Mission Australia Election Manifesto 2013

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Buddy Morgan
5 years ago
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1 Mission Australia Our vision is to see a fairer Australia by enabling people in need to find pathways to a better life. While the standard of living of many Australians has improved, the economic downturn hit the poorest and most vulnerable individuals and families hard. Severe pockets of disadvantage still exist across our nation and the delivery of government services isn t reaching those most in need in order to provide the support and opportunity they need to successfully participate in society. The problems start early. Our education system is failing too many of our children and young people. Rates of youth unemployment are also unacceptably high while the prospect of sustainable work for long-term and disadvantaged job seekers is becoming more remote. Despite the efforts of governments, levels of homelessness remain stubbornly high. Access to affordable housing is beyond the reach of many and there are not enough affordable houses to meet the demand. Five years on from the apology, too little progress has been made toward closing the gap targets for Aboriginal Australians. A Fairer Australia Mission Australia believes a fairer Australia is one which ensures every child has the right to a good start in life, and to experience a safe, healthy and happy childhood. It is also one in which young people are given the opportunities, guidance and support they need to successfully move through their adolescent years and into adulthood, well prepared for life ahead. Everyone has the right to safe, secure and affordable accommodation and a place to call home. Those who are able to work should be assisted and encouraged into training or work with support and encouragement to help them achieve independence through meaningful employment. We need to ensure that young adults do not fall between the cracks while trying to transition from school to work, school to training or from training to work. Further, we need to prevent people becoming entrenched in entry level roles that risk a return to welfare. They must be assisted to progress in work so that they are able to independently participate in our economy in the longer term. Individuals who are unable to work as a result of multiple, severe barriers to employment, however, require ongoing support in the form of a welfare system that provides an adequate safety net.

2 Government must ensure that limited resources are effectively and prudently spent by being directed to those in greatest need, rather than wasted on middle class welfare. Whole-ofsystem welfare reform is required if we want to ensure the most disadvantaged in our society are given the opportunity to participate socially and economically. Mission Australia will support government in making what we acknowledge are hard decisions about allocating resources in such a way that they improve outcomes for those most in need. Yet, while the government has a responsibility to tackle social and economic disadvantage, it cannot do so alone. More effective and efficient partnerships must be forged between the community, corporate and government sectors to foster and harness innovation in service delivery. This includes developing new ways to improve outcomes for those excluded from participation. About Mission Australia Mission Australia is a non-denominational Christian community service organisation that has been transforming the lives of Australians in need for more than 150 years. As an organisation that works with some of Australia s most disadvantaged people through early learning and youth services, extensive family support and homelessness initiatives, employment and skills development, to provision of affordable housing, we are uniquely placed to help address entrenched social disadvantage. In , our 326 Community Services (including 28 Early Learning Services) assisted 110,389 individuals and 5,732 families. MA Housing also grew its housing management portfolio to 1,418 dwellings in the same year, substantially increasing the number of people we have been able to support into stable accommodation. Our Employment Solutions division, Australia s largest not-for-profit provider of government-funded employment services, offered ten programs that helped 165,000 individuals and assisted 15,850 people move into sustainable employment in Welfare Reform Our welfare system must provide an adequate safety net to people affected by ill health, disability, vulnerability or unemployment. However, we cannot afford, nor should we fund, a welfare system that provides payments to individuals and families who are not in financial need, or that allows people who are capable of social, economic and community participation to avoid doing so. This does the whole of Australia a grave disservice and depletes the budget unnecessarily. Australia s welfare system is broken and in dire need of substantial reform. Too many people have been allowed to disengage from the labour market, while others who are genuinely looking for work are denied the support, resources and training required to get them job ready or sustain them in work. Our jobless are increasingly becoming long-term unemployed, with one in five job seekers having been looking for work for more than a year. page 2

3 The last attempt at wholesale welfare reform was 13 years ago, in the form of the McClure Report. While governments in recent years have placed a stronger focus on participation, more fundamental reforms are required. Mission Australia calls on the next government to: Initiate an independent review of the nation s welfare system. The terms of reference for this review should include: How to encourage and reward social and economic participation; The interaction between the welfare and taxation systems; and The provision of an adequate social safety net. Mission Australia (along with business, unions and other community groups) calls for an immediate $50 per week increase in the Newstart allowance. This increase is needed now to prevent recipients becoming increasingly entrenched in poverty while the welfare sector reforms are underway. Families and Children Each day, Mission Australia s services see the social and economic consequences for individuals who have had a poor start in life. The benefits of investing early to ensure all children get the best possible start in life, irrespective of socio-economic or geographic factors, are multiplied later in successful transitions to adulthood and savings to welfare outlays. It is therefore vital that our universal models of service delivery are supported by evidence-led prevention and early intervention approaches. Australia s levels of literacy and numeracy are falling behind. Mission Australia believes a greater focus on early childhood education and care (ECEC) is a critical factor in redressing this. There is also a strong economic argument for greater early childhood education investment. Research in the USA has found that for every $1 spent on preschool education, there is a $7 saving for taxpayers. To improve the outcomes for disadvantaged and vulnerable children, the following actions are required: Greater examination of, and increased investment in, effective prevention and early intervention strategies, including those that are tailored to local communities. This includes recognising and acknowledging the critical role of ECEC as both a preventative and early intervention opportunity. Policy must be reframed in such a way that early childhood education and care is regarded as an integral part of our education system. The Productivity Commission should be tasked to inquire into the nation s early education and care system in relation to the most effective and affordable model of childcare including reviewing current funding models and the economic arguments for and against ECEC becoming an integral part of the education system. page 3

4 Youth Government should introduce a universal model of ECEC that commences earlier for disadvantaged and vulnerable children than for their more advantaged peers - up to three years before school and for hours per week. This extended model of care should initially be provided as a trial in the 10 most disadvantaged communities designated by government in the 2011 Budget and be complemented with targeted and intensive support services. Across Australia one in four year olds are not in work, school or training. Despite our world beating economy, we still have rates of youth unemployment above 30 per cent in many communities. While others, such as western Melbourne, northern Adelaide and far north Queensland each have a teenage unemployment rate around 40 per cent. The impact of unemployment on this generation is both significant and long-term, leading to generational joblessness and its associated social and economic consequences. The traditional family and community support networks that previously existed to facilitate better transitions for young people between education, training and work have been eroded. Australia therefore needs to establish the support mechanism for assisting young peoples transition from education to work and provide opportunities for new entrants to the workforce. The experience gap is hindering young peoples progression. There can also be long term problems for young people who get caught up in the criminal justice system. It s not uncommon for young people to engage in some type of anti-social behaviour, but most young people don t require formal intervention; they simply grow out of offending. Detention, for example, is a critical event in a young person s life that makes the transition to adulthood very difficult it must be used as a last resort particularly given other, more effective responses are available. Mission Australia recommends the following actions to improve outcomes for young people: States and territories must have greater responsibility for improving the outcomes achieved by young people including addressing the gaps in mainstream education delivery, particularly in relation to job readiness and employment outcomes. Young people should remain entitled to fully-funded education and training until they have acquired their initial Year 12 or equivalent qualification, regardless of the institution they learn in. An increase in the number of incentives, including tax incentives and wage subsidies, available to employers to employ young people and a reintroduction of the youth focus for subsidised traineeships. Expansion of meaningful work experience opportunities for young people, including through the increased use of intermediate labour market programs and social enterprises. page 4

5 Justice reinvestment must be introduced into Australian policy it represents better value for money and produces long term social and economic benefit. Funding for evidence-led rehabilitation services which divert young people out of the youth justice system particularly as that system is ill-equipped to deal with many of the issues affecting over-represented young people. Employment Mission Australia believes that work matters and that individuals, families, and whole communities benefit when a person is engaged in permanent and meaningful employment. Enabling people to participate in the economic life of our community is central to the task of real welfare reform. To achieve a fairer Australia, we must challenge the view that unemployment is a constant and necessary feature of the modern economic cycle. More innovative approaches are needed to help transform individual lives, grow national capacity, and deliver a more equal society. There are many areas of reform that would improve opportunities and outcomes for job seekers; some require significant investment while others involve a shift in current policy and the operation of the Job Services Australia model. The following actions would lift participation rates and improve outcomes for the most disadvantaged jobseekers: A better assessment process than the current Job Seeker Classification Instrument is required to accurately determine whether a welfare recipient is a job seeker or not and then properly identify the job seeker s vocational and non-vocational barriers. Offering a wider range of services to job seekers that could include extending support to other members of the family when working with issues of intergenerational unemployment. Introduction of a simpler, single workforce age payment or universal credit with participation supplements and needs-based add-on payments, tailored to individual circumstances. The tax and transfer system must be amended to remove the disincentives job seekers face when taking up employment if the current welfare system is to remain in place. Introduce a more efficient and responsive employment services model which allows a lead provider to sub-contract or purchase services from other local agencies. This system would deliver better local solutions, within the framework of a more coordinated national approach, by connecting employers with labour shortages to priority cohorts of job seekers who are disengaged from the workforce. Enhanced post placement servicing for up to 52 weeks to ensure job seekers maintain their employment, with incentives to assist job seekers transition from entry level positions. page 5

6 The employment services system should be delivered under an agreed Quality Framework, rather than a Compliance Framework. Job seekers and employers want providers to focus on outcomes, rather than process and transactions. Housing and homelessness Federal, state and territory governments have made a significant investment toward halving overall homelessness and offering supported accommodation to all rough sleepers by Yet it is clear much more needs to be done if we are to reach these goals set out in the white paper on homelessness, The Road Home. Addressing housing affordability is a major contributing factor to reducing homelessness but it requires a substantial financial commitment and collaboration that encompasses public and private sectors, underpinned by policy and program direction from all levels of government. This financial commitment should also include greater investment in prevention and early intervention programs and services to keep people out of homelessness. There is no quick fix, but there is direct action that can ease the burden disproportionately felt within the current housing market by those least able to afford it; as well as longer-term policy reform that will ensure all Australians are able to gain equitable access to a place to call home. Mission Australia believes the following actions are required: That the Council of Australian Governments recommit to the targets set out in The Road Home and a new 4-year National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness. There is a need for greater investment in prevention and early intervention including focusing programs on addressing the major causes of homelessness and the groups who are most at risk. Policies must be changed so people cannot be transitioned into homelessness when they are leaving institutional care. A housing first model which focuses on the provision of long-term stable accommodation before addressing any other issues should be adopted. Support for new service models with wrap-around support to break the cycle of homelessness based on practice experience and research. Mission Australia s Michael and MISHA projects demonstrate such programs produce superior outcomes for rough sleepers at a saving to government of $3,600 per person per year. Taxation settings must be altered because they favour owner occupiers over other household types and skew the market towards investment in higher cost housing, compounding affordability issues. Increasing investment in private rental housing through expansion of initiatives like the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS). page 6

7 Facilitating other major investment streams for social and affordable housing. Social Investment We acknowledge many of the reforms proposed are not cost neutral but think social impact investment could provide a means to fund some of the innovation required. Not-for-profit organisations are increasingly looking to social investment as a way to finance the services, social infrastructure and public goods they provide. Social impact bonds are just one example of this type of investment and represent a contract with the public sector where it commits to pay for improved social outcomes. On the basis of this contract, a bond issuing organisation raises investment funds from socially motivated investors to pay for a range of interventions to help improve social outcomes. If outcomes improve, investors receive a payment from government in addition to their principal and the level of return is dependent on the level of outcomes achieved. Models operate in the UK and Mission Australia is working with the NSW Government to pilot a recidivism reduction program in NSW. Mission Australia considers social impact bonds could be used for a number of issues including: Facilitating major investment streams for social and affordable housing through accessing superannuation funds. An Australian Housing Construction Convertible Bond (similar to the Austrian Housing Construction Convertible Bonds) could be developed to raise low cost funds and inject institutional capital for the development of affordable rental housing. A combined housing and care bond: the housing bond would attract investors to provide capital for the establishment of a housing facility for the aged and people with disability, while the care bond could involve government agreeing to pay for the achievement of improved outcomes for tenants (e.g. reduced costs of care, reduced hospitalisation) over a specified time period. A Disability Support Pension social impact bond where government could commit to providing a reward payment for private investors and service providers who achieve a particular outcome. Aboriginal Australians Mission Australia recognises the unique status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the original owners and custodians of Australia s lands and waters and we are committed to addressing the cultural, social and economic needs of their communities. Yet, despite significant investment and an array of well-intentioned programs and interventions from governments, only limited progress has been made toward meeting closing the gap targets. Mission Australia supports: page 7

8 Further investment in government funded initiatives such as the Indigenous Youth Careers Pathways and the Indigenous Employment Program that have demonstrated success in assisting young Aboriginal people into training and apprenticeships and transitional labour market programs. Targeting additional places and support on successful programs such as New Enterprise Incentive Scheme and A to B for Aboriginal Australians to build their own businesses. Facilitation of long-term community development partnerships in Aboriginal communities to tackle social and economic disadvantage. Culturally appropriate and tailored responses must be provided to high-risk and overrepresented groups in the youth justice system both to prevent contact, and provide intervention where contact with the system has occurred. Comprehensive and consistent application of restorative justice across Australia young people should not be disproportionately penalised by their geography. More work is also required to improve the health and wellbeing indicators of Aboriginal children and children living in remote and/or socio-economically disadvantaged areas, particularly given the long-term implications for children with low levels of social and emotional wellbeing. This election must not be allowed to become an auction where groups can secure the most cash or taxation benefits from government, nor where taxation concessions for high income earners can be preserved. Rather, together we must make a commitment to ensuring a fair Australia in which our most disadvantaged are given the opportunity for full social and economic participation. More detailed position statements on Mission Australia s policy priorities are available on our website missionaustralia.com.au page 8

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