Acknowledgements
- The Darug people—traditional owners of the land on which we meet.
- Mr Rob Peno - Deputy Convenor, Local Government Managers Australia Sydney Regional Network for the introduction.
- Ladies and gentlemen.
Introduction
Thank you Rob for your introduction, and thank you to the Association for this opportunity to talk with you about how we can work together to advance the social inclusion agenda.
I appreciate your genuine interest and commitment to building social inclusion, demonstrated by your meeting program, and by the profound and innovative ways that local government supports and enriches communities through services, infrastrastructure and community development.
It is also very timely that we engage on this topic, during this most eventful week for the federal and local governments of Australia.
New money has been announced: with a $300 million program to build essential community infrastructure in all of Australia’s 565 local council areas.
But it wasn’t just about money. This week also marked one of the biggest gatherings of elected representatives ever held through the Australian Council of Local Governments meeting, drawing together over 400 mayors and representatives from across the many shires and councils across the country.
It demonstrated the Rudd Government’s commitment to stronger and more coherent relationships – between levels of government, with business, with the non-profit sector and with communities.
There is work going on in all these spheres. As Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and the Voluntary Sector I have been leading work to develop a new and more effective relationship with the non-profit sector as key part of the social inclusion agenda and I will share with you an outline of this work shortly.
We understand that respectful and effective relationships matter. They enable us to join-up and work together to deliver on the ground in local communities. They enable important discussions on how we can improve infrastructure and services. They build trust and give government vital linkages to what is happening in local communities and what will work best.
Local input is vitally important to us in the way we design and deliver programs, not only to tackle disadvantage and exclusion, but to build sustainable communities and economies - because every place has unique challenges and opportunities. Think about the diversity of the communities that you as a Network represent. It is not for governments to determine what is best for Auburn, Parramatta, or North Sydney but find better ways to hear from your communities and work with them.
Local governments must be enabled to provide advice directly to us about how the social inclusion agenda could be best implemented - and how we can work in partnership to achieve locally based solutions.
During Tuesday’s inaugural meeting, I had the opportunity to talk with a group of local government representatives about the ways we can work together to build more cohesive and inclusive communities.
It was a dynamic discussion and a wide range of views were canvassed from all types of communities – rural and urban, large population centres and small towns.
It was clear that the notion of social inclusion and the implementation of innovative solutions to disadvantage is something familiar to local governments.
Some of the key issues and suggestions put forward included:
- the approach must be whole of governments, not just whole-of-government
- it must be about doing things to people in the community, but doing things with them
- find ways to support and enrich civic engagement – through our democracy and volunteering
- infrastructure is key – to connect people physically and virtually
- red tape, ineffective regulation and governance can tie organisations down and stop them from reaching their missions
- different communities have different needs – growth communities, diverse communities and the social impacts of the drought
- the need to be strategic, and where possible work across regions to develop economies and communities.
These ideas are all at the forefront of the government’s thinking on social inclusion.
Social Inclusion Agenda
As you know, the Government came to office a year ago with social inclusion as a key policy priority to achieve a fair and prosperous Australia for all.
Global circumstances have changed in a year. The ramifications of the financial storm that we are weathering is going to demand much more of us all, especially if we are to prevent the disadvantaged in our communities becoming even more socially excluded.
It’s our core belief that Australia’s long-term prosperity and social development depends on creating opportunities for all Australians:
- to have the chance to make choices;
- to participate in work;
- to belong;
- to have a place to call home;
- to volunteer;
- to be visible;
- to be able to access services;
- to be able to connect with friends; and
- to believe that their opinion is worth expressing, and importantly, is worth being listened to.
Social inclusion is not simply about isolated activities which reduce poverty or homelessness, nor is it just about increasing employment and education opportunities alone. It is about all of these things in unison, and linking overarching policy with on the-ground service delivery to break the cycle of disadvantage for those individuals and communities who have spent too long waiting for opportunities to make a contribution and participate in a meaningful way.
Social exclusion occurs when people can’t overcome the barriers that prevent them from participating. Approaches that understand the complexity of exclusion and respond to the multiple needs of individuals work best. And we know we have to start with early intervention and prevention and not always work backwards from the other end.
We must put the people we want to service right at the centre of our activity.
We know that effective services and programs ‘wrap’ services around the individual, particularly those individuals with complex needs. This demands a commitment to holistic service delivery – but this is not easy and requires very new ways of working that involves breaking down silos at all levels.
For our work with those experiencing social exclusion to succeed, we need to ensure the links and partnerships between governments, service providers, non-profit and voluntary organisations are strong.
Through the social inclusion agenda the Australian Government is committed to driving a national framework and new public policy approach.
To do this we need to act on several different fronts.
- We have created a Minister for Social Inclusion – Julia Gillard – and a Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion – me.
- We also have appointed a Social Inclusion Board that is providing high level strategic advice, particularly advice on how to break the social exclusion cycle and develop policy responses to locational disadvantage.
- We are adopting a whole-of-government approach. We have set up the Social Inclusion Unit at the very centre of government, in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to oversee whole-of-government processes to drive our nation building agenda.
- We have interdepartmental committees to engage a range of government agencies in social inclusion agenda – multicultural affairs, environment, and the arts for example.
- We are adopting a whole-of-governments approach. We were elected on a promise to end the buck‐passing between the Commonwealth and the States and to deliver a new style of intergovernmental cooperation to meet the policy challenges facing the nation.
- Through the Council of Australian Governments we are taking important strides to develop more accountable funding arrangements that will replace the inefficient and complex system of tied grants. The Commonwealth will dramatically reduce the number of Special Purpose Payments. Around 90 existing agreements will be collapsed into just five – in health, early childhood education and schools, vocational education, disabilities, and housing. States will get the flexibility they need for resources to be allocated to areas where they will produce the best results. The Commonwealth will focus on the achievement of outcomes – that is, what the States deliver to the people of Australia – not how they deliver it.
- I am leading work to develop a national strategy to find fresh approaches to encourage and support volunteering as a central part of building social inclusion. This will coincide with the 10th anniversary of the UN International Year of Volunteers to be held in 2011.
As I mentioned earlier, I am leading work across government to develop a new partnership with non-profit organisations in your municipalities that deliver so many services to local communities.
We are committed to restore trust in this relationship and create a fresh partnership with the non-profit sector in which we can work together collaboratively and creatively.
The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) has helped us with the first set of consultations on the question of a Compact as a tool to build this new relationship. We received an overwhelmingly positive response and many practical suggestions about what we can include in such an agreement.
The compact will provide as a vehicle for change and as an opportunity to redefine the not-for-profit sector's relationship with government.
Cabinet has just agreed to a second stage of consultations which will explore further what we should include in a compact and what the opportunities are for both government the non-profit sector.
In these discussions, we want to map out a journey and a vision of where we want the sector to be in ten years. We want to use this process to get a much better recognition of the sector itself and the valuable work that it does.
There are a range of other measures underway to recognise the sector and better understand its challenges. We will be commissioning the Productivity Commission to create a tool to measure the sector and give some economic credibility to the efforts of people working in the sector.
The Government will also be keenly interested in the findings of the Senate Economics Committee's inquiry into disclosure regimes for charities and non-profit organisations which will report in early December. This inquiry has looked at the relevance of current disclosure regimes for non-profits and how other models of regulation could improve the
Some of the recommendations from the Senate Inquiry will be around tax issues and these will feed into the Henry tax review, which will ultimately deliver some real outcomes around tax treatment.
More broadly, we are committed to introducing coordinated contracting arrangements for common areas of procurement, with a view to getting better value for money for Commonwealth departments and agencies. Once introduced, we will examine options for local governments to take advantage of these arrangements as well.
Conclusion
Social inclusion enables us to look differently at our society, to recognise the complexity of exclusion and from there develop a new way of governing.
It will require innovation and commitment – not just from the Commonwealth but from all tiers of government. We all have a responsibility to engage in inclusive practices – in the way we employ people, the way we work with communities and ensure that those who need services the most can access them.
We recognise that local governments are already active and vital partners in many initiatives that foster collaboration.
Your role in delivering vital infrastructure in the coming months will be crucial to building the social and economic fabric of your communities.
Broader questions must be further explored about the constitutional recognition of local government and how it is financed. There are clear challenges for you – skill shortages, infrastructure bottlenecks, responding to rapid growth to name a few - but I know that local government is also committed to new ways of working – options like shared service delivery and joint purchasing of resources are all important.
The new centre for excellence of local government, to which the Rudd Government has committed $8 million, will showcase innovation, best practice and encourage the wider adoption of innovative practices and solutions.
Tuesday’s meeting was just the start of the new relationship between local and federal governments. All in the Rudd Government, from the Prime Minister down, recognise that we cannot build a more sustainable and inclusive Australia without local government, and I look forward to working with you as the social inclusion agenda continues.