Human Services Department

Ms COOK (Hurtle Vale) (15:37): In the last few months, I have had dozens and dozens of organisations contact me to touch base and catch up regarding the work they do for vulnerable South Australians. These people are from across a number of different portfolios within and connected to the human services portfolio. With the background of many of them asking for assistance across a few key themes, I convened an urgent human services round table this week to try to get a feel for where the exact issues were and where they wanted me to provide support. I wanted to hear directly from them regarding the lack of funding certainty they are feeling at the moment under the current state Marshall Liberal government.

Stakeholders, community organisations and service providers across disability, housing, homelessness and employment sectors joined me at Parliament House to voice their concerns about the lack of funding certainty and also the lack of communication from the government and the minister at this point. With the end of the financial year only eight business days away, many service providers are yet to receive word as to whether they will receive any funding beyond next Friday. It puts extraordinary pressure not only on the organisations and the staff but also on the clients. Their ability to deliver the support needed to these clients who desperately need this assistance is severely compromised.

It puts staff at risk, with their wellbeing being compromised. They are very worried about what is going to happen, and they feel that they may be at risk of imminent job loss. Given the uncertainty, it is little wonder that the sector is losing skilled and trained individuals who, like everyone else, have bills to pay and cannot continue in employment with so little job security. In defence procurement and manufacturing terms, we know this phenomenon as the 'valley of death', where skills and sector memory are lost between projects or funding announcements. This forces providers to rehire and retrain staff at enormous expense that would be better targeted at delivering the crucial services they need.

The ‘valley of death’ is also significantly affecting many organisations and service providers throughout the human services portfolio, who feel that they are now at real and imminent risk. Making matters worse, many in the sector have written to the government seeking advice as to the status of their funding and they have not received responses as yet. The government has now had three months, so ministers have their feet under their desk, they have hung their pictures and their staff are hired, or should be. The time to focus on the service providers delivering for our communities is here. Providing the certainty these organisations need or at the very least the courtesy of a response is the least that can be done for them by the government.

Many stakeholders raised the cyclical nature of the funding model for many organisations funded through the Department of Human Services. I understand and have listened to those who believe that the annual ritual of funding uncertainty is a source of undue stress on service providers, and, along with my Labor colleagues, I will continue to work with and listen to the sector over the next few years to help formulate the policy direction and priorities of a Malinauskas Labor government.

However, I wish to place on record today my thanks to the community organisations, service providers and stakeholders who made themselves available to me and to my office and who came along yesterday at short notice to discuss this funding. Really, many of them just asked at the end of the day to have some certainty as to what was happening in the short term. We know that the National Affordable Housing Agreement (NAHA) was signed by the Marshall government last Friday, 15 June.

Even today I have community organisations contacting me with no knowledge of this. I think that the very least that can be done is that all providers are given an email or a phone call by somebody within the department to assure them that that actually happened this week. It is not very much to ask. It is not hundreds of organisations; the number is only in the fifties. It is not that many, so I think that could happen.

I will continue to work alongside the sector. I know that this round table has been labelled some kind of political stunt, but if it were I would have had media there and I would name the organisations. I have not done that. It was used as part of a communication and engagement strategy, so, minister, get used to it.

Time expired.