Susan Lamb (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Just a little over a week ago, on the day I returned to the electorate from the last parliamentary sitting, I hosted the very first Annual Volunteer Awards in Longman. It was a fantastic evening, on which the hard work the volunteers of our electorate have done our local community was recognised. It was a great way to celebrate National Volunteer Week. Over 100 people attended to recognise and congratulate our volunteers and the work they do.

A live in and represent a really great electorate, an electorate that proudly supports volunteers, who are the lifeblood of our community. We are a community of really hard working families—we are a small business owners and retirees who want the very best for our families and our community. But with an average median total personal income of only $27,000 a year, or just over $500 a week, many of our constituents live with disadvantage. They struggle to get by and they rely upon services provided by organisations and their volunteers.

While life can be tough, the volunteers of our community groups and organisations know that, in providing support, we have a great opportunity to really create a difference in people's lives. That is why I am opposed to this redesign from the Department of Social Services, which is seeking to take funding from the Strengthening Communities grants program, a program that to date can be seen as nothing but successful. The grants program, which provides around $18 million per year to projects that address disadvantage and build opportunities in communities around Australia, has been a vital source for our nation's volunteer organisations.

Within the program there is a specific funding system, or stream, for volunteer management programs. It is this funding that will be abolished, on 1 January next year, under this government. Effectively, this will mean that volunteer support services will be forced to compete with other worthwhile community services for funding. Further, this redesign removes any guarantee that these crucial volunteer support services will receive any money at all from the grants program. As the Strengthening Communities program is currently the only source of federal money for volunteer management services, this could easily result in the government providing absolutely zero funding to these organisations, from January 2018.

This government must surely concede that it is alarming that the peak body for volunteering, Volunteering Australia, states that the change that they intend to make to Strengthening Communities:

… will rip the heart out of local volunteer support services.

This funding cut is likely to have a devastating effect. How can the government call this redesigned program the Strong and Resilient Communities grants program when the changes will make our communities less strong and less resilient? This is a government who frequently likes to tell us that nothing comes free. Yet here they are making it more difficult for our volunteer organisations to obtain Commonwealth assistance for the work that they do to help our communities.

I know that Labor and those opposite tend to have opposing beliefs a lot of times and across a lot of issues. But I believe there are really core areas where bipartisan support should be expected, and I know my community expects it. Supporting those who already do so much for our community is not just a good decision because there are positive social or economic outcomes; it is because it is just the right thing to do. Today, I call upon the government to recognise the importance of funding volunteer management services and, in turn, the importance of recognising their volunteers, volunteers who contribute approximately $290 billion a year to the economy. Further to that, I call upon the government to retain that funding as part of their federal budget.

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