Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges that:

(a) there is a significant, ongoing and growing need for emergency relief, financial counselling and related programs, to support the most vulnerable Australians;

(b) local organisations play a critical role in the delivery of these programs around Australia; and

(c) volunteers are a crucial and valued part of this network;

(2) condemns the Government for:

(a) cutting core social services to the most vulnerable Australians, while increasing demand for those services through other elements of their unfair budget; and

(b) the covert way in which funding decisions have been made and implemented; and

(3) calls on the Government to:

(a) restore funding to social services; and

(b) provide clarity and funding certainty to affected housing, homelessness services, neighbourhood centres, advice bureaus and other community service providers around Australia.

The Springvale Benevolent Society have been serving the people of Springvale and surrounds for 53 years now. They are an essential, integral part of the social services network in my electorate. Through a team of long-term, hardworking volunteers, they deliver food vouchers, blankets and other essentials to the people in my community who are doing it the toughest. Around Christmas Eve last year, the Springvale Benevolent Society received some bad news: their entire budget of emergency relief had been cut.

The Springvale Benevolent Society is just one of a number of groups I will talk about today who are amongst those at the pointy end of a $270 million cut to front-line social services. Right around the country, the community sector is being ravaged by these cruel cuts. Last month, the member for Isaacs, Bruce and I held a forum to bring together these service providers and try to piece together what we could about the situation on the ground. What we know is that emergency relief, financial counselling, parenting programs, support for bushfire victims, housing and homelessness organisations and organisations that support people with disabilities have all had their funding slashed. These organisations have seen their funding cut and they serve literally the most vulnerable people in our country.

This is going to particularly hurt in my electorate of Hotham. I represent one of the most multicultural places in Victoria. Many, many families in the region I represent have no-one else to turn to. We have high numbers of recent refugees and recent migrants, who have limited support networks. We have large amounts of affordable housing and caravan parks. We have a lot of people in our community who are affected by a life of disability. The organisations that deliver emergency relief in this community are the last stop for these people when they have literally nowhere else to go.

Governing and budgets in particular are about priorities. In the last budget, the government decided to give tax relief to big miners and big polluters, while taxing the sick and increasing the burdens on those who can least afford to pay. In doing so, the government made a decision that it would expand the group of people who will ultimately be relying on these last-port-of-call services.

This decision to cut the funding going to the most vulnerable Australians, though, I have to say, is taking this terrible prioritisation to new heights. This is a funding cut that is directed to people who have been at the back of an unemployment queue for years. This funding cut is directed at the homeless. It is directed at Australians with mental illness. All of these people, believe it or not, in this wealthy and prosperous country of ours, do not have food in the cupboard at certain points in the month. These are the most vulnerable Australians.

There are other organisations that serve my electorate that have a specific ethnic focus, and they have had their funding cut. I want to refer to some of the work that these organisations do. One organisation is the Vietnamese Community in Australia. They deliver support specifically to Vietnamese families and they have a special focus on families with a person who has a disability. I am sure I do not have to explain the deep cultural elements of the particular type of challenge that these families face. It is appropriate that a Vietnamese organisation supports these families. What I hear from the organisations is that a lot of their work is about helping these families get connected into mainstream services that they would not know existed without these organisations with specific expertise in these ethnic communities.

One issue that should not go undiscussed is the ham-fisted way in which these funding cuts were administered. First, there was the notification on Christmas Eve. Second, there was no information or explanation of why these organisations that have served their communities for decades were having their funding cut, just a cold letter saying that funding had been refused. The letter, believe it or not, was not even addressed to individuals or individual organisations. Is this any way to treat organisations run by diligent volunteers who have given up so much?

There are lots of other providers in my electorate who are losing funding, but they have asked me not to name them today, because those that have been given a little bit of funding under the program, after seeing their funding savagely cut, have been told that, if they tell anyone about the funding amount that they have been given, that funding will be taken away. These are the types of tactics that we see again and again from this government. I have written to the Minister for Social Services to ask him how these arrangements are going to be transitioned and to ask him to restore this funding. I have not received a response, but these services will not give up the fight and neither will I.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. I would like to speak about how the cuts to the community service grants will affect my electorate of Bendigo but also, more broadly, regional Australia. I, being the second speaker to this motion, also think we should note at this point that there is nobody from the government backbench speaking on this motion and how appalling—

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry?

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, there is one. I stand corrected. There is somebody at the bottom of the speaking list. One sole person from the government backbench and the government ranks is speaking on this motion. I think it speaks volumes about the nature of this government that they acknowledge that these cuts are unpopular—and there is only one backbencher or marginal seat member willing to put their name to it—but they are not willing to act and do anything about these cuts. This motion gave them an opportunity to stand up in this House to say that they were going to reverse the decision to cut $270 million from community grants. Instead, except for one sole person—and it should be noted that one individual does not form a government—all of them are in hiding and not willing to speak up or speak about these funding cuts and how they affect our community.

As has been mentioned, these grants being cut demonstrates not only the cruelty of this government but also the incompetence. As we have heard, many of these organisations were given a short time frame in which to apply for funding so that they could continue to deliver services to some of the most vulnerable in our community. Some of these organisations have for decades been delivering emergency relief, financial counselling support and related programs to the most vulnerable in our communities. Not only were they given a short time frame in which to reapply for funding, but the deadline within which they would find out about their funding continued to be extended and extended.

In December last year I remember meeting with Lisa Simpson, the financial counselling services coordinator with Bendigo Community Health, who said to me, 'We still do not know if we can continue this service next year'. The Bendigo Community Health financial services team supports people who have put their hands up to say they are in trouble. Quite often they are referred to this section of Bendigo Community Health from another service. They work with these individuals to help them get back on track, so they can get themselves out of debt. These are people who have acknowledged that they have financial stress, and they are seeking help. She said at the time, 'We don't know if we can continue to offer this service next year, because we still don't know.' The incompetence of this government to then let people know on Christmas Eve—cruel, but also incompetent, because who can rearrange services on Christmas Eve? Very few organisations have the capability to scramble that way. The organisation was then notified a few weeks ago that they could continue their service until the end of March. Here we are in the first week of March, and they do not know if they will get the opportunity and the support to continue their services into April or May.

Another organisation I wish to highlight is Bendigo Family and Financial Services. This organisation provides small loans, financial management training, counselling and emergency relief to those who are struggling due to a range of various reasons—loss of work, sickness, inability to work—and helps these families living on the margins to get on top of their debt. The organisation was established in 2006 to help break the generational poverty cycle that we have in Bendigo. The organisation has roughly 10 part-time staff, and this funding went towards helping to pay those wages. There are also 70 volunteers. They have a motto that if you receive help we would like you to help others. 'Family', in their title, does not just mean the families they help, but the family environment of the organisation. When we got together for a meeting I remember learning firsthand how important this service is. Over 100 people came to share their experiences.

These organisations are now at risk of closing because of this government's cruel decision to cut their funding. I call on the government to reverse their decision not to support this motion.

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a privilege to be the government backbencher speaking when, apparently, according to the last member, there are none speaking on this. That is just the first of the falsities that I want to go into here.

The member moving the motion has fallen into the same old Labor trap of following the Maxwell Smart guide to drawing up a motion. Firstly, there is the 'basing your argument on a false premise' trick. It is the fourth time they have fallen for it this week, and it is only Monday morning. The motion wants the House to acknowledge that 'there is a significant, ongoing and growing need for emergency relief.' I have to tell you: it is a false premise. If the member had done a little bit of homework, she would have seen fewer instances of people actually accessing Emergency Relief assistance via the Commonwealth. The figures that have come down from a high of more than a million instances of access for the service, in 2009-10, to just over 900,000, in 2013-14—a decrease in demand for Emergency Relief assistance.

Secondly, they have employed the old 'shot yourself in the foot' trick—the third time Labor has fallen for that this week and we have not even reached question time yet. The member wants to condemn the government for 'cutting core social services to the most vulnerable Australians'. One must assume that the member moving the motion wants the House to condemn her for her role in Labor's cutting of the funding to Emergency Relief. They did it, in 2011-12, by $62. 5; in 2012-13, by $59.9 million; and then, in 2013-14, by $57.4 million. Where were the voices when those cuts were being made? Under the current government, the revised Emergency Relief allocation for 2014-15 is $62.9 million, inclusive of bridging funds for current organisations.

Thirdly, there is the old 'I live under a rock and didn't see it' trick—the first time this week. The member wants to condemn the government for, apparently, 'The covert way in which funding decisions have been made and implemented.' Well, she has a funny definition of covert. The Department of Social Services conducted 13 sessions with 1,800 attendees in Canberra, Hobart, Darwin, Brisbane, Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Coffs Harbour, Dubbo, Townsville, Mildura, and Alice Springs. If we were being covert, we sure had a funny way of doing it. Perhaps the member was at a union rally and missed the notice. But those who cared enough to turn up to the May and June sessions understood the changes under A New Way of Working for Grants and how to prepare organisations for an application process. Sessions in November were to support the sector in understanding how grants were being introduced in new grant agreements and to introduce the new streamlined reporting requirements. In addition to those information sessions, the department began consultations with the sector immediately after the budget on May 13 last year. Information was up on the Treasury website, on the Minister for Social Services' website, through the Department of Social Services Grants Hotline, a central enquiries email, a target email advice to grant recipients, detailed program information documents, fact sheets, engagement with peak bodies and key stakeholders including state government departments, advertisements placed in national and major regional newspapers, and a second round of newspaper advertisements. So, it is a funny way of being covert.

Finally, the member has fallen for the old 'elephant in the room' trick, and they will fall for it about 20 times this week, I guess. The change this government has introduced is to provide more targeted funding to areas in most need. To get the most benefit out of funding, we must know where the areas of need are. When that is determined, we direct funds there instead of blindly throwing dollars to where they always go, ignoring changes in demographics. The government is determined to get value for every dollar the taxpayer gives up, because, frankly, there are no dollars left. The Labor Party, the subscribers to Maxwell Smart economics, spent the lot and then they borrowed. Then they borrowed some more so they could throw it around like it was free—and people thought they were getting it for free. I do not know how much of an emergency it was that $900 was going off in cheque form to pet dogs and dead people. Maybe Rover or Great Grandpa was down on his luck—or British backpackers. How much of an emergency was it when the Labor Party felt the need to hunt down backpackers who had already returned to the UK so that the Australian taxpayer could hand over a $900 cheque? As I said, this money was going to dead people—I think it is way past an emergency by then. No emergency relief, no matter how big the cheque, is going to help you when you are dead.

Every time the Labor Party come in here and mention spending, it has to be more focused. They are ignoring the elephant in the room—that is, their debt. They have given all Australians a debt sentence, and they should be ashamed.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Once again we have seen a member of a government that has cut $270 million from community services to some of the most vulnerable people in Australia stand up and make a speech that is actually all about us. There are thousands of people all around the country that depend on this emergency relief. Small organisations that have been delivering it and delivering it well for decades have had their funding cut, and the member for Dawson thinks it is about us—not the people it is hurting, not the government which is making the decisions, but the opposition. That is truly extraordinary. There is one government speaker on this motion, and he spent the whole time talking about us.

I am going to speak about the motion and about the issues. It is hard to know where to start—whether with the brutality and ignorance of the policy itself or whether with the incompetence in its delivery. But I am going to start with the brutality. This $270 million cut to community services delivered in the budget last May reduces the level of emergency services, the services to people who find themselves literally without a bus fare to get to Centrelink, without nappies or food or formula for their child, without money to pay the parking fee when they take their child to Westmead Children's Hospital. This is called emergency relief because it is. The government have ripped away funding to those services. At the same time, just to add to the brutality, they have done things in the budget that will make it more likely that people will need these services. They have announced that young people under the age of 30 will receive no financial support for up to six months every year if they find themselves unemployed—these are quite a few more people who are going to need emergency services. They have announced cuts of around $6,000 to a family with two kids on a salary of $60,000—these are a few more people who are going to need emergency services. They have announced reduced indexation, which will see pensioners up to $80 a week worse off—these are a few more people that are going to need emergency services . At the same time, they have cut funding to the services that these people will need.

On top of the brutality is the ignorance. When the government announced the cuts they also announced that they would be opening up the remaining funds to a competitive tender on a five-year basis, effectively opening the door to very large organisations, because it becomes viable on those sorts of terms. They introduced a tender process which is really beyond the capacity of the small volunteer organisations that have been running these services. And in flooded some 5½ thousand applications, which has effectively squeezed out the service providers that have the history and the local knowledge and that have been delivering these services to people with whom they have relationships and corporate memory for many, many decades. These organisations are not inefficient. The usual theory that bigger is cheaper is not true when you talk about these organisations. Holroyd Community Aid, for example, which has lost its funding, received $184,000 last year, with $6,000 going to the audit and the remainder going entirely to members of the community in food vouchers, nappies, medications et cetera. You cannot get more efficient than that.

The incompetence is also worth talking about, incompetence in the process itself. In October 2014 the government announced that they had too many applications and that they would not be ready to enter into funding agreements on 1 January, which was the proposed start date. So, in October 2014, they extended the funding agreements to 28 February 2015. Then, between 22 and 24 December 2014, tiny organisations that had closed for the Christmas break received emails saying their funding had been cut and that they would be closing down on 28 February. In my electorate of Parramatta, one of the casualties is Holroyd Community Aid, which has been operating for 48 years. They will close down at the end of February and early March. Then, on 30 January, the government announced further delays, because they still were not ready, and offered extensions to emergency relief to 31 March. Meanwhile, small organisations were trying to tell their customers where they should go when they closed down at the end of February or March, to find out that no-one knew who had got the funding. The secrecy is extraordinary. No-one knows who has got the funding, because if organisations who are getting the funding say they are, they have been told they will lose their funding. So the organisations that are closing down in just four weeks cannot even tell people where they are supposed to go. It is incompetence and brutality from this government. (Time expired)

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, I would like to congratulate the member for Hotham for bringing this really important motion to the House. I am really disappointed that there are not more speakers on the government side, more members coming into the chamber and standing up for the community groups in their electorates.

In Australia today the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest Australians is widening. The poorest Australians are struggling to survive, and if an emergency occurs they will be struggling even more. Unemployment in this country has constantly gone up under those on the other side of House. The number of jobs is declining and the number of people participating in full-time employment has fallen. Newstart allowance is at a very minimal level. There has been an assault on single parents, who are struggling harder and harder. We are now hearing that people with disabilities will have to bear the brunt of this government's harsh approaches. There are working poor in this country, with a decrease in full-time employment and casualisation of the workforce, with those people receiving no sick leave or carers leave. These are all components that lead to making it harder for people that need little bit of help from government.

About 12.8 per cent of all Australians live below the poverty line. Consider that in the context of the grants that we are discussing here today. The process for these grants has been handled appallingly by the government. They extended the grants for six months, then they extended them again till March and, where just two days before Christmas, they made phone calls—not even having the decency to do it in writing—notifying organisations that they had been defunded.

The government have ripped $21 million out of organisations that provide services to marginalised and struggling Australians. This is the Abbott government way: attack those people who cannot stand up for themselves and attack those organisations that provide support for them. By attacking those organisations, they are attacking those volunteers that work in them.

Organisations are put on hold at the moment; they are just waiting to find out whether or not they are going to receive funding. It is like purchasing a car and finding that the engine does not work properly. Those organisations that are getting funding, I hear on the grapevine, are actually receiving less than they need to operate the programs. They are getting the car but they are not getting the engine.

I understand that there have been a number of organisations on the Central Coast of New South Wales, part of which is covered by my electorate, that have lost their funding. I am really surprised that members are not in this chamber standing up and arguing for those community centres. One such community centre is the Warnervale Family and Community Centre. They lost their funding so they closed last Thursday, which I think is really deplorable. The member for Dobell made an excellent speech upstairs about International Women's Day and about the high level of domestic violence on the Central Coast, but here she is silent when it comes to talking about the closing of these organisations.

The allocation for relief funding for the Central Coast was nearly $900,000 per annum, and the feedback that I am getting is that what has been paid is significantly less. Other organisations that have lost their funding are organisations like the Gosford/Narara Neighbourhood Centre. They lost all of their $240,000 of funding. The Entrance Neighbourhood Centre neighbourhood centre lost all of their $57,000 of funding. St Vincent de Paul were also unsuccessful. These are all organisations providing vital services for people on the Central Coast. (Time expired)

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also add my thanks to the member for Hotham for moving this motion in private members' business today, because the cuts and the processes that we are going through around these discretionary grants defy logic. What we are looking at in my electorate is increased demand coupled with decreased funding. What we are going to see is decreased provision for our most vulnerable.

Lalor has great community organisations, and they deliver smart, efficient and strategic problem programs that support the most vulnerable in our community. In Lalor, this is occurring where we have the highest eviction rates in the state, where unemployment in Melbourne's west has reached 8.4 per cent and youth unemployment is at 23.2 per cent. In this context, this government is choosing to make things more difficult.

Some of these smart and efficient services in Lalor are Werribee Support and Housing, which has been operating for 30 years; Laverton Community Integrated Services, which has been operating for 26 years; and the Salvation Army. Those three services are involved in emergency relief, while Anglicare and the Smith Family provide financial and often emotional support for families in crisis. They assist with financial counselling and capacity building to assist families to put things right and get back on their feet.

On the one hand, we have the emergency relief and the implications of that, and on the other we have the cuts of the programs that we know make the difference and cuts to the preventative measures that our communities worked so hard with these agencies to put into place. What is more important is that these local agencies negotiate with local landlords to find emergency housing when regular avenues are closed. They work together creatively to ensure maximum bang for the federal government buck, and here they have been rewarded by cuts.

These agencies also use deep local knowledge—irreplaceable local knowledge—of who is who in the zoo. They use insight to make things happen quickly, they support one another to keep ahead of the curve and create ways to implement prevention strategies—strategies that work and make all the difference to families facing crisis. They all rely on a paid and unpaid workforce to support individuals and families on their worst days. They work with the most vulnerable in our community on their worst days. These organisations have been operating with an austerity axe poised above their heads since this government took office.

In the time since this government took office, we have had a Productivity Commission report that outlined really positive outcomes in the sector. In 2012-13, 244,176 people across this country received support from homelessness service agencies. These people are already the most marginalised in our communities—young people, Indigenous people and those facing situations of domestic or family violence. These housing services can make all the difference. For example, that Productivity Commission report says that 93 per cent of people accessing homelessness services had achieved some or all of their case management goals at the end of their support period. That is an extraordinary achievement, and yet in recognition of that what we have are cuts.

We also had a Senate inquiry of which I was really proud. All of the agencies in my electorate put in collective and individual submissions to that inquiry, demonstrating the work that they were doing and the number of people that they were assisting. But, despite that happening across the country, what we have seen since this government came to office is the dismantling of the COAG agreements and the homelessness council, and $270 million cut from the system.

The fact is that we have increased demand and decreased funding, and the response from this Minister for Social Services have been crippling. Services who have worked in this area for decades are still unsure of what their responsibilities will be. They are sure that they have had their funding cut from their past grant allocations, but they are unsure how far they are going to have to make their cut dollars go and in what areas of the community and who they will be working with on the ground. More need and less support is the story that is happening in my electorate. My community deserves better. These agencies deserve better. Our most vulnerable deserve better. These grants create positive outcomes in the worst circumstances, and they need to be reinstated in full.

Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This government has taken many decisions that have been met with disbelief in the broader community. They have been decisions which have been argued strongly by both sides, and decisions where sometimes you can argue there is a case one way or the other. I have to say that of all the decisions this government has taken, the decisions that have been taken on community grants are the most indefensible, are some of the most cruel, and have had impacts on real people in electorates all over Australia. It is something that the government needs to think about.

It is easy to cut community grants. You do not have to get legislation through the Senate, you do not have to worry about having a regulation disallowed—you can do it with the stroke of a pen. This government have done exactly that, but they have done more—not only have they used the stroke of a pen; they have used subterfuge and confusion to camouflage the extent of the cuts and the nature of the cuts and how they are impacting on the community. We have heard from other speakers the nature of the process that has been followed, if you can call it a process. Applications were sought—applications which required onerous detail in the paperwork—and then there have been the various bureaucratic mechanisms deployed over the last six to 12 months to ensure the people do not know what is happening. We have a situation where the government has had to extend funding because their own processes were not working. We have had a situation where community groups have been asked not to say a word about what they had been told because other matters were still being resolved. They cannot even go out there and tell their story about the people they care for. Some groups have had the courage to come out, and frankly, because so many groups have been cut completely, the circumstances are such that they have nothing to lose. I will tell you who does have a lot to lose, and that is the people that they look after.

I commend the member for Hotham for putting this motion forward. I was involved in a community summit with her and with the member for Isaacs and the state member for Clarinda, and we heard from groups in our local areas about what is happening to them. As I said, some of those groups were not keen to talk because they were concerned about how that might be interpreted—that was the sort of word they had got back from government bodies with respect to what they could and could not say. I am going to identify a couple of them but I will particularly go to the overall view. These groups are overwhelmingly volunteer groups. They are people who put their time in to provide a service. They advocate for people and help them to deal with the problems they are facing—it is people involved in things like financial counselling, which can ensure that people do not get into the financial trouble that would require additional government assistance down the track. They are people involved in organisations like Dads in Distress, who help people going through severe domestic trauma to deal with their circumstances and to ensure that the situation does not end up in the need for police, incarceration or further financial deprivation. There are organisations that provide emergency relief to people who are really doing it hard—people who are refugees but who are unable to access formal assistance from government in any real sense. The local paper quotes one of the representatives of the Springvale Benevolent Society, who says that 'some of our clients will starve' as a result of the changes that have been made. These organisations provide services that are intrinsically important to supporting government. One says:

Centrelink refers to us. They're a Federal Government agency and they refer to us. But the Federal Government won't fund us.

It's an inhumane decision. No one will look after the families we look after. They're struggling. Some are disabled. Some are refugees. People will starve and it will be on their heads.

The society president, Joe Rechichi, has nearly 650 people on his books, including 500 children. He says:

I've lost some sleep. I can't even sleep at night. I know what it's like …

These changes are inhumane. These are cuts that will affect the most disadvantaged in society. It is interesting to note that, for a motion for which there would normally be an equal number of speakers from both sides, the government have not been able to get enough members up to defend their action. They ought to be ashamed.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for the debate has expired.