23 February 2010
Return on investment: Where is the community sector making the biggest change?
Abstract, slides and audio of presentation
Edited transcript
The following audio presentation is brought to you by the Australian Institute of Family Studies as part of our monthly seminar series in which we showcase national and international research related to the family.
The seminars are designed to promote a forum for discussion and debate. They are open to the public and free of charge.
Seminar facilitated & speaker introduced by Professor Alan Hayes.
Clare Martin:
You'll have to just bear with me. It's similar same space today but we've just given it a more nifty title: Against the Odds. I think everyone probably knows what ACOSS is; a body that's been around for 50 years, the peak body for the community and welfare sector.
Certainly our purpose is very much about low income Australians. It's about equity and fairness but really focussed on Australians who are in that 10 per cent of the country who really are doing it very tough. Who have really, in a broader context, very little income and often it's about where their opportunity is and how we can focus on bringing that opportunity to them.
So we are about low income Australians. But we're also about our members. We have, you know, significant membership across Australia and part of our mission is to properly represent at the complex area of our membership and its issues.
Just to give you an idea of what we're going to be doing this year. I think we started 2010 thinking it's got to be better than 2009. If you go back 12 months; 2009 we had the global financial crisis. We didn't know where it was going and there were predictions of unemployment maybe heading up to about 8.5 per cent. A real sense of concern in the country about what, in fact, how deep a recession would bite for us.
We have done very well. We haven't been bitten by the recession. We've now got unemployment down at about 5.3 per cent. Some worrying parts of that but a much lower unemployment that gives us some hope for this year ahead. It doesn't mean there are serious issues to be addressed in terms of low income Australians.
Just quickly, I mean I think the biggest one we have is housing. You know when you look at it a million Australians are in housing stress. That means they're paying too much of their income in putting a roof over their head. I don't have to tell people in Melbourne that. But every capital city is the same. You've probably got that million Australians, something like three quarters of that number are in housing stress because of the high price of rentals.
If you're on a low income, if you're on a Newstart income of $228 a week, maybe you get a bit of rent assistance on that. It takes you up to the massive sum of $275 a week. I know people who are paying $220 of that on a roof over their head. Now you try surviving on $55 a week. It's tough. That is replicated right across the country; Australians on low incomes who are paying far too much of their income on a roof over their heads.
I think really when you look around at the range of issues we've got in Australia, that's probably the biggest one we've got. Doing something about accommodation, about affordable accommodation and I know we've had a good start from the Federal Government but there's so much more to do. So that's, I mean, for 2010 I would say across Australia that's probably one of the biggest, most urgent issues we've got.
Another issue particularly for ACOSS is about the long term unemployed. The unemployment figure goes down, the pressure comes off those who have recently lost their jobs; they're finding jobs again. But it's that long term unemployed group who we saw after the last recession grow and simply not find jobs again.
You know, you're telling a man of 50 that's it; you're never going to find a job again. That's what we said in the 90s and we really have to tackle that as we head out of this recession and be able to find ways. This is where we're working with the Federal Government particularly on tackling the issue of long-term unemployment and how you actually put the programmes in place. Put the management in place to get long term unemployed Australians almost one by one back into the workforce.
Probably the other big issue for us this year is one that was announced at the end of last year and that's income management of low income Australians. The Australians who are on a Newstart Allowance, Youth Allowance and also single parent families. Who now, given the circumstances and pilot programmes happening in the Northern Territory, might all find that half of their income is put on a Basics Card and has to be managed in a certain way.
So it's a major issue. It's not one getting much media attention very sadly. But it certainly is for those Australians who simply because they're unemployed or because they're a single parent are going to be, in the future, branded as not managing their money responsibly. That is a very big issue for Australia and a very big issue for those who will come under the kind of income management regime. If you're unemployed for 12 months, if you're on a Youth Allowance for a shorter period of time or if you're a single parent. So expect to hear more about that. It's a very concerning development from the Federal Government.
Other things for us this year we've got the Henry Tax Review coming up which will have some big issues about how we manage tax and transfers in Australia. What happens with that in an election year? We're not quite sure. There'll be some scary bits of that and unless they're dealt with we'll see a volatile election campaign later this year.
There's also climate change and ACOSS has been very keenly involved in the issue of low income Australians and how they fit in climate change legislation. We're not quite sure what's going to happen with that. I think if you ask the Federal Government they might say they're not quite sure what's going to happen with legislation. But it is an issue that we will be very involved in this year.
Another one for the sector and it's the one I want to focus on today is the actual sector itself. This community and welfare sector which fits within the broad, not-for-profit sector in Australia. Over the last 12 months, you know, with the global financial crisis, many challenges for the sector. The pressure of more demands on the sector particularly those who were losing jobs; those who needed assistance. Whether it was financial, whether it was counselling, whether it was employment services. A lot of pressure on the sector in the last 12 months and therefore a lot of challenges.
But also over the last 12 months, a chance for the sector to reflect on what kind of sector it was. The Federal Government initiated a compact with the sector. The sector didn't quite know what a compact was and how you had a compact with a broad, not-for-profit sector. Anyone who was involved in that process last year, it was a difficult, bumpy process. But it certainly made each part of the sector think about what they were and how you had a formal relationship with government through a compact. That compact will be launched next month.
Also causing reflection for the sector was the Productivity Commission doing an enquiry in the contribution of the not-for-profit sector. Also made the sector look at what it was, how it again wanted to relate to government and what were the things that needed to change to make that relationship more productive.
I'm only relatively new to this sector having come in, what, a year and four months ago. There was a lot of things said about - I mean I'm going to focus down now on the community and welfare sector rather than that broad, not-for-profit sector. There were a lot of things said about it. You know, you're going into a sector, Clare, where they're always complaining. You know, they've never got enough money, they're never being dealt with well. People used to describe you're going into the whingy, whiney sector. Pretty unattractive name for it but, you know, probably partly deserved over the years.
But certainly a sector that, you know, has always in the public eye saying things aren't good enough, we need more resources. There are issues of equity. All legitimate issues but that was how the sector was seen. It's not something of the past, it's still current.
I just want to quote from Adele Ferguson who writes for the Fairfax press. Just last week it was, she said - this is when the Productivity released its enquiry report in the sector. She was writing in the paper and she said - this is about the broader, not-for-profit sector. She said, "The reality is the not-for-profit sector, which represents about five per cent of the economy, 600,000 organisations and eight per cent of the workforce, is a mess." she said.
She said, "It is dangerously unaccountable, lacks transparency and is inefficient." She says it's a big black hole she says of the Australian economy. So I mean fairly bold words and ones that, really, the sector should get up and slap her about. Because totally undeserved.
I want to talk a bit about why it's totally undeserved. I mean it's not the kind of thing that somebody would stand up and say about the private sector. They wouldn't say the whole thing was in a mess, you know, unaccountable, inefficient. Yet it can be said about the community services, the not-for-profit sector. Everyone goes, yeah, fair cop, that's the kind of sector it is. Yet it's very inaccurate.
When you look at what the sector is delivering, particularly over the last 12 months will all the pressures and how diversely the sector is delivering, I mean I think it deserves five stars. I think it's doing a great job. Not everything's perfect by a long way. But when you look at the pressures on the sector and some of the kind of regulatory kind of overload on the sector which the Productivity Commission has recognised, I think you'd say the sector's done a great job.
I mean I'm kind of, like, moving in between as I said the communities' welfare sector and the broader not-for-profit. I mean the broad not-for-profit is an enormous sector as Adele Ferguson said. It's 600,000 organisations, it runs from hockey mums in Queensland to, you know, big church providers. It runs through the churches, educational institutes. It runs, you know, everything that comes into that not-for-profit area, that's what we're talking about.
On the whole, I would say doing very well. A lot of those organisations have no paid staff. That creates problems. But the ones who do, often survive on a shoe-string and survive quite nicely.
Now the Productivity Commission actually looked at some of the things that were causing grief to the sector in their report. I just want to give you an example of some of the things that the not-for-profit sector and the community services sector within that are up against.
In its recommendations, this is what the Productivity Commission said. It said the current information requirements imposed on the not-for-profit sector for funding and evaluation purposes are poorly designed and unduly burdensome. They say reform is needed urgently. We need to have best practice principles.
Another one; the current regulatory framework for the sector is complex. It lacks coherence. It's insufficiently transparent and it's costly to NFPs. I mean, that's what the sector has to work with.
It also said that jurisdictions, so state and also agency differences have resulted in a lack of consistency and comparability in financial reporting requirements for the not-for-profit sector. Australian Government should implement a kind of standard chart of accounts.
When you look at fundraising, something the sector does lots of, funding legislation differed significantly between jurisdictions and adding to the cost that any NFP incurs and it needs to be harmonised. So if you talk to any, you know, in the community services sector, if you want to raise funds across the country you've got to register differently in each state. It drives people crazy. Yet that's just something that's embedded in the system for the poor, old, not-for-profit sector.
Another recommendation from the Productivity Commission that not-for-profits and others delivering community services face increasing workforce pressures and long term planning is required to address future workforce needs. For not-for-profit, less than full cost funding of many services by government has resulted in substantial wage gaps for not-for-profit staff. That substantial wage gap, anyone who works in the sector, you know if you're going to compare wages in the sector, it's probably 20 to 30 per cent different to those wages in a government bureaucracy.
That is a constant pressure on the sector. Yet, as recognised by the Productivity Commission sector, that is the funding base; those low wages used in contracts from governments. So, you know, a really difficult major issue for the sector.
Then just a final point from the Productivity Commission, contracts with government are overly prescriptive in their requirements. They have been increasing in their micro management of those contracts. There are requirements to return surplus funds to government. The contracts that are with the not-for-profit sector are inappropriately short term.
So, I mean, I've just highlighted some of the recommendations from the Productivity Commission. When you consider how the not-for-profit sector is functioning, how the community services sector is functioning, I think we're doing really well. When you consider all the kind of regulatory burden, the complexities of contracts with government which are increasingly part of the sectors role and delivery of services. I think the fact they're surviving is really quite extraordinary considering the kind of recommendations for change that we're seeing here from the Productivity Commission.
Let me just give you an example of what that means. You know, when you talk about there's complexities in regulation and reporting requirements. There's the Queensland Youth & Family Services Organisation and it's not that big. So it's in Queensland. It has 32 service agreements across Federal and state agencies. So it's a little organisation with 32. It's required to establish and operate eight separate data systems generating 121 financial and 125 performance reports each year. Now you wonder how they deliver services with all that kind of obligation.
Another example, a study here in Victoria in 2007 which looked at what happened when one piece of legislation went into the parliament. The increase for compliance and regulatory costs from that one piece of legislation from the community services sector increased by 7.5 to 10 per cent in terms of the cost of delivering on that one piece of legislation.
Also The Allen Consulting Group, again here in Victoria, said that if you streamlined Victorian State Government's service agreements just those agreements alone, you'd save $30 million. So, you know, it's all right for people like Adele Ferguson to turn around and say the sector's in a mess. I think there's a lot of change that has to happen from government, from regulation, from how the sector is actually regulated. So that we can see some freeing up of what the sector can do and how it can deliver services.
So and that's not me saying that. That's Robert Fitzgerald and the Productivity Commission who've done a very kind of Productivity Commission kind of assessment. Which is, you know, economically rigorous of the sector.
Now another kind of aspect of how - and this I go right down to the community services sector now. Another aspect of how the sector sees how they're coping is in the annual survey that ACOSS does of our sector called the Community Sector Survey. We do this each year. It's right across the country and I'll just give you an idea of the kind of reach we have on that. Right across the country so rural, regional, city and this year we did it with 600 organisations. They range from services delivering for children, for youth, for financial counselling, emergency relief, disability, housing, migrant employment; a whole range of things.
We ask a whole range of questions. I'm just going to give you a little sample of what was said this year. The biggest users of the services provided are - and you can see there - single parents are the big users. Those who don't have a job are big users. Indigenous Australians are big users. Way out of proportion with their percentage in the community.
So you've got the single parents who we know are some of the poorest families in Australia. Who are, you know, when you consider they're 2.4 per cent of the population, 28 per cent of those who come to services are single parents. If you're unemployed, you're 34.5 per cent of the Australia population. That's a very large figure; I'll have to check that. But you're 51 per cent of the users of services.
So, you know, the services that are provided by the community sector are certainly ones used by the poorest of Australians. Just in terms of, again, reinforcing those on income support and the needs that different sectors of the income support community. How they need to go to services and, you know, the survey we've got shows what kinds of services are most under pressure.
One of the things when I do any media about our community sector survey is what are the turn away rates? How do services cope with increased pressures? I think considering that last year was the global financial crisis that we didn't do badly. The organisations that responded to our survey said they turned away one in 10 who came for assistance of various kinds.
Really when you consider that, okay, government did put more funding into the sector but that only one in 10 was turned away. It's not good enough. But I would have thought it might have been more.
The concerning bit is that if you look at where the real pressures were; financial and material support. I mean that's those who come for emergency relief and people who come because they need money for food, they need money for bills. They certainly, you know, found last year pretty tough. Even though significant funds were put into those emergency relief buckets right around the country, we still weren't being able to deliver.
It's interesting talking to some of the services and the people they were seeing last year. One service said a group we'd never seen before were tradies. Tradies who were in work and they were finding that those they were working for were paying more slowly than usual. So they'd get to the end of the week and they'd be coming for food to an emergency relief centre. So, you know, we knew it touched different and new areas of the community and simply while more funds were there, the demand wasn't being able to be met.
One of the areas I do find concerning is youth services and youth welfare services. That's an area that's under a lot of pressure. We know that young people are in some areas, particularly some disadvantaged areas, there's very high unemployment. Probably somewhere between 40 and 50 per cent in some areas of Australia, that's youth unemployment.
So that's figure there reflects that youth were coming for employment services, they were coming for counselling, they were coming for housing. In 115,000 occasions, they were turned away. So it's a very big area and one that really needs some serious focus. Particularly if you haven't got a job and a roof over your head's expensive. So you're coming to find emergency housing, you're coming to find money just to get by.
Now one of the other factors that's key for the sector is as the Productivity Commission said, attracting and retaining staff. If you look at that graph, you'll see that way and above everything else, it's salaries. Certainly there is a dire need to address the low salaries in the sector.
Certainly one of the big challenges for ACOSS this year and certainly for the Australian Services Union is that there is a pay equity case going in front of the tribunal. While that's wonderful to have support from the Federal Government to take that to the tribunal and actually look at what is a fair pay across the whole community services sector. It means, for the sector, if there's a successful outcome, there'll have to be money found to pay for those increases in staff wages.
We saw a successful case last year in Queensland and wages went up by 18 to 37 per cent. If you think of a service that's funded by government through a whole lot of contracts, I mean, where's the dollars going to come from? So there's a big challenge for the Federal Government, big challenges for state governments but also a big challenge for the sector. As those who fund their own services have to look at how they find the money to do that.
So it's a bit of a catch 22. Salaries are too low, if they do go up how are they actually going to be funded? So that, again, a big issue for our sector. Again one that reflects an outcome of the Productivity Commission finding is that do government contracts actually fund adequately the services that are contracted? The sector says no they don't. Just to show that the sector's not always wrong, so does the Productivity Commission.
So the conclusion probably I'd draw just from that quick snapshot of what the sector is saying is that they are providing services. I mean they're meeting needs in services right across the country. They're doing for the poorest and probably most vulnerable Australians; single parent families, unemployed, indigenous Australians. They have managed well during a recession and, you know, that factor of only turning one in 10 away is meaning that they're managing pretty well. That's while demand overall increased four per cent. They're keeping staff despite that constant pressure of staff being attracted.
You hear stories all the time; young person working in the community services sector decides they want to buy a house. They say I can't buy a house on the kind of wages I get here so run across to government where there's a great demand for well trained staff. That's just a constant turnover issue for the sector. But despite that, managed well; managed well in their reporting to government on contracts. Sometimes it was a bit of a struggle. But certainly maintained a transparency about that reporting and an effectiveness in what they were doing.
So I would say definitely this sector is not a mess. It's not dangerous unaccountable. I mean there's probably bits of it that have problems but so does the private sector. It's certainly not lacking in transparency. We'd like to see a much more sensible regulatory regime and certainly we'll be working with the Federal Government about that. But it is not certainly inefficient. Providing effective services in very difficult circumstances.
Now that's all I want to say in a whingy, whiney welfare way. Because what I want to spend the rest of my time doing this morning is to talk to you about the good things that are happening in the sector. Some of the things that the sector - and this is our community services sector that I represent are doing really well. Are doing in an innovative way, are doing in a dollar effective way and are certainly getting great outcomes from.
So I'm just going to go and talk about a few different organisations in different parts of Australia. The first one is BoysTown in Queensland. BoysTown is a long running organisation. Its focus is on children and young people, particularly children and young people who are marginalised and come from pretty disadvantaged areas.
The service I'm going to take you to is one in Logan which is south of Brisbane. The services that I want to focus on is one that when you've got the issue of a young person who, as they said to me, we were sitting on the couch before they got us off it - who needs to get in a transition way back to the work force or into the work force. The kind of programmes that you see run by BoysTown in Queensland are very effective.
One of them is a fencing project. Logan has hundreds of public housing properties and many of them need new fences. So BoysTown, about 10 years ago, went to the Queensland Department of Housing and said we would like to be considered as one of your preferred providers for doing fencing in the public housing stock in Logan.
Queensland Housing responded well. They recognised that if you're going to have trainees and a trainer as part of the contract, it's going to cost more than if you went to just an ordinary business who maybe just had two experienced trades people. But they recognised that and they recognised the good outcome.
So for 10 years now, BoysTown has been a preferred provider for Queensland Housing. What they do is they set up a transitional work team. So they've got one trainer and four trainees for a 16 week period. It's taking young people as young as 16 and particularly troubled young people and putting them in a work program. Which is more about learning how to come to work, learning how to work in a team and maybe getting some skills on top of that. That's what this fencing program does.
They go around to the public housing. Some of the fences just need repairing, some need total replacing. But it is done by this small team. For the last 10 years it's been run by a fellow called [Andre]. He didn't want to have his photo taken. So that's fine, you just have to picture him.
He runs it and, as I said, he's run it for 10 years. He told me very proudly that he'd actually done 122 kilometres of fencing in the 10 years.
He says his motivation is these troubled kids and often they've been in trouble with the law. I mean one young fellow who was there said I think I've been kicked out of every high school in Queensland. I mean I think he was exaggerating but, you know, his academic record wasn't good. [Andre] takes the approach that you've got to be tough. They need a tough framework. This is just a 16 week program. It's about transition to a kind of more formal job. They're on trainee wages.
So he says if you don't turn up, you don't get paid. So miss a day; no pay. He says if you don't put in sufficient effort during the day he'll dock your pay as well. If you take too long a lunch break, he docks your pay as well. So it's a pretty tough regime. I mean most of us would wobble a little bit under this one. But his intention is to build the confidence in the young people about what it involves being in a work place, turning up on time, working with somebody else and meeting the benchmarks that he sets.
He said that, you know, even after 10 years of this approach, he's got young fellows who, once they're transitioned through the team, they come back and they just want to talk to him and continue the relationship; the mentoring relationship. It's very impressive. I mean he is an inspirational man. He's working for an inspirational organisation and really getting something to change.
Young people disengaged from either school or the workforce and learning in a transition way, with a government contract which I think is really keen here. The fact that Queensland Government have said that they will wear an additional cost in this fencing program so that mainly young men will have that opportunity to start work.
The young fellows I talked to were really positive about what they were doing. They said we were lost. We knew we had to do something in the way of work and this is a really comfortable transition for us into a proper job. They didn't see themselves as doing proper jobs as fencing. But it was a starter.
Another BoysTown one, again impressive, again based on the kind of commitment of one trainer is at the Waterford Rugby League Club. That's a just a [sampler]. Waterford is in the Logan area. The mighty Demons. The facility's a bit run down and they need some seating and they need some better landscaping, paths, fencing and generally a bit of TLC. Now the Logan City Council recognised that. So, again, worked with BoysTown to put a program together where Queensland Government pays the wages, Logan City Council pays for materials and BoysTown does all the rest.
So they've got eight young people in different programmes again for 16 weeks doing the same kind of thing as the fencing program. Mark is the man who runs it. He's been doing it for seven years. Again, that same kind of commitment to say that, you know, you've got to take young people and transition them into the skills of the work place.
So he's very disciplined. He's really building the team. They learn some basic skills; they have fun with power tools and bobcats. That was good fun. But, you know, he has very high expectations of his trainees. So they actually interview for these positions so that you are getting people who are ready to kind of go into this transition program.
The great thing for him is they're working on projects of community benefit. So a little rugby league club that has a lot of teams there but not much in the way of a facility, gets fixed up, gets some kind of new infrastructure. The eight kids who worked on it - young people. I shouldn't say kids. The eight who worked on it get that kind of transition into the work place.
One of the things that is the value of an organisation like BoysTown is that they also put a position into the mix. They fund a position from their own revenue into the mix to case manage the young people. Part of that case manage can be hello; today is a work day, you need to get out of bed. So it's very involved in each individual in the work team. That's the kind of success you can't get with the community sector where you get that input from an organisation, working with wages from government, materials coming from the city council.
Again, good outcomes for those teams, you know, worked over seven years now. The fact that both local government and state government are involved in supporting it means you are getting those good outcomes. I mean I won't pretend everything's a good outcome. I'm sure there's young people who perhaps head back to the couch. But overall, the outcomes are very positive.
The next place I'd like to take you to is Adelaide. It's the Magdalene Centre which is in the heart of Adelaide in an old church; a 1880s church. It's an Anglicare project. What Magdalene Centre does is provide a lot of emergency relief. It has a bargain shop and it has a lot of community development programs which range across a number of things from financial skills to learning how to cook. To a number of those community development kind of programmes.
What they did and had for a number of years, they focused particularly on those who were unemployed and those who are in disability support pensions and ran cooking classes. Because often if they've lived in boarding houses they lost a lot of their cooking skills. So once a week they had people come in to learn to cook and to learn how to budget as well.
This started developing a bit. So they had the idea that what they could do was actually develop a small business from this which they've done. They've called it Market 2 Table. It's a supportive environment for those who are on something like a disability support pension to earn a little bit more income and to work in a business where they wouldn't be able to survive in an ordinary private sector business. They can work in this business say two days a week being supported by the staff of Anglicare.
The group who are working in the Market 2 Table program, they're involved in all aspects of the business, all the details. They look at what bookings will be accepted, they prepare the list of food. They go down to the Central Market, if you know Adelaide and they buy the food. They do the budgeting and now they're developing their own invoices for the hours they've worked.
So it's a lot of skills development within this supportive environment for particularly disability support pensioners. Just to give you an example of one of those disability support pensioners, I'll call him Michael, he told me his story.
He said that he'd been on the disability support pension for 15 years. He did mention that he shouldn't have been on it but he said I managed to get on it somehow or other. He said I had a few problems. He'd worked before that but things weren't going particularly well for him. He didn't have anywhere to live. So for the past five years had been living in his car in the Adelaide parklands. Not by himself, he had the dog with him; a very good dog.
He said it was okay in the car with the dog in the parklands except when the dog learned to open the glove box and eat his food. He said that was a bit tricky. But there's a program in Adelaide called Street to Home. One of the Street to Home workers came and met him one day and said look, you know, you've got to give up the car. We want you to come in and move into public housing. He said it was a real nuisance. I was happy in the car with the dog.
He said over a period of months this worker just kept on coming back saying come on Michael, you can move into public housing and finally persuaded him. So he moved into public housing; he's now in a two-bedroom place in the Port. They then said to him well, you've been living in a car for five years, your cooking skills probably aren't too good. We can recommend this program at the Magdalene Centre. Go and learn to cook.
So he said yeah okay and he went down there. He's now one of the regulars in the Market 2 Table program. He's supplementing his disability support pension with a legitimate amount of income. He said to me, you know, it's terrific. I'm supported here, I'm learning skills and he said I think maybe in two years' time, I might look at a full time job.
But it just gives you an example of how complex that process is of saying how do we move people from unemployed part of their life if they want to enter into employed? How tricky and how complex and how kind of worker intensive that can be.
Michael's a lot happier now and he's doing pretty well. But he's still got issues and he's still working through. But without the kind of support that he's gaining through the Magdalene Centre, he wouldn't be where he was today. Also probably that pesky woman, he said, from the Street to Home program.
But it just gives you an example of how if you well target a program and it's got the right construct to it. It's got the right kind of part time arrangement to it that you can take someone like Michael and make him think that in a couple of years he might be in the work place.
Now another one I want to talk about just briefly is the Clarendon Vale labouring centre in Hobart. Again, this focuses on young people. Clarendon Vale is outside Hobart. Again, it's a pretty low income area; a lot of income support families. There's not much in the way of work. Now the neighbourhood centre wanted to look at how they could have, again, those transition programmes for young people; particularly 15 to 18 year olds who were disengaged from school and who weren't in the workforce.
Because it's in a vineyard area, they decided to lease a vineyard which is pretty innovative. What they decided to do was have a project that would run an eight week course teaching young people the workings of a vineyard.
So they taught them pruning and tying down vines, netting and they also taught them things like maintaining small engines. But, again, that same kind of discipline in the program. If you don't turn up, you don't get paid. It only ran for an eight week period so it's just a transition.
What they said to me, after those eight weeks, we got the young people pretty well engaged. Some of them decided that it was time to go back to school. Others transitioned into jobs in the workforce. So, again, a creative solution to an area that was in a wine growing region. Not everyone would think of leasing a vineyard and starting a work program then. Again, supported by Federal and state funds with good outcomes.
I've just got a final one to talk about and this is one of my favourites and it's not to do with employment outcomes. But for anyone who's heading into your senior years, particularly if you're male, you might be interested.
This is a UnitingCare project and it got some seed funding, it's called the Mens Shed. It got some seed funding from the Department of Veterans' Affairs. It was assisted by the local Rotary Club and the local council.
The problem they wanted to deal with was that for men, much as we love you, you don't like to talk about problems to do with health. You don't like to talk about the physical ones, the emotional ones, the social and even as the Mens Shed said, the spiritual component of health.
So they decided the solution they would come across or propose was an incredibly Australian one; to have a shed. This is what they set up. It was based upon the principle that - and this is what they said to me; women talk face to face, men talk shoulder to shoulder. That's the principle of the Mens Shed.
What they've done is fill a shed. This is not the only shed in Australia; they're right across Australia now. But they fill a shed with all manner of equipment that most fellows probably couldn't have in their own back yard sheds. So they've got circular saws and sanders and welders and most who come have some level of experience with that. They're now getting a push from women who want to come as well which is interesting.
There's also someone who's the supervisor who will do some guidance. Particularly as people get older, they're not quite as quick as they used to be with things like circular saws.
But they have a very strict regime. Again, you can do work on personal projects sometimes. They have community projects. They do things like make cabinets for the local nursing home. They made tables for a Sunday school. They do partly commercial projects and full commercial projects. So they've built things for the golf club that's next door.
But it really is a very vital and successful project. At this particular one there's a hundred men signed up and about 40 come regularly. Some of the things that were said by the fellows who were going there and from a wide range of demographics, one said the Mens Shed here saved me from 17 years of loneliness in my garage which is pretty nice.
Another one said I'm not seeing the psychiatrist as much as I used to since I've been coming here. So it does fill a real gap for social interaction, being able to discuss issues that are a bit tricky that traditionally men find difficulty to deal with.
Tony, who's the coordinator who, again, didn't want to have a picture taken of him. Tony said that it does take time for men to talk but he said gradually over a period of weeks and months that they will talk about everything from malfunctioning prostates to bad relationships. He said it's interesting to hear their confidence grow as they can talk about these issues.
It's a very vital place and certainly the men who go there enjoy it. As I said, there are now many, many Mens Sheds all around Australia. Again another example of what the community services sector can do and how to come up with a solution creatively to what is a major problem.
So that is just a little sample of some of the things that are done through the community services sector using sometimes government money, sometimes their own funds. But using it imaginatively and innovatively. I mean you need to think innovatively of solutions to some of society's trickier problems. Whether it be for older men, whether it be for those on disability support pensions or for young people trying to get them re-engaged either into school or back into the work force.
I think it shows that there's very effective use of taxpayers' dollars and that when you get that value add from the community sector, it makes a pretty kind of special and successful outcome.
Certainly when you look at how government can work with the kind of innovation we see in the sector, they can as the Productivity Commission says, be more flexible with contracts.
They can, without distorting a playing field, change the procurement process so that maybe for a local council, you could take five per cent of their landscaping budget and allocate it for organisations like BoysTown who are going to work with trainees. So you're not disadvantaging the kind of broad private sector and the trade sector. But you're actually allocating a certain amount of funds whether it be local government or state government or Federal Government so that you work with these innovative programmes that have shown that they do work.
Seed funding's another, you know, pay tribute to the Department of Veterans' Affairs who seed funded Mens Shed and that got off the ground. Also working through partnerships and there are many examples of how government works with the not-for-profit sector, with the community services sector in partnerships to actually bring the resources of both together and a very effective outcome again.
Robert Fitzgerald who was the Productivity Commissioner, who is the Productivity Commissioner but who was the one doing the not-for-profit contribution enquiry, talked to an audience in Canberra last week. While his recommendations say government's got a lot to do for the sector, he revved it up for the sector last week. He said okay sector, you need to have more of a voice. You need to have more understanding of what solutions you want from government, what changes you want from government.
He said don't put up with the kind of rubbish commentators you hear. But he put the pressure back, not only on the government with his report, but on the not-for-profit sector and the community services sector that I represent too so you've also got to find your voice. Find the changes you want and take them strongly to government.
But I suppose my message today, because I'm going to finish talking shortly, is that a lot of good things are happening. The community services sector has done a very good job over the last 12 months. We should be singing its praises. There's more work to be done. But it certainly is kind of like the beating heart of our community when you see some of the programmes that are in place and some of the kind of outcomes that we see for some of Australia's most disadvantaged people.
Thank you.-- end --
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