Page 523 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 18 February 2015
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4,000 people. It is an indispensable repository of expertise and professional practice. The volunteer workforce involves over a third of our Canberra community and is one of the highest in the country.
With approximately 150 organisations in a financial partnership with the ACT government, in 2004 the ACT government published a social compact with the specific aim of improving these partnerships to deliver better outcomes to the community. This compact was further developed by the joint community-government reference group, and relaunched in 2012. The compact provides guiding standards in planning, policy development and governance, management and accountability, and the delivery of quality services and programs. This partnership last year resulted in the skilled volunteer community network program, an initiative that is run by Volunteering ACT, to tap into the skills of former public servants by linking them to Volunteering ACT’s organisations that are in need of such skills.
The human services blueprint is another example of the outcome of the close partnership this government has with the community sector. The aim of the blueprint is to guide the delivery of human services, across government and the community sector, that are more client driven, more holistic and more responsive to the dynamic and changing needs of the community. This initiative will see families working with trained workers to come up with tailored solutions for specific families because, as we all know, one size does not fit all.
Mr Assistant Speaker, in this time of great challenges, mainly as a result of the federal Liberal government’s needless and ill-thought-out austerity measures that are seeing cuts to federally funded programs, the ACT government and the community sector are working together to ensure that community organisations are stronger and more resilient. This is being achieved through the community sector reform program that the ACT government is co-funding. The initiative will see reforms to the relationship between funding bodies and community organisations; the alignment of legislation, regulatory, administrative and reporting requirements; and the development of red tape reduction measures. I am sure that this will be very welcome in the community sector.
These, along with other exciting joint projects such as the establishment of the Common Ground inclusive housing project in Gungahlin, which Ms Berry mentioned earlier in her response to Ms Lawder’s motion, the collaborative redesign of our out of home care system, resulting in the child-focused, outcomes-driven “A step up for our kids” child protection services strategy, and the recent $90,000 grant to men’s sheds in the ACT are just some of the good outcomes that have emerged from a strong working relationship with the community and the not-for-profit sector.
However, all these achievements are under threat. Since the out of touch Liberal federal government came to power, we have witnessed a sustained attack on Canberra which has totally disregarded the human cost. It is expected that the ACT government will lose millions of dollars over the next four years since the 2014-15 Abbott budget was delivered. At the same time there will be several thousand Australian public service jobs lost in Canberra over four years which, as we all know, will have a devastating knock-on effect to all Canberrans and see the loss of jobs and livelihoods across all sectors.
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