❓ The Minister for Community Services updates the house on the government's support for community service organisations, highlighting reinstated financial counselling funding and collaborative efforts to address social issues like homelessness and domestic violence.
AnsweredQoN 284Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
COMMUNITY SERVICE
ORGANISATIONS
284. Ms M.M. QUIRK to the Minister for Community Services:
I refer to the McGowan Labor
government's commitment to supporting those who are facing hardship in
our community, which has included reinstating funding for financial counselling
that was heartlessly cut by the previous Liberal government. Can the minister
update the house on how this government is continuing to support hardworking
community service organisations provide help and assistance to disadvantaged Western
Australians?
ORGANISATIONS
284. Ms M.M. QUIRK to the Minister for Community Services:
I refer to the McGowan Labor
government's commitment to supporting those who are facing hardship in
our community, which has included reinstating funding for financial counselling
that was heartlessly cut by the previous Liberal government. Can the minister
update the house on how this government is continuing to support hardworking
community service organisations provide help and assistance to disadvantaged Western
Australians?
AnswerView source ↗
It is good to have the member back
on her feet in the chamber.
Members: Hear, hear!
Ms S.F. McGURK : Apart from
the issues that have been well canvassed today, which this government is
tackling—innovation, jobs and protecting small business, and we often
hear about transport infrastructure projects—we have not lost sight of
the fact that we need to keep an eye on the whole of our community, including
those who are doing it tough. One of the important contributions we made to those
people was to listen to them when they were alarmed when the previous Liberal
government cut financial counselling in the metropolitan area. We made a commitment
to reinstate that financial counselling, which we have done. We have allocated
$7.34 million this year for financial counselling services across the state. It
is really heartening to see the current model, particularly in the metropolitan
area, under the Financial Counselling Network, led by Anglicare WA and
UnitingCare West, which have a range of partner agencies operating on the
ground, the analytics and grunt that we see in their call centre and also the
back-of-house work that is really needed to understand the problem, give those
front-of-house operators the support that they need and also the back-of-house
data and analytics to understand the data collection that is occurring.
We have new partner agencies in
Morley, Mirrabooka, Alkimos, Yanchep, Innaloo, Karrinyup, Cannington, Canning
Vale, Coolbellup, Forrestfield, Byford, Kwinana and Ellenbrook, including when
we went out to the community cabinet in Forrestfield and Kalamunda, meeting
with the Foothills Information and Referral Service. They are really committed
people with heartfelt dedication to their local community. Now they have a bit
more infrastructure and grunt not only because they are doing the financial
counselling because of our reinstatement of that money, but they also have some
resources to back them up. That is the sort of signature help that our
government is giving people in need. We are providing immediate emergency
relief. For example, a couple of weeks ago I was able to present a $1.44 million
cheque to the St Vincent de Paul Society to provide emergency relief, the
result of a Lotterywest grant. We are providing not only that immediate relief,
but also more sophisticated analysis and backup of those frontline services.
That is the sort of approach that
we are taking through our Supporting Communities Forum, a peak forum. A number
of our directors general are meeting with community sector leaders to look at
how we can tackle areas like our procurement policy, which we have now done,
delivering our community services in partnership policy. The Minister for
Finance released that, with five-year contracts being the default, joint
co-design of how we develop the criteria for funding, how we measure outcomes
and the like, and how we tackle important but really difficult areas such as
homelessness. We are not only doing emergency relief and frontline work, but we
are also doing back-of-house work in partnership with the community services
sector to try to look at what is best practice when trying to tackle these
really difficult social problems.
People would be well aware that we
have been very active trying to tackle the important areas relating to domestic
violence, the leading cause of homelessness amongst women. So far, we have
invested over $20 million of new funding into domestic violence services for
victims, perpetrators' accounts, an accountable justice system and
primary prevention. I am very proud of all the work that we are doing. There is
a lot to do but we have a plan and we are getting on and doing that work.
on her feet in the chamber.
Members: Hear, hear!
Ms S.F. McGURK : Apart from
the issues that have been well canvassed today, which this government is
tackling—innovation, jobs and protecting small business, and we often
hear about transport infrastructure projects—we have not lost sight of
the fact that we need to keep an eye on the whole of our community, including
those who are doing it tough. One of the important contributions we made to those
people was to listen to them when they were alarmed when the previous Liberal
government cut financial counselling in the metropolitan area. We made a commitment
to reinstate that financial counselling, which we have done. We have allocated
$7.34 million this year for financial counselling services across the state. It
is really heartening to see the current model, particularly in the metropolitan
area, under the Financial Counselling Network, led by Anglicare WA and
UnitingCare West, which have a range of partner agencies operating on the
ground, the analytics and grunt that we see in their call centre and also the
back-of-house work that is really needed to understand the problem, give those
front-of-house operators the support that they need and also the back-of-house
data and analytics to understand the data collection that is occurring.
We have new partner agencies in
Morley, Mirrabooka, Alkimos, Yanchep, Innaloo, Karrinyup, Cannington, Canning
Vale, Coolbellup, Forrestfield, Byford, Kwinana and Ellenbrook, including when
we went out to the community cabinet in Forrestfield and Kalamunda, meeting
with the Foothills Information and Referral Service. They are really committed
people with heartfelt dedication to their local community. Now they have a bit
more infrastructure and grunt not only because they are doing the financial
counselling because of our reinstatement of that money, but they also have some
resources to back them up. That is the sort of signature help that our
government is giving people in need. We are providing immediate emergency
relief. For example, a couple of weeks ago I was able to present a $1.44 million
cheque to the St Vincent de Paul Society to provide emergency relief, the
result of a Lotterywest grant. We are providing not only that immediate relief,
but also more sophisticated analysis and backup of those frontline services.
That is the sort of approach that
we are taking through our Supporting Communities Forum, a peak forum. A number
of our directors general are meeting with community sector leaders to look at
how we can tackle areas like our procurement policy, which we have now done,
delivering our community services in partnership policy. The Minister for
Finance released that, with five-year contracts being the default, joint
co-design of how we develop the criteria for funding, how we measure outcomes
and the like, and how we tackle important but really difficult areas such as
homelessness. We are not only doing emergency relief and frontline work, but we
are also doing back-of-house work in partnership with the community services
sector to try to look at what is best practice when trying to tackle these
really difficult social problems.
People would be well aware that we
have been very active trying to tackle the important areas relating to domestic
violence, the leading cause of homelessness amongst women. So far, we have
invested over $20 million of new funding into domestic violence services for
victims, perpetrators' accounts, an accountable justice system and
primary prevention. I am very proud of all the work that we are doing. There is
a lot to do but we have a plan and we are getting on and doing that work.
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