Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes:

(a) that the Reclink National Program (RNP) has delivered over 100,000 participation opportunities to thousands of people experiencing disadvantage across Australia, in partnership with over 450 community organisations;

(b) that there is no other organisation in Australia with the expertise, capacity and capability of effectively and efficiently providing over 100,000 participation opportunities every year to the most disenfranchised, disadvantaged and forgotten Australians; and

(c) widespread community concern at the diminishing resources to support people experiencing disadvantage, many of whom have relied upon the RNP for social participation and social inclusion through engagement with sport and recreation programs; and

(2) calls on the Government to reinstate funding to the RNP.

Reclink was founded in St Kilda in my electorate of Melbourne Ports in 1990. It is a not-for-profit organisation that enhances the lives of disadvantaged people by providing them with sports and arts programs. Peter Cullen, the imaginative and passionate life force of Reclink, explained its origins when he was an outreach worker in the late 1980s on the streets of St Kilda:

… you saw people living in a lost world, where there seemed no clear pathways to opportunity ... I thought a form of crisis intervention may have been missed ... The street people needed another way of being supported or reached ... What could act as a circuit breaker?

Typically, Reclink program participants suffer from social isolation, drug addiction, mental health issues, problems with the law, homelessness and even sexual abuse. One of the things we must not forget in Australia is that sometimes there are people who cannot work. Reclink gives people dignity, as an example sent to me by Peter shows. It is pleasing to see Peter Cullen and John Ballis, Reclink's CEO, here in this Federation Chamber today:

One man was twenty-one when I met him and living in special accommodation. The man was wandering around the streets of St Kilda, and he had severe schizophrenia, and as such found finding employment a challenge—nevertheless, he had a life to live. At this time, he would never have become involved with a mainstream sporting club …

I can imagine this scene on the Peanut Farm Oval in St Kilda. At quarter time, this bloke came up to Peter and said:

"Peter, I got three kicks!"

Reclink became vital to this man's life and provides him with some experience of normality in his life. As Peter Cullen's letter said:

This model has brought welfare agencies to successfully work together …

It is the ultimate silence breaker with proven capacity to synthesise existing programs and sporting leagues.

Without this model of inclusivity, there would never have been a football league at Yulura, near Uluru. After a call from an indigenous leader, Reclink Australia was able to bring together resources to bring the league into existence. The 2012 league's grand final won Community Event of the Year. Around that time, a social worker was amazed to pass a local roadhouse usually filled with a big group of drinkers. It was empty. She then passed a football ground which was full of the same usual drinkers training for football.

Reclink is an organisation that I have always supported and which was seen by the previous government as having national applicability. Julia Gillard, Kate Lundy and Kate Ellis thought, as I do, that what worked on the streets of St Kilda could work in Adelaide, Brisbane and anywhere around Australia. Forty-seven per cent of participants of the pilot Reclink Work for the Dole program in Queensland were able to return to work—a much higher return-to-work rate than was achieved in other programs. Because of its success, MAX Employment has made the Reclink Work for the Dole program its flagship program and other employment providers have requested Reclink's help in partnering with them. Reclink's whole raison d'etre is that sport and other inclusive activities help people directly involved with Reclink by giving them services that prevent them having to access mental health facilities or, indeed, return to prison.

Budget cuts have hit Reclink hard. Reclink now has over 150 types of recreational opportunities across Australia but in the period preceding the funding cuts it had over 500 member agencies. Reclink Australia provides enormous support to many government funded organisations, particularly supporting their workers.

Last week the Senate Select Committee on the Abbott Government's Budget Cuts released its first interim reports. Amongst nine recommendations the committee recommended—I will use the words from the report—that the government 'immediately reinstate Commonwealth funding for Reclink'. As the French say, 'exactement'—exactly. I think the lessons of the last few weeks are that the current government's destruction of programs like this is precisely the reason they are in the political trouble they are in. It is cold and heartless to affect the people all around Australia who need this Reclink program the most.

Inclusivity in sport has created such a wonderful atmosphere for people who are challenged. I have seen it myself. I have seen its worth. I remember, as a new member of parliament, standing with Peter around the Botanical Gardens sporting Tan as we gave medals to people who had never participated in competitive sport in their lives—all from our electorates and all improving their lives by participating in some healthy, physical activity. Congratulations to Reclink; more strength to their arm.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

An honourable member interjecting—

The motion is seconded.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion by shadow parliamentary secretary the member for Melbourne Ports, because Reclink has been doing incredibly valuable work across the country for 25 years. And that work is under threat due to these funding cuts. I have been aware of the work of Reclink for many years because Peter Cullen, who is with us today, the founder of this wonderful organisation, is a Werribee person—a person whose work I have admired for decades. He is a great Australian who has a compelling sense of community, of fairness and of service.

He saw need. He saw desolation in people's lives, and he took action to reverse it. His work, as mentioned by the member for Melbourne Ports, began in Melbourne in 1998 as street outreach work, using sport to connect and engage people. Peter established the model in Victoria and then, through his extensive lobbying, grew the service into a national one.

In 1990 the entity was formally founded as Reclink, and has grown exponentially since. In 1997 it set up work in New South Wales and South Australia and today has services across the country. It works with over 450 community organisations and provides over 100,000 participation opportunities, in sport and the arts across the country, to the most disenfranchised, disadvantaged and forgotten Australians. In 2013 it partnered with the Victorian government, and in 2007 it partnered with the federal government.

Reclink targets some of the community's most vulnerable and isolated people—at-risk youth, those who experience mental illness, people with a disability, the homeless, people tackling alcohol and other drug issues and people facing social and economic hardship. As part of their unique hub-and-spoke network model, Reclink Australia has facilitated cooperative partnerships with a membership of over 450 community, government and private organisations.

I came face to face with the work of Reclink in the lead-up to the 2013 election. I visited a training session of the Wynbay Power footie team based in Werribee and saw the program in action. This football team supports vulnerable young people—people that I know. I found there young men—men whom I have known for several years—training and playing football. I had my own personal concerns for the lives of those young men after they left school. They came from backgrounds with very little support. To see them there in a group, collectively working with responsible adults and continuing to be connected to their community, was absolutely fantastic. And it reinforced for me how important organisations like Reclink are. I dread to think where those young lives would be without Peter and the work that he does. These former students were saddled with hardships no parent would wish upon their child, and through the services of Reclink they are still playing sport and are still connected.

The sporting options offered are huge, from the well-known football program to bike riding, blind soccer, bushwalking, sailing, surfing and tenpin bowling, to name just a few. The service also expanded from sporting activities to the arts, including the Choir of Hard Knocks—and who could forget the power of the Choir of Hard Knocks and how it has grown into small choirs across the country. There are training and education programs, work-ready programs, mentor programs and drug and alcohol programs.

Peter Cullen outlines the motivation behind Reclink in his own words:

In 1989 while doing street outreach work in St Kilda, I spoke to many people who indicated that their personal issues made access to sport and arts programs difficult.

I could see that the impact of busy minds and bodies helped people to find meaning and direction in their lives. The lack of opportunities at that time was a challenge for these people, who often experienced trauma, boredom, loneliness, anger, depression, feelings of suicide and other personal and sometimes complex issues.

To me, it was important to establish an organisation that brought like minded agencies together as a group, to provide these types of opportunities to their communities and clients and provide valuable advocacy at the same time. Establishing Reclink provided the vehicle for this vision.

This is an organisation that has runs on the board. It is a not-for-profit that only seeks to support our most vulnerable; it has incredible community support. I call on the government to reinstate the funding to ensure Reclink can continue its work across our country.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to support this motion moved by the member for Melbourne Ports in this parliament today. The great, late Nelson Mandela once famously said:

Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does … Sport can create hope where once there was only despair.

Last year, I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to participate in Reclink's Community Cup in Sydney. This Reclink Community Cup event is, of course, a much larger event in Melbourne. My team, the Rock and Roll Walers, coached by Jason Evans and skippered by Mark Evans, took on the media industry based Sailors, captained by Adam Spencer, at Henson Park in my electorate of Grayndler. It was my Aussie Rules debut. I took a mark, somewhat surprisingly, which features, for those doubters, on YouTube. This was the highlight of my short Australian Rules career and, given that the KPI I had set myself was simply to be able to walk off the field, I was pretty pleased. Yet for the third year in a row my team, the Walers, lost.

The real winner of the day, however, was undoubtedly the community. The money we raised went to Reclink, a Melbourne based charity that works in partnership with over 450 charities from around Australia. It is a charity that until the coalition's first budget in May last year received funding from the Commonwealth government.

Reclink has a long and proud history of coordinating sporting and cultural programs for those less fortunate. It provides a valuable link between vulnerable people and their community in towns and cities across Australia. Reclink makes a difference for youth at risk, those experiencing mental illness, people with a disability, the homeless, and people tackling alcohol and other drug issues and social and economic hardship. In the year 2013 to 2014, Reclink Australia delivered over 115,000 participation opportunities for sport, recreation and arts. Reclink helps facilitates pathways for education and employment, often giving people a confidence in themselves they previously struggled to find. Reclink believes there is sufficient anecdotal evidence to suggest that, for every dollar invested by the federal government in the Reclink National Program, there is at least a tenfold equivalent dollar benefit to the community. That makes the federal government investment of $560,000 per annum value for money in economic terms, as well as priceless in social terms. I would like to recognise the hard work of the team behind Reclink Australia and congratulate founder Peter Cullen for all that he has done to make communities around the nation a better place.

The Senate select committee into the Liberal government's budget cuts recommended that the government reinstate Commonwealth funding for Reclink Australia immediately. Today, the coalition should do just that. Brian Millett, a participant in the Reclink program, spoke to the Senate select committee about his friends and the positive impact of Reclink in their lives. He said:

Wednesday is football and they cannot wait for Wednesday. They belong there; they have a connection there. That is what I needed. I needed that gap filler to get me there.

It seems that the coalition know the price of everything and the value of nothing. You do not create stronger communities by tearing them apart.

I call upon the coalition to immediately reinstate funding to the Reclink national program and express some disappointment that there are no coalition speakers on this motion that has been moved by the member for Melbourne Ports and seconded by the member for Lalor in this House today. That is extraordinarily unusual. It is the case that people front and put their argument when debates occur in this parliament. To simply withdraw from the debate, to have nothing to say, does not do anything to give credit to the coalition government. However, all will be forgiven with the stroke of a pen if they fix up this funding shortfall and reinstate the cuts that they made in last year's unfair budget.

Debate adjourned.