Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2016-2017 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2016-2017 affords members the opportunity to speak in the parliament about a broad range of topics of import to an MP. However, for my contribution to this debate, it is actually fitting that we are debating the appropriation of funding across government, because it is the concept of 'cross-government' that is my area of concern. For decades now there has been debate and discussion about the importance of joined-up government: working across government and removing and dealing with silos within government. While it can never be said that the great reforms have all been accomplished, we are clearly in a space where great reforms involve greater and greater complexity, difficulty and political risk. Great reforms are indeed, as Sir Humphrey Appleby would describe them, 'courageous'.

One of the great challenges for government, and for us as legislators today, is what we can do to improve economic growth and productivity and, at the same time, reduce inequality. It is important to note that right now in Australia economic growth is anaemic. Wage growth is negligible and the gap between the wealthy and poor, between the haves and the have-nots, is increasing at a faster and faster rate. This means that more than ever we have a need for joined-up, cross-agency solutions to the complex needs of our community as a whole and the individual Australians who make up that community—solutions between agencies at federal, state and local government levels and, just as importantly, between agencies at each of those levels. For example, there is a particularly high correlation at state level of people who have access to services such as police, hospitals and health services, mental health services, public and community housing, education department behavioural programs, justice and corrective services, and child protection and family services, as well as the court system. Similarly, such people with complex needs are often also reliant on Centrelink payments at a federal level and have many interactions—or, rather, difficulties in interacting—with Centrelink, to name just one federal agency. Then there are the myriad local government services of various sizes, with coverage and service levels that differ from council to council. There is also the not-for-profit sector, which provides many other services that are often partly funded by government at various levels.

The grim reality is that it can be difficult to navigate each of these services on its own, let alone when there are multiple services. Of course, some processes—such as those involving the police, courts or corrective services—have a high degree of compulsion about them. Being able to properly respond to, deal with and navigate such processes to best effect and in the best interests of the individual and the community is exceptionally difficult. Such difficulties are further compounded in services and systems that involve a more voluntary participation element and where people who need to access such services do not know how to access them or, worse, are unaware of the service's existence in the first place.

This is the task of joined-up government: assisting individuals with complex needs to access and navigate government and not-for-profit services at all levels. A key issue that stands out is the degree of buck-passing that can be involved. So often we hear stories of people who require the assistance or engagement of multiple agencies and are told: 'We cannot help you. You have'—a particular issue—'therefore you need to speak to this other agency.' At such point, for many in our community, the lack of awareness of how to deal with that other agency or how it acts is a very real barrier to accessing the required assistance. But, worse, even when such a service may be accessed, those with complex needs may well be told that they should have been serviced by the original agency that they had approached in the first place or that they need to go see a third service, erecting further barriers in their way. In truth, those with complex needs either fall in a crack between services or genuinely do need the assistance of multiple agencies. Even where the services of multiple agencies are engaged, coordination and consistency of approach is, of course, vital and, all too often, not provided. Part of the key difficulty here is that such coordination is not anyone's job.

What many complex-needs individuals or families require is someone to assist in the access and navigation of all required services. A stark example of this can be seen in our lower courts. As a junior prosecutor, I spent many hours in the magistrates courts of Perth. Dealing with my own matters and observing many other police matters, it was clear to me, as it was clear to the police and the magistrates, that many of the difficulties that had led to individuals appearing on charges before the courts had, in part, arisen due to their inability to access and properly navigate government and community services. If they had, they would likely not have ended up where they now stood. The real shame of it all was knowing that there are solutions but that they had not been available for these people and they need not have found themselves in this position.

Now, such an example cannot be made without pointing out just how disadvantaged such a person would find themselves when dealing just with the courts. Even as an experienced lawyer, the court system can appear impregnable. However, some of the most experienced people working in that area are those that work in legal aid and legal assistance services as they are able to provide better outcomes for not only those finding themselves in courts but also the community as a whole.

I could go on for another whole speech about the need for properly funded legal aid—no doubt, I will do so before not too much longer in this parliament—but let me just say this: there can be no doubt that our entire community is disadvantaged by the chronic underfunding of legal aid and legal assistance services in this nation. This has always been difficult, but it was made catastrophic by the severe cuts to legal aid funding by the Howard government in 1996—cuts from which legal aid funding has never recovered. This also demonstrates the need for coordination in funding between the Commonwealth and the states, because the states have also been cutting such funding. Then, of course, we have the community legal centre sector, which this government has completely gutted, with 20 per cent funding cuts about to come into effect. Now, some will say that there is a tight budget situation and that everyone has to tighten their belts, but what the government continues to ignore is the fact that this sector has already been running on the smell of an oily rag. That said, the key point is that the government maintains its funding-cut line in the face of a recommendation by the Productivity Commission—hardly some lefty, socially-progressive, artsy-type organisation—that the government should actually increase funding to the legal assistance sector by some $200 million.

The real point that I wanted to get to with this example is that, as well as having the great assistance of a duty lawyer from legal aid—now, unfortunately, withdrawn from so many magistrates courts recently—many of those appearing in the courts would be greatly assisted by a duty social worker. Come to the court, see the duty lawyer, deal with your matter and then see the duty social worker. Have someone sit down and look at what and where those other issues are that the person is having to deal with: how can this person be assisted to make sure that they do not find themselves in the situation again?

Duty social workers are seen as more money, but, actually, it is money better spent. It is money spent on helping those people with complex needs, which saves money by them not having to come back to the court on other matters. It saves police time and it saves the many lost hours of agency time trying to track down people or false starts in the wrong services. The reality, of course, is that a duty social worker is only the start. They are only the person who provides initial direction. But what then? We need to redeploy our community services in a way where they all work together, in a coordinated fashion, to meet the real needs of our communities and, particularly, the needs of each individual. That means tailored and flexible service delivery. It also means, where there are inevitably multiple agencies and services involved, that someone, anyone, is responsible for the access and navigation of those services for the person requiring assistance.

As a brief example: how on earth do you expect someone with a learning difficulty—functional illiteracy or similar—to be able to fill in forms to get assistance from Centrelink to get money so that they are able to pay their rent, navigate the minefield of mental health services or even know that, if they can find a bulk-billing GP, they can get a referral for psychological assistance that they may be in need of?

If, instead of being turned away and referred elsewhere, complex needs were recognised and put into pathways for enhanced assistance, many, many Australians who currently find themselves bounced around services, unable to access community housing, not getting the mental health assistance they need and needlessly in situations bringing them to the attention of the police, courts and correctional services, would instead be turning their lives around. They would be accessing the assistance they need; they would be able to move from welfare to work; they would be better able to contribute to our community as a whole. They would indeed, dare I say, become taxpayers. The broader community benefits from such an approach are huge and I believe they would pay for themselves.

This is not just a theory—an idea—it is something that is being demonstrated in my part of the world, in Armadale, in the electorate of Burt, through a partnership project, the Armadale Youth Intervention Partnership. This is a more focused program than what I am talking about broadly, but it is a proof of concept that, if you intensively assist someone with complex needs—in this case, those that are at risk of criminal behaviour and detention—you can help them turn their lives around and become contributors, even mentors to others. The amazing thing is that you can do this—you can change their story—in 12 short months. As a back-of-the-envelope sort of calculation for everyone to bear in mind, it costs over $350,000 per annum to keep one young person in juvenile detention in Western Australia. Where a program like AYIP results in just one person changing their story so that they do not find themselves sentenced but rather are contributing to society, that is a huge saving to make. And, of course, it is not just one person that has benefited from this program; there are many and all of those around them.

The work of the Armadale partnership project, and the Armadale Youth Intervention Program in particular, is actually amazing as a proof of concept, but it is only a proof of concept. The point is that it has provided that proof and we should be taking this approach and expanding it to assist people with many different complex needs. We need to do this not only because it is the right thing to do for those individuals but because it will make our whole community better when done right. It will mean that our scarce government and community resources are better targeted, used more effectively and efficiently, and result in better outcomes for all of our lives because they will become less difficult and less complex—because all of our lives are becoming more difficult and complex.

This should be a no-brainer, quite frankly, and I urge the federal, state and local governments to work together to get the framework, the funding and the service provision right so that people no longer fall through the cracks and that no Australian is left behind.

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