Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was hoping to be able to cede this time to Senator Carr to come back in and give further answers, because I think there was a lot of excitement about Senator Carr continuing to speak. But, unfortunately, he was needed elsewhere so I will have to do it. So I apologise to the Senate because I think it would have been very valuable for all of us if we had more opportunity to have Senator Carr talk with us. But in terms of the process around the chaplaincy program I am so disappointed that members on the other side, in particular Senator Barnett, who, both in this chamber and in the wider community, misrepresents what is happening with the chaplaincy program. Regarding his strident call earlier to the people of Australia to lobby, we know that many people have already been scared by the process that has been stirred up around this issue.

Basically, with the chaplaincy program—as with many other programs that are funded through the government—there was an original commitment made by the previous government, which was very clearly a three-year commitment. It was not a commitment made by that government for all eternity. It would have been a useful thing, perhaps, if that was the intent. If they had said, ‘From this day forward until the end of time there will be full funding for this program.’ But that did not happen. We know that. We know that programs are put out there through a range of consultation and decision through the policy-making processes. We look at programs that will be put in place, in this case through the education process. The chaplaincy program was launched with a lot of fanfare and there was a lot of excitement around it. I think that in very many schools where, as Senator Barnett was saying in his contribution, the chaplaincy program has worked well.

What goes on with these kinds of things is that at the end of the funding cycle clear reviews need to be put in place to evaluate the program, to see exactly how is it working and to work effectively with all those who are involved in putting the program together—all the user groups, all the various education people and the people in the community. I would hope that in terms of what will go on now, which is an effective end-of-funding-cycle review looking at what will happen in the future, some of the people with whom consultation will be developed will be the students to ensure that the students who are in many ways the user group of this program will be involved in the ongoing review. The Prime Minister, I think, made that clear at a very large conference recently where he made a public statement about his views on how the chaplaincy program would be looked at by this government into the future.

The government has made a clear commitment that there will be funding for a year into the future while this process is being evaluated, and that evaluation will engage with everybody who has strong feelings about it. To all those members of the community who have been scared by allegations that this program is not being valued and that there will not be a commitment to it, my message is: please be involved in whatever process of review is made public so that you are able to have your say about what goes through.

Reviewing is a natural and professional part of government business, for all parts of government and at all levels of government. You need to identify what the purpose of the program is, you need to identify how it has been used and you need to have a look clearly at how the funding has been expended. There are a range of views in the community about the way the chaplaincy program operates. Certainly, one survey—only one survey—that has been out there has talked about the huge success, and we acknowledge that.

Senator Barnett made the comment in his contribution that he knows many chaplains, and so do I. I work with them closely, talk about the issues they find in their schools, and I applaud much of the work that has been done. But there are some parts which even Senator Barnett must admit have not worked as well as they ought to have. Part of the review is looking at how we should move forward with that, but continuing to raise these scare campaigns about the cessation of funding does not help. Clearly, what we need to do is to look at how the program has been operating, what it needs, what funding should be allocated and then see how that will work in future budgets.

The funding has been allocated for a year; that has been made public. We have not made a commitment to all eternity and nor did the previous government. That should be remembered, because somehow there seems to be some confusion here that one government made an ongoing, forever, commitment and the other has not. That is just not true. I think it is particularly wrong to scare people who are looking towards the future of a program that many people do find valuable.