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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-09-28 Daily Xml
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OPERATION FLINDERS FOUNDATION

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins:

That this council—

1. Congratulates the Operation Flinders Foundation on its 20th anniversary and success in providing support and opportunities to young men and women who have been identified as being at risk;

2. Acknowledges the terrific work done to develop the personal attitudes, values, self-esteem and motivation of Operation Flinders participants through espousing the virtues of teamwork and responsibility so they may grow as valued members of the community; and

3. Pays tribute to staff, volunteers, board members and ambassadors of the organisation, past and present, who dedicate time, skills and resources into empowering youth through this worthy organisation.

(Continued from 27 July 2011.)

The Hon. S.G. WADE (20:37): I rise to support the motion of the Hon. John Dawkins to congratulate the Operation Flinders Foundation on its 20th anniversary and its success in providing support and opportunities to young men and women who have been identified as being at risk.

As my honourable colleagues have indicated both in this house and in another place, the Operation Flinders Foundation is a South Australian charitable organisation that runs a quality wilderness based program for young offenders and young people at risk. This unique program, which leads the world in programs of its type, takes participants between the ages of 14 and 18 on an eight-day exercise in the far northern Flinders Ranges.

For eight days the participants are placed in an environment where they face demanding outdoor challenges. With the help of a team leader skilled in navigation and bushcraft, they live out and sleep on the ground, prepare their own food, navigate through the Flinders Ranges and learn the values of teamwork and respect. They also learn basic bush survival skills, are taught to abseil, discover Indigenous culture and learn of the rich history of the Flinders Ranges.

The whole experience helps these young people develop personal attitudes of self-esteem, leadership, motivation, teamwork and responsibility. In that regard I think it is important to differentiate Operation Flinders from what it is often misconceived to be. I think when people initially hear of those qualities they start to think Operation Flinders is some sort of American-style work camp; far from it. The values that I just referred to—self-esteem, leadership, teamwork and responsibility—are at the core of Operation Flinders. It is not a work camp. It is a program with which I was very impressed. It is strongly dependent on a team of highly skilled advisers in an advisory council, including both psychologists and psychiatrists, and it focuses on building people up whereas work camps so often are about pulling people down.

As I indicated, the program is strongly supported and, as I will refer to later, is also strongly evaluated. The project truly benefits some young South Australians, providing them with an opportunity to break away from their past and grow as valued members of the community.

The Operation Flinders project was first established in 1991 and, as does often happen in projects of this type, was very dependent on a pioneer, a passionate advocate in the person of Pamela Murray-White. Ms Murray-White was a former Army officer and a teacher. Upon completion of her Army service, she returned to teach at the Beafield campus, dealing with students with behavioural problems. Ms Murray-White recognised the potential benefits of experiences in an outdoor environment from her service in the Army. With assistance from local defence force personnel, she was able to translate her ideas into the program we now have, called Operation Flinders.

True to that heritage, I note that many of the volunteers, team leaders, peer mentors and so forth who are involved in the program have links with the defence forces and with our police. John Shepherd now has the leadership of that program and I know that John is widely respected throughout the state as a passionate leader and a very effective communicator.

Like other members, I have had the privilege to visit the program and I was very impressed with the creativity. I can remember one particular site on the program which engages young people in history and storytelling. It was almost a piece of theatre in the bush. I also recall the abseiling program and I know that—

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins: Did you do it?

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I did do it. I went all the way down. I understand that rumour has it when the honourable member for Hammond heard that I had done it, he no longer resisted. I am glad that I can serve as a dare if nothing else. I believe that a program such as Operation Flinders is a crucial crossroads opportunity for young people at risk.

It is only an eight-day program. It cannot give young people the skills that they need to turn their life around but it can offer them a crossroads. It can give them an opportunity in a bush environment well away from the troubles of life to decide what they want to do with their life. It is done in a supportive environment where they have peer mentors, team leaders and a whole apparatus to support them to face challenges in an eight-day period which will give them, as I said, an opportunity to turn their life around.

Also in the work on the field and the work of Operation Flinders back here in Adelaide and through its chapters around the state, I have been very impressed with the work that Operation Flinders does to help the community as a whole understand the value of early intervention, the value of diversion programs, which reach young people at risk where they are to give them opportunities to divert. I think it is a very important message for the wider community to accept.

So often our law and order debates degenerate into a punitive approach which is characterised by this government's 'rack, stack and pack' approach to law and order, and I think Operation Flinders is out there as a positive response to the risk of crime in our community. Let's be frank: the work of Operation Flinders is a very cost-effective investment in preventing future crime. There will be hundreds and thousands of victims who I believe will be spared the trauma of victimisation because of the work of Operation Flinders and programs like it.

The program is partly funded by the Attorney-General's Department. In 2006, the former attorney-general Michael Atkinson boasted in the other place that:

Upon attaining government, I took steps to offer the government's support for the program...We entered into a three-year contract to support them, and we are proud that the government of South Australia is Operation Flinders' principal supporter.

In the context of these remarks, I am concerned that the government funding, whilst it was renewed for three years recently, was a renewal only in terms of continuation of previous funding. There was no CPI increase. For a program which is dependent on resources that are constantly increasing in cost, that concerns me. Considering that we have bipartisan support for Operation Flinders, I would hope that the government would be able to do better.

As I indicated earlier, it is very important in my view that Operation Flinders is evaluated. Not every good idea is an effective idea, but Operation Flinders has a commitment to quality, it has a commitment to being world's best practice and, in that context, it has subjected itself to constant and professional evaluation. In that context, the 2000 evaluation of the program conducted by the Forensic and Applied Psychology Research Unit from the University of South Australia found:

Participants at higher levels of risk demonstrated significant improvements on self-reported measures of self-esteem and criminogenic needs (angry feelings, attitude towards police, neutralisation and identification with criminal others). Those participants still in the education system recorded significantly improved teacher behavioural ratings in the area of initiative, social attention, coping with success and failure, social attractiveness and self-confidence.

I agree with the member for Bragg, who highlighted in the other place that it is very important that the government not only contributes to this program but also gives it more funding and makes sure that, as a demonstrably successful program, it prospers in the future.

We are fortunate to have Operation Flinders in our state. We celebrate with it the first 20 successful years of the program, and we look forward not merely to the next 20 but beyond. I support the motion.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. I.K. Hunter.

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