Fund My Community

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (15:01): My question is to the Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion. Can the minister tell the house whether she agrees that out of a $1 million Fund My Community fund, spending $117,815 on setting up that fund, including over $15,000 on catering, and nearly $10,000 on a short video, is a good use of that fund? Can she also tell the house how many community fund applicants missed out because of that $117,000?

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay—Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (15:01): Fund my Community is one of the ways that we are reaching out to wider South Australians, about talking to them about being involved in what their community needs. The way we are looking at it is to look at different options, and what we need to do is go out and talk to people and engage them. I know that, when I go out to do metro cabinets or country cabinets, I have my youth forums and I have talked to the youth about what they are interested in; and what they are interested in is participation, and participating within government and government decisions.

We have been very clear about that. That is the way we want to go ahead—we have seen citizen's jury, for example, and the YourSAy website; we are inviting people to put their opinions in, and this is no different. Did it cost some money? Yes it did, because it takes money to go out and spend that time to invite people to put their opinion. I make no apology for asking the people of South Australia how they think their money should be spent. We have things like the Community Benefit SA fund where people can put in for up to $50,000 a year, and we have a variety of applications that people put in for that.

What we wanted to do here is ask people to put in their opinion, to vote, to say how they will do—now we will review that and see how that process went. Was it accessible enough? Do we need to provide it in different languages? Would we need to go out and talk to more people about this process? I think that is important. I have seen people who have been successful, absolutely delighted that they were to put in their application, say what was important to their community, encourage their community members to vote on their application, and to then be successful.

For those people who were not successful in the application, I do encourage them to apply to the Community Benefit SA fund where, like I said, there are several rounds a year where people can put in applications for up to $50,000. I am really excited about the way we are asking South Australians what is important to them.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON: Well, that is important; it is their money and we ask them how they would like to spend it.