respondent organisations agreed that their clients had more complex needs in 2006-07 than in previous years. More complex needs are, on the whole, more costly needs to fulfil.
Each year the ACT government provides approximately $130 million in funding to the community sector. Of course, we are not the only ones. The private sector contributes valuable resources and support to sustain the community sector too, not least our licensed clubs, which every year make donations without which some in the community sector may not be able to do as much as they currently do. The generosity of many in the sector is gratifying. It has proved that we are truly a community and that we look out for and after each other. The ACT government is determined to promote even greater levels of philanthropic giving in the territory. Right now we are exploring options for promoting philanthropy and new mechanisms to make it easier for Canberrans to give, with the hope of implementing these over the course of this year.
Another area in which the government supports the community sector is through the provision of facilities and infrastructure. Our investment in the west Belconnen health and wellbeing centre is one example, and there are many others. Of course, most recently we are investing millions of dollars in the creation of new community facilities at former school buildings. Cook will become an arts hub, Melrose will be a health and wellbeing hub and Weston will be a community services hub. On top of this, the government is investing in neighbourhood halls at nine locations around the city. This revitalisation and dramatic expansion of community facilities across the city helps sustain our community sector and creates clusters of services where they are needed in our suburbs.
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