Motions

International Volunteer Day

Ms COOK (Hurtle Vale) (11:35): I move:

That this house—

(a) notes that on Wednesday 5 December 2018 we celebrate International Volunteer Day;

(b) acknowledges the valuable contribution that volunteers make to the economic and social wellbeing of local communities; and

(c) calls on all South Australians to thank and show their appreciation to all volunteers in our community.

Every member of this house works productively with volunteers just about every single day of our lives. Volunteers come from a range of backgrounds. Volunteers participate in thousands and thousands of hours of services within our community every week. The number of volunteer organisations is so large that, if I started to name them today in the house, I would absolutely miss some of them. I am sure that all the volunteer organisations have one thing in common, and that is to help people and provide us with a stronger, safer, more productive and happier society.

I started volunteering when I was very young. I think my volunteering origins mirror the member for Waite's volunteering origins. If we get to it, and I am hopeful that we will, a motion will be moved to celebrate our volunteering origins with St John Ambulance South Australia as humble St John cadets. Volunteering can take the form of setting the roots for your future participation in society. It certainly gave me encouragement.

Many of the people involved in St John Ambulance whom I volunteered with and was supported by gave me the energy and the beginnings of what ended up being a career that I loved. I am still a qualified registered nurse. You can start the journey towards a career from your volunteering. I would encourage all people in the community who are not yet volunteering to consider using volunteering as a stepping stone to participate more broadly in the community. I would encourage parents to help their children to find suitable avenues to volunteer.

I will mention one organisation and a person of great standing in the volunteering community, and that is Volunteering South Australia and Northern Territory and Evelyn O'Loughlin, who is the CEO of that organisation, South Australia's peak body for volunteering. As the shadow minister for human services, which includes volunteers, I have been to a number of events this year with Volunteering SA&NT. I have also taken time to visit the organisation and talk to the people there. Unsurprisingly, volunteers make up a big portion of their productive hours helping with the social and economic growth of our state.

On a personal level, I congratulate Evelyn on the wise words she has given me over the years, prior to parliament as well as now as a member of parliament, representing volunteers, and I thank her for her leadership in the community and within the organisation. Evelyn has driven quite a number of campaigns with and against governments, and she maintains a very frank and independent voice. I remember two that stick in my mind; one was around the regulation of charities, where there was some discussion about how that would work and the regulation of volunteering organisations as such.

Recently, there was a change of focus by the federal government around how volunteering peak services were funded and, from memory, it was about changing to just supporting volunteer organisations that served the disadvantaged rather than the support services of volunteering, which are vital because they help with education, recruitment and the support of small, grassroots organisations that work on the smell of an oily rag and have no budget to do those sorts of governance and education activities.

Volunteers in the community, putting their lives at risk and putting time into supporting the community, while they are obvious groups we cannot thank them enough for the billions of dollars they pump into our community in kind. If they did not, imagine the budgets that we, as a government, would have to generate; they would be so much higher and almost impossible to achieve. Take a step back and think about the organisations behind the scenes, like Volunteering SA&NT, that support these very small organisations to the very large ones in order to be able to do their work better.

Thank you to everybody who volunteers in our community. I am just going to have a guess, but I do not think we are going to have any amendments to this motion. I hope that we have full party support on this motion and see it come to a vote today to celebrate International Volunteer Day.

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (11:42): I rise to speak to this worthy motion, which provides another opportunity to recognise the vital contribution volunteers make to the economic and social wellbeing of communities, most especially to the more isolated regional communities, whose residents rely on the help of each other for services that more populated areas take for granted.

Volunteers are not paid—not because they are worthless—but their contribution is priceless. It is not an exaggeration to say that without volunteers more rural townships would not survive, as their residents, the elderly in particular, would be forced to move if they could not rely on volunteers to bring Meals on Wheels, to drive them to shopping and medical appointments, to call in to check on their wellbeing and to include them socially at pensioner associations, senior citizens groups and other such organisations, which are all run by volunteers.

Without volunteers, we would not have events like Christmas pageants, carol nights and show days. Volunteers man museums and visitor information centres just to keep them open and attractive for tourists. Volunteers drive health buses, offer security through community watch groups, Neighbourhood Watch, church groups and support the disadvantaged, and volunteers abound within food banks and charity organisations.

It is volunteers who put out fires, who sandbag properties in floods, who are first on the scene at road accidents, who drive our ambulances, who answer the call from our sick and injured and who are onboard sea rescue vessels. It is volunteers who fundraise for good causes and it is National Trust volunteers who conserve heritage and ensure that our past is appreciated in the present and will be remembered by future generations. It is volunteers who work within suicide prevention networks to provide on-the-ground support for the rising number of people who are being impacted by suicide.

Progress association volunteers work hard to advocate for and develop town projects that improve the lives of residents, beautify townships, instil community pride and attract visitors to the towns for the economic benefit of local businesses. Volunteers administer, coach, time keep and score across the many and varied country sporting clubs, encouraging health and fitness pursuits for young and old. I am an Apex member, so I see firsthand the difference that volunteers of service clubs, including Lions and Rotary, make to their towns, all with the mantra of making their patch a better place to live.

All volunteers across all these groups provide vital services and, equally importantly, promote and provide a connection to community that is essential for social harmony. I firmly believe in the research that shows that participation in volunteering results in positive benefits for not just community members who are being helped but the volunteers providing the service. All of us have a need to be needed, I believe, and the camaraderie and satisfaction of being involved in your local community, as research has shown, do much to improve mental and physical health for a win-win situation.

This motion provides the opportunity to recognise all the great people in communities across the Narungga electorate and around the state who are a skilled and ready workforce who happily and selflessly devote a lot of time to help others and give back, often all done quietly in the background without fanfare or fame.

Just in the last three months, I recall formally congratulating Tony and Wendy Marshall on their 10 years of ambulance service, which may well be brought up later in the motion regarding ambulances. I also congratulated Olga Althoff on 20 years of service to the CWA; Tim and Sandra Wood and Janet Mill on outstanding service to the Australian Plants Society; the SA Sea Rescue Squadron's Edithburgh flotilla on being named most efficient country boat and crew for the second year in a row; and Stephen Goldsworthy on his Harry Dowling Award for services to Yorke Peninsula tourism.

OAMs were awarded to Ian Ravenscroft for long-time volunteer service to cricket and Stephen Stock for his volunteer service to the Moonta community, in particular with the National Trust, preserving the wonderful history of the Copper Coast. National CFS service medals were presented to Andrew Pearce, Ashley Rowan, Bronte Bruce, Bruce Philbey, Chris Johns, David Bussenschutt, Gary Bruce, Geoff Pearce, Kelvin Stewart, Noel Rodda, Olly Werner, Scott Richardson and Stuart Rodda. Big congratulations to those service medal winners.

I think now is an opportune time to mention the work that the Kadina Apex club is doing, a club which I am a member of, in establishing a new treetop playground in the main square of the Kadina township. It is being installed as we speak, and it will be a tremendous benefit for older kids who perhaps do not fit the profile of those who use the current playground installed in the town square and want something a bit more adventurous to play on. That is wonderful, and I commend the Apex club, in particular Jared King and Neil Sawley, and everyone else who has helped fundraise the significant amount of money that has been needed to install that particular playground.

These worthy recipients show the myriads of services that are provided thanks to the efforts of volunteers. I say to them sincerely: thank you for all you do. Volunteers fill thousands of roles across the arts, sport and recreation, community services, education and the environment. Regarding the latter, I recently had the privilege of speaking at the 31^st Friends of Parks forum at Innes National Park. Delegates from friends groups across the state were in attendance at the event, hosted by the Friends of Troubridge Island and the Althorpe Islands.

I was amazed to learn that there are more than 5,000 volunteers across SA who do much work as Friends of Parks group members in protecting the state's natural and cultural heritage in parks and reserves for locals and tourists to admire and enjoy. I am aware of all the volunteer hours spent in Innes looking after the flora and fauna, and conserving and maintaining all that makes Innes great. It is a national park that attracts in the vicinity of 120,000 visitors a year, contributing greatly to our local economy. This asset could not be protected without the work of volunteers. This example of the efforts of just one national park within one sector gives a small inkling of the vast value of what volunteers do across multiple sectors in our state.

South Australia can be particularly proud as we celebrate globally today, International Volunteer Day, that we are renowned for spending more time volunteering than any other state and are surpassed only by the Australian Capital Territory. The 2016 census revealed that 21.4 per cent of South Australians said that they did volunteer work through an organisation or group in the previous 12 months. That is well above the national average of 19 per cent, and even further above Queensland and New South Wales, which fall at 18.1 per cent and 18.8 per cent respectively.

Studies have shown that volunteers are worth about $5 billion to the state's economy each year. That is an incredible financial contribution made. In support of these efforts, in just a small way, those on this side were very pleased to make volunteer screening fees for all South Australians free from 1 November this year—the delivery of another key election commitment.

Previously, South Australians were paying $59.40 for a volunteer screening check, which was the highest application fee in the nation. Making this mandatory check free for our hardworking volunteers who give so much of their time is a very fair thing to do. These efforts should not come as an out-of-pocket expense for the very people who are saving the government so much money by providing the services that they do.

I was pleased to see that the 2018-19 state budget provides an ongoing funding allocation to abolish all volunteer screening fees, with the Marshall Liberal government committing $677,000 in 2018-19 and $1.4 million per year indexed from 2019-20, in recognition of the huge importance of volunteers and the work they conduct across the state. As Volunteering SA&NT Chief Executive Officer, Evelyn O'Loughlin, said at the time of the announcement that the fee abolishment was a win-win for volunteer organisations and individual volunteers. She said and I quote:

For the organisations, these savings can be put to better use in providing services and resources for the benefit of communities, and for a volunteer, it may mean the difference of taking up a volunteer position or not.

I will continue to quote:

With volunteering playing such a significant part in the life of South Australians, we need to ensure their volunteering experiences are positive and rewarding, and to see this result finally come to fruition is fantastic.

I commend the motion to the house and take this opportunity to congratulate every single volunteer who contributes time and effort across the state of South Australia to make it such a wonderful place to live. I look forward to continuing to work with all those volunteers groups going forward.