Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about an issue that is of significant importance to all Australians. I am talking about volunteering and the massive contribution of volunteers in our society. I recently attended an awards ceremony at Risdon Vale in my home state of Tasmania, I was joined at this event by state Labor Minister David O’Byrne and Mr Doug Chipman, Deputy Mayor of the Clarence city council. We had the pleasure of presenting 71 volunteering awards which recognise the outstanding contribution of volunteers from the Risdon Vale Neighbourhood Centre committee, the Neighbourhood Watch committee, the Risdon Vale bike program, the Risdon Vale Neighbourhood Centre, the Risdon Vale breakfast club, the volunteer fire brigade members and the Risdon Vale Primary School community volunteers

This was an outstanding event and the Risdon Vale Neighbourhood Centre should be congratulated for not only organising this event but for their tireless work and ongoing community building initiatives. I am fortunate enough to have witnessed the impact of these initiatives firsthand within the Risdon Vale community.

Neighbourhood centres like the one at Risdon Vale are not unique in Tasmania, with 34 houses scattered across our island. The Risdon Vale Neighbourhood Centre provides the entire community with easy access to their services. They treat the whole community as a family, and around 2,000 families use one or more of their services each year. They have around 60 volunteers who run their community development programs, and these volunteers increase their skills by taking part in the planning, organisation and decisions involved on a variety of local issues.

The Risdon Vale breakfast club is one initiative coordinated through the neighbourhood centre, which is in partnership with the Risdon Vale Primary School and holds breakfast at the school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Volunteers prepare breakfast for schoolchildren, with companies donating milk, margarine and bread, many community members dropping in other goods and the remaining supplies provided by the centre. Like neighbourhood centres, this initiative is not unique to Risdon Vale. There are many breakfast clubs like this located right around Tasmania, all contributing greatly to their local communities by ensuring our children are starting the day with a nutritious breakfast, which enhances their ability to learn throughout the day. Without these generous donations right across the state, expenses for the breakfast club would be significant and the long-term sustainability of the program would be in doubt.

All those that help by donating their time or goods must be congratulated and acknowledged as true community builders. However, even with their help it is still a struggle to run these clubs self-sufficiently. The state Labor minister for education, Lin Thorp, has recently called for submissions for funding of breakfast clubs for 2011. Whilst these grants are primarily aimed at funding to establish new breakfast clubs, Minister Thorp also welcomes submissions from existing breakfast clubs which can demonstrate that additional funding will either increase service delivery outcomes for students or ensure the long-term standalone viability of their program.

Tasmania, I am proud to say, has an overall volunteering rate of participation of 36.3 per cent, one of the highest in the country, with ABS statistics showing some 131,000 adults volunteer throughout our state. But, sadly, the quantity of volunteering undertaken is decreasing in real terms. If you compare current figures to the year 2000, Tasmanian volunteers now contribute a million fewer hours each year. In the period 2000-06 the median number of hours contributed by volunteers each year dropped by 30 per cent. I would like to emphasise today that we must not take our volunteers for granted. We must do everything in our power as elected representatives to strengthen volunteering. We need to encourage, support and protect our volunteers, and to work cooperatively with organisations who monitor and respond to changes in the patterns of volunteering, especially as they impact on community resilience and social inclusion.

Volunteering Tasmania is one such organisation which has been working hard to develop strategies to increase and sustain volunteering in Tasmanians. They recognise that volunteering is critical to the future social and economic prosperity of the state. Many people understand that volunteering performs a crucial role in supporting social inclusion, skills development, and economic growth. Volunteering is a strategic investment in Australia in terms of its social capital, its contribution to the economy and its offsets to government expenditure. Volunteering Tasmania last year embarked on the mammoth task of preparing the first State of volunteering report for Tasmania. This report will be launched on 23 November. I understand the findings of this report will provide an objective perspective on what is happening in volunteering across my home state.

Volunteering Tasmania have identified three elements which are outlined in their 2009 state of volunteering positioning paper, and they believe these elements are essential for successful and sustainable volunteering to occur. While individually they are distinct elements of volunteering, Volunteering Tasmania argue that they need to be understood and linked with each other. The three elements are: no matter how many willing volunteers there are, without meaningful roles for them to undertake we cannot benefit from their contribution; the contributions of willing volunteers in meaningful roles will go untapped, underutilised, and unrecognised without effective leadership and management in place to support them; and, as there is a natural life cycle to volunteering, even with meaningful roles that are well managed and effectively led, there will still be a need for a continual supply of more willing volunteers. The positioning paper also states:

We cannot afford to look at any of these elements of volunteering in isolation, or mistakenly believe that the promotion and support of one element will be of benefit to the volunteering sector without the promotion and support of the other two.

The good news is that our supply of willing volunteers in my home state continues to grow, which is very pleasing, especially when you consider that our volunteering hours have shrunk by such a significant amount in recent years. This shrinkage has been caused by a dramatic shift in the way people want to contribute as a volunteer, which I am sure is in large part due to society’s increased work-life pressures.

Volunteers come from all age groups. However, according to ABS data the highest rate of volunteering in Tasmania is from people aged 35 to 44 years, which stands at 43 per cent, and 45 to 50 years, at 39 per cent. The four most common types of organisations in which people volunteer in Tasmania are: sport and physical recreation, making up 24 per cent of those surveyed; community and welfare, at 22 per cent; education and training, at 15 per cent; and religious groups, at 12 per cent. The top reasons volunteers gave for choosing to volunteer in Tasmania were: helping others or the community, at 56 per cent; personal satisfaction, at 43 per cent; personal and family involvement, at 34 per cent; and to do something worthwhile, at 34 per cent. As the previously mentioned statistics indicate, volunteers come from a wide range of organisations and they volunteer their time for a wide range of reasons.

Volunteering Tasmania has recently concluded a schools pilot project encouraging and building capacity in young people, which will help ensure the sustainability of community organisations that find it difficult to recruit young board and committee members. It was also part of the Social Inclusion Strategy for Tasmania 2009. The schools pilot project was established in 2009-10. The project aimed to provide selected students in years 9 and 10 with a supported and meaningful volunteering experience. Students from Brooks High School in the north, Parklands High School in the north-west and Huonville High School in the south participated and worked with Volunteering Tasmania to provide social and employment related opportunities for students and encouraged their interest in volunteering. Fifty-eight students volunteered at 22 organisations across a range of industries such as community welfare, sport and recreation, animal welfare, conservation, and education and training sectors. The organisations offered a variety of roles including in administration and customer service, general support and maintenance, and others. Feedback from the students and staff so far has indicated a very positive reaction to the project. Students have articulated and demonstrated a change in attitude to volunteering as well as to their local organisations, and many have indicated an increase in confidence and motivation.

Students renowned for non-attendance have increased their participation with some students in the south requesting to attend their school workplace program beyond their initial half-year enrolment. School staff have further expressed favourable opinions regarding the project, including a positive change in students’ attitudes toward their school and volunteering; an increase in student confidence, motivation and maturity; an increase in the available opportunities for students to participate in their communities; an increase in the students’ understanding regarding choice for their future pathways and a desire to be involved in volunteering beyond the life of the school’s project.

Volunteering Tasmania is now seeking funding opportunities to continue beyond the pilot phase. I hope they are successful in their bid for this increased funding, especially when you consider the estimated value of volunteering to the Australian community is said to be worth around $42 billion per annum. Volunteers in Tasmania alone donate a staggering 18 million hours of service to the Tasmanian community each year. In finishing, I would like to urge every one in this place to get behind your local volunteering peak groups. As a country we need all the volunteers we can get.