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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Wednesday, 10 March 2004) . . Page.. 1020 ..

Everyone seems to agree that the community sector is overstretched. The crisis and emergency accommodation is but one example and I am doubtful—well I am actually quite concerned—that existing services can take on extra clients without compromising the services delivered to existing clients. I know that that is something that the community sector struggles with each and every day: the prioritisation of need and who needs the most support and about how they provide that support.

I would actually like to refer to something that the Director of the ACT Council of Social Service said to the Estimates Committee for Appropriation Bill No 2 in September last year. Mr Stubbs said:

As you may be aware, ACTCOSS, through me and others, have been heavily involved in the recovery process through our membership of the committee and an expert reference group which works with the recovery taskforce. One of the things that has been proven to be absolutely true in the process is that—after the lights and sirens go away, after the flames are no longer on the televisions, after things seem to quieten down—the community services sector, through major charities, through regional community service organisations and through small and large community service organisations, provides a wide range of service and really steps up in the process to assist a community to rebuild. That stepping up and that extended work are going on even now, and we expect they will go on for some time.

The initial response by the major charities, and then the other organisations, was nothing short of extremely impressive, from what we know and from what other people know. So we would just like to draw the committee’s attention to the fact that this appropriation doesn’t recognise the extraordinary amount of work. Although we support the need to invest in the Emergency Services sector, we strongly urge the committee to recognise, and remind the government, that there is a need to invest in the community services sector and its ability to respond to major disasters like this.

What Daniel was getting at is that the community service sector has an amazing role to play in the recovery process and they need support to be able to work through that disaster recovery process. Now, we have seen the counselling services following the bushfires report that was tabled by the government in December 2003. Mr Smyth has already spoken about the report that we seem to be missing from August 2003 where this Assembly, by majority, or actually without dissent, called on the government to outline to the Assembly by close of business 21 August 2003 its assessment of the future needs of those affected by the bushfires in regard to counselling and other services.

We have the report on counselling; we do not have the report on other services. I am disappointed that that report was never tabled—or if it was tabled, I cannot find it. We need to look at all the support services that those families are looking for and accessing. The major point I am trying to get at is that we do not know what the transition arrangements are. We do not know how families are being supported as the recovery centre winds down and where things are going in the future. This report from December talks about those future needs, stating that it is quite clear that there will be ongoing need for personal counselling services well into 2004 and that any new arrangements must be able to meet the needs of ongoing clients as well as any new referrals arising in 2004. We have yet to hear how that will be achieved. With all that in mind, I am willing to support Mr Stanhope’s amendment to Mr Smyth’s motion.

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