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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-10-28 Daily Xml
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Volunteering SA&NT

The Hon. J.S. LEE (14:40): My question is to the Minister for Human Services regarding volunteering. Can the minister please provide an update to the council about the Marshall Liberal government's support for the important sector that is the volunteering sector?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:40): I thank the honourable member for her question, and indeed it was a great initiative of Volunteering SA&NT to urge all prospective incoming governments following the 2018 election to provide free screening for volunteers, which I am pleased that this government has been able to do, and also, through the legislation which passed a year or two ago, will exist in perpetuity. That, I understand, I think is in the order of some $8 million in fees that volunteering organisations are no longer having to pay. The flow-on effect for them is that it assists them, obviously, to recruit and to retain volunteers and also has the impact for some organisations that people who have obtained those free screenings are also able to multitask in terms of their volunteering and assist with other organisations.

Volunteering SA&NT particularly had their AGM quite recently and I would note there has been a changing of the guard: their chair is Ms Ann-Marie Chamberlain and we thank her and other members of the board for their ongoing service to this organisation. I would like to acknowledge the long service of Ms Evelyn O'Loughlin who stood down in July after some, I think, 11 or 12 years at the helm of the organisation. I acknowledge Ms Tracey Fox as the interim CE and congratulate and welcome Hamilton Calder, who many people would know through the organisation CEDA as their new CEO.

Volunteering SA&NT has played a pivotal role, particularly during COVID, and we have been pleased to work in partnership with them. They continue to work on ways to try to recruit new volunteers, support volunteers in those roles, ensure that corporate volunteering is part of our political landscape, and find new platforms on which to work together and to alert volunteers to those opportunities.

There was a showcase at their AGM of some of the ways in which they are working or trying to recruit new volunteers. We think they are a fabulous organisation. We are very grateful that we have such a strong organisation to work with. We also pay tribute to the leadership of their founders, Ms Mavis Reynolds and the late Joy Noble, who in 1982 opened the Volunteer Centre of South Australia which has become Volunteering SA&NT and which has really ensured that we have a very vibrant and well-managed sector in South Australia.

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