Page 3071 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
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Children’s services is an extraordinarily difficult area and there are some welcome things in the budget. I refer to initiatives like the West Belconnen Child and Family Centre, play therapy and speech pathology. The speech pathology one in particular is overdue and therefore extraordinarily welcome. The special care packages and the growth funding in the out-of-home-care provision of services is also very welcome indeed.
In the past year we have seen the vexed issue of the recruitment of overseas workers to work in child care and protection and the costs associated with that program. There was a fulsome explanation given at the estimates committee by the Senior Director, Strategic Support, in the Office for Children, Youth and Family Support. I think that the office is doing the best that it can. But it should be noted that there is a recommendation that the ACT government review the employment conditions in the child care and protection area to ensure that the ACT can attract and retain sufficient numbers of skilled professionals. I fear that, by only noting that recommendation, little will be done on that.
The bottom line is that that agency had a number of skilled workers engaged in delivering services on a casual contract basis. When those contracts expired, they were not renewed because there was no budget available for the purpose. And this is where the dilemma lies. We have seen in evidence before the estimates committee that, out of the 34 staff recruited from overseas in 2004, only 15 are still engaged in front-line service delivery. Thankfully, so far the 36 recruited in 2008 are still working in the area.
Turning to community services, Canberra is blessed with a wide range of community NGOs. Those organisations deliver an amazing range of services that otherwise would have to be delivered by government. Those organisations, apparently unlike some government agencies, are able to attract and retain staff who show extraordinary resilience, dedication and commitment even though they earn much less than their counterparts in government agencies.
More often than not, they put in hours way beyond the call of duty. More often than not, they have to work in and with less than adequate accommodation and resources. More often than not, they have to work with clients who have very special needs who are very difficult to deal with. Nearly always, they work for salaries for which many other people would not think it worth while to get out of bed in the morning. And it is usually the case that the nature of their work is such that their only realistic prospect of funding is government funding. The nature of their work is such that it is difficult for them to generate their own revenue, and, if they try to do it, it diverts them from their main business. The nature of their work is such that it is difficult for them to attract private sector sponsorship, although some have been more successful than others in doing so.
This government really has not gone the whole distance with these organisations. ACTCOSS told the estimates committee that one organisation had experienced an increase of 60 per cent in call-out figures. To its detriment, at a time when the demand on these organisations has significantly increased, the government actually reduced
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