Breaking the poverty cycle

Premier David Bartlett TASCOSS Breakfast Speech. Thursday 30 October 2008
I want to talk today about how we can break the poverty cycle itself by re-engineering the things that make it turn.

INTRODUCTION

I have come here this morning to begin an honest conversation with the community sector.

Convention dictates that the Premier of the day come to a forum like this armed with a ‘mega announcement’ to capture the debate.

I know that some commentators and many in the media will be expecting just that.

But to me this is not about providing a quick sound-bite or creating false expectations.

I am here to work with the sector on delivering reforms that will make a real difference to how people are living in Tasmania for decades to come.

I am here as a Premier who recognises we are yet to deliver enough, and who genuinely wants to do better.

And I want to work with you to do it.

I want to talk today about how we can break the poverty cycle itself by re-engineering the things that make it turn.

In the months since I’ve become Premier, I have already signalled my intent.

I have committed $90 million to building up to 30 Child and Family Centres around Tasmania in the next four years, with the first eight to be under construction next year.

I have committed $32 million in the State Budget to helping children in low socio-economic areas improve their literacy and numeracy skills.

Those commitments, which we are implementing right now, symbolise the three areas in which I want to help to build capacity in Tasmanian communities.

Firstly we need to focus more energy on fighting the causes of disadvantage, rather than just treating the symptoms.

Secondly, we need to build socially inclusive communities, in which all Tasmanians are empowered to be equal participants.

And thirdly we need to connect up government services and make them easier to access by putting them where the need is.

There are children right now in our society facing lives of heart wrenching poverty.

There are parents living the reality of not having the income they need to support their kids.

There are communities in which people are experiencing the daily struggle to participate in this society.

That needs to change.

When I talk about a clever, kind and connected Tasmania, this is a good example of what I mean.

It’s about being clever and open to new ideas on social inclusion; kind in how we support the least well off in our society; and connected in our approach to service delivery.

That’s why I have committed to 30 Child and Family Centres – because they provide services directly where they are needed – helping to fight the causes of poverty at the coalface.

They do that by connecting up a range of government services in the one place, so that families can access things like parenting programmes, child and family health services, and adult education and training, right there in their own community.

There is no point building one big centre in the middle of Hobart and thinking that we’ve solved poverty.

We have to meet the need where it exists, and empower families to build better futures where they can easily access services.

These centres can become focal points for communities, connecting people more closely to each other.

In Tasmania, we value our sense of community and want everyone to be a part of it.

It’s the first goal in our Tasmania Together vision, where we agreed that we wanted “a reasonable lifestyle and standard of living for all Tasmanians.”

Tasmania is our communal project. It is what we have built together from the values we share.

A tolerant, open, active, dynamic and forward-looking place.

A haven for the creative and the innovative and the demonstrative.

An industrious place that retains a peace found in few other places on earth.

And it remains a work in progress.

I have firm ideas about where that progress can come from.

CAUSES, NOT SYMPTOMS

Firstly, I want us to focus more on fighting the causes of social disadvantage, and less on treating the symptoms.

We need a new approach in this State to dealing with poverty.

We need to stop seeing poverty as a problem that can be treated, and see it as a challenge that must be overcome and prevented for the future.

For too long, we have accepted poverty by largely looking for ways to ameliorate it, not defeat it.

Well, I don’t accept that.

I don’t think Tasmanian Governments have done enough over the last 30 years to break the poverty cycle.

We should not accept poverty as some kind of social necessity.

We must in my view rage against it.

We cannot any longer look at the widening gap between rich and poor as a reasonable outcome.

Every available indicator tells us what the people in this room instinctively know to be true.

That poverty is an inter-generational issue.

That not everyone in Tasmania is getting the same shot at life.

That not all families are being given the support and respect they deserve by a system which expects them to fail.

We know this to be true.

And knowing it to be true, the challenge for all of us is to work together to change it.

And I want to complement TASCOSS for having released a comprehensive Community Services Industry Plan earlier this week.

Sound strategic planning at an industry-wide level provides the basis for future success in combating disadvantage.

To actually interrupt the poverty cycle – to stop the inevitability of inter-generational challenges – we need to change the settings that cause the cycle to turn.

And chief amongst those settings, in my view, is education.

That is why I have been so passionate about holding the education portfolio in addition to being premier.

I have been told that I am in fact the first Premier or Prime Minister in a western democracy to hold the education portfolio since David Lange in New Zealand in the 1980’s.

I am determined to use the opportunity that gives me to make lasting change.

If there is a single factor more than any other that can provide a pathway out of poverty, its education.

Education is like social oxygen for families who have been struggling for breath.

Every indicator shows that the higher the level of qualification people are able to achieve, the higher the likelihood of them beating the challenges of poverty.

That’s why I have been committed since I became Minister for Education to three key areas, including early years education, better literacy and numeracy levels, and improving post year 10 qualification rates.

Statistics show that 86% of jobs in Australia today require a post year 10 qualification. Less than 47% of Tasmanians currently have a post year 10 qualification.

That has to change if we are to give our young people a fair start in the job market, and that is what the Tasmania Tomorrow reforms will achieve.

Of course, people’s later educational outcomes are hugely influenced by the learning they undertake up to the age of five.

The Launching into Learning initiative is all about making things happen for our kids before they start formal schooling.

As I have said often, I want every Tasmanian child to arrive at school with the seed of a life-long love of learning already sown within them.

There are now over 100 schools in lower socio-economic areas around Tasmania who are participating and offering ways for parents to get involved in the education of their children before they reach school age.

Through Raising the Bar and Closing the Gap, we are putting $32 million into raising literacy and numeracy levels in our most disadvantaged schools through needs-based funding.

Of course, we need to not only support education for our young children, but provide opportunities for all Tasmanians to improve their skills qualifications.

The Skilling Tasmania initiative is about connecting people with opportunities right where they are.

One of the most powerful things I have seen since becoming Minister for Education was a course run in Gagebrook by TAFE, where 25 women were able to access an accredited course in their community.

That is practical social inclusion in action as far as I’m concerned.

If we’d held that course in the City, we would have put so many extra barriers in the way of those students.

The difficulties and costs of getting transport, arranging childcare or finding time would simply not have made it possible for most of them to seize that opportunity.

It is certainly an experience that has inspired my passion for delivering services and opportunities where they are actually useful to people.

Any assessment of the causes and symptoms of poverty must also take into account the impacts of addiction.

Whether its alcohol or prescription drugs or gaming machines – there are a range of legal and illegal substances that can play havoc with the lives of Tasmanians.

Gambling is one area in particular where I think we can do more.

As you would be aware, Treasury released the Government’s Social and Economic Impact Study into Gambling in Tasmania in July this year.

Problem gambling can affect anyone, but clearly the people with a low income base are the greatest affected.

The study found that the highest gambling losses per capita occurred in more disadvantaged areas.

The findings of the study are being assessed by the Tasmanian Gaming Commission, which will report back to the Treasurer shortly.

I will be taking that report very seriously and looking to implement stronger measures in response to it.

I want to have a look at all the options.

Let’s have a look at whether smartcards can make a difference.

Let’s have a look at whether environmental conditions play a big part and need to be altered.

Every time we help a Tasmanian deal with a gambling problem, we are helping their family too. We are helping to put another break into that poverty cycle.

Which brings me to the second area where I think we can implement change.

CONNECTING UP GOVERNMENT

I believe that we need to connect-up government services – and make them more accessible.

We need to give government a human face, to provide better avenues for people to find their way to government services.

Government for too long has operated as complex series of silos.

Many Tasmanians may not be aware of how much help is available through government services.

I think there are simply too many doors to knock on, which makes accessing services unnecessarily complex for people already living very complex lives.

That is why I am opposed to approaches like withdrawing welfare payments to parents whose children play truant from school. It’s a simplistic remedy for a complex problem.

I would rather see us work with parents, to help them build the parenting skills that will help them better connect with their children.

The reality for many low income parents in our society is judgement and condescension – in place of empathy and support.

People who are bounced around from Centrelink, to the health department, to Medicare, to schools, to finding doctors who bulk bill, to struggling with proper nutrition – I could go on.

Parenting is incredibly hard, and as all of us who are parents would know, it carries with it immense responsibilities.

As Premier, I want to make it easier for parents. I want to put more supports in place to help people walk the pathway out of poverty.

That is why I have committed to building Child and Family Centres around this State over the next four years.

These centres will essentially be one-stop shops of support.

This is about helping parents work through issues like early years education, nutrition, and health and wellbeing.

These centres will provide parenting programmes, early learning support, child and family health services, early identification of children with special needs, and access to adult education and training.

The Child and Family Centres will complement other initiatives that connect people with services.

These include five regional Learning and Information Network Centres (LINCs) to be built across regional Tasmania.

The LINCS will integrate community learning, libraries and technology access with other government services.

Let me give you a concrete example about the LINC currently operating in Huonville.

The Huonville Magistrates Court is located in that centre, and it’s got to be the only place in Tasmania that I know of where people who are struggling to fill out court forms because of low literacy skills can walk across the corridor and enrol in an adult literacy program.

It’s connecting government services to people where they need them.

Let’s stop putting barriers up for people, and instead make it easier rather than harder to get a second and third chance at accessing learning opportunities.

That’s what the LINCs are about, that’s what the Community Knowledge Network is about and that’s what the Child and Family Centres will be about.

We can’t help people by sitting in the middle of Hobart, and wondering why nobody is accessing our services.

This is about connected-up service delivery for the 21st century.

There are too many Tasmanian adults that do not have strong literacy skills.

I’m not prepared to let that stand, and these kind of centres can, will and are helping.

This is about community, and connecting community to Government.

Which brings me to my third theme.

CONNECTED COMMUNITIES

I believe we need to build social inclusion into the core of everything that we do.

We need to connect people to each other.

Social inclusion is about all of us.

It reminds us of the things that unite us as Tasmanians.

It reminds us that homelessness is not just the problem of the people who are homeless – it is an embarrassment to our collective conscience as a community.

Let me be quite plain today.

This Government has a job to do in addressing housing needs.

Whatever we have achieved in housing, it has not been enough.

There are too many people living on the streets, or sleeping rough.

There are too many people in need of short term accommodation who cannot find it.

I am well aware that there are some in the sector who are yet to be convinced about the government’s commitment to deliver in the area of housing.

I am confident that the time is now right for us to be able to deliver real change and real outcomes in housing for low income and disadvantaged Tasmanians.

As you would be aware, the Highfield House option as a site to host a Common Ground housing project does not appear to provide value for money in homeless accommodation.

We are now looking at up to three other sites in central Hobart, which Minister Thorp and I will be in a position to make an announcement about soon.

Of course, like you, what I really want to see is housing action.

Tenders have now closed for the Government’s Quickbuild scheme, and the $7 million allocated will deliver 54 new kit homes on the ground by June next year.

The National Affordable Rental Scheme will see hundreds of new properties added to Tasmania’s housing market, providing much needed relief for people living in private rentals.

Over the coming years, through these initiatives and the $60 million available to our Housing Innovations Unit, our aim is to add another 2000 properties to the Tasmanian housing market.

Further negotiations with the Commonwealth are also well under way, and I am very hopeful that Tasmania will gain extra funding through the development of the new National Affordable Housing Agreement.

How we continue to deal with housing and homelessness is a real test of our resolve in looking after the people in our society who are living with disadvantage.

It is not a test that I intend to fail.

Another important challenge we face is making sure that communities are not just connected emotionally, but physically through having access to affordable public transport.

Last month, in Launceston, I hosted a fuel summit – a gathering of industry groups from across Tasmania, including TASCOSS, to focus on ideas about how to help Tasmanians fight the impacts of fuel price rises.

Transport is the vital link that connects people to services and opportunities.

I want to make sure that affordable public transport is available to the people that need it most.

There are many things that can make life harder for low income Tasmanian families – and transport is one of them – with factors like climate change having the potential to impact on prices.

My commitment today is that I will fight as Premier for transport options that alleviate pressure on low income Tasmanians, rather than adding to it.

I also have a strong personal interest in community transport.

I think we can do much more to support non-government organisations who help out others in the community with their transport needs.

That is something I will be turning my mind to in coming months, and talking with the sector about.

I want to see communities empowered to meet their own transport needs. A community might for instance need a mini-bus to regularly take its young people to town, or seniors to social events.

I see community transport as being run by local communities, in the interests of local communities, with Government providing the funding to make it happen.

Those are the sort of options where the rubber quite literally hits the road when we talk about social inclusion.

I want our social inclusion strategy to be the glue that binds together disparate government services, and helps us keep building a sense of connected community.

As Minister for Education, I have spoken a lot about the need to put students at the centre of what we do.

Through social inclusion, I want to put Tasmanians at the centre of government services and social policy settings.

Services should be focussed on meeting the complex holistic needs of Tasmanians rather than being sliced into small segments that people have to find and try to access.

As you know, we have recently advertised the position of Social Inclusion Commissioner, and applications have now closed.

The Social Inclusion Commissioner will have a very important role to play and I want to make sure their voice is consistently heard at the very highest level of government.

For that reason, I will be inviting the Social Inclusion Commissioner to directly brief the whole Cabinet a number of times each year on how our social inclusion agenda is progressing.

And today marks an important day in the evolution of that agenda.

Because today it gives me great pleasure to formally release the Government’s Social Inclusion Strategy Consultation Paper.

The paper sets out in detail what we mean by social inclusion, and how it can make a difference in our communities.

It lists ways in which people can end up being socially excluded, and sets out how other jurisdictions, both in Australia and internationally, have tackled these problems.

We want to hear from across the Tasmanian community, and from the people represented in this room today, what their core social inclusion concerns are.

I want to thank the Neighbourhood House network for the work they are putting in, together with the Social Inclusion Unit, to help take this consultation paper to all corners of Tasmania in the weeks ahead.

Consultations will be held in neighbourhood houses from Zeehan to St Helens, and from George Town to Dunalley – and everywhere in between.

This strategy will drive the actions we take in supporting Tasmania’s sense of community in the years ahead, and I encourage everyone to have their say during this consultation period.

Social inclusion needs to be so much more than just an academic term that is bandied around.

To me, social inclusion is about the person in a wheelchair who can’t get into the doctors surgery because there is no access ramp.

It’s about the family in an outlying suburb who can’t afford the bus fare to get in and do an adult education course in the city.

It’s about someone with a mental illness that is struggling to hold down their job and sees government as a complex maze rather than an easy place to turn for support.

Social inclusion is about putting the human at the centre of human services.

I think an important part of connecting communities through social inclusion is making sure that people have a clear understanding of their rights and responsibilities as members of the Tasmanian community.

That is why I can flag today that I am interested in looking further at a Bill of Rights for Tasmania.

I have asked Deputy Premier and Attorney General, Lara Giddings, to bring forward recommendations to Cabinet about the need for a Bill of Rights, and its potential content.

Setting down rights on paper is about empowering people.

It gives us the chance as a community to set out some of the political freedoms and social rights that all Tasmanians should have.

And social empowerment in turn builds a sense of community.

It also gives us the opportunity to once again lead the nation with a socially progressive agenda, as we have done over the past decade with our significant relationships legislation, our family violence prevention policy, and our provision of compensation to the Stolen Generations.

What I have set out today are some ideas for the social future of this State.

I want to see us break the poverty cycle.

Break it with new thinking.

Break it by building the capacity of all Tasmanian parents and children so that we all have an equal chance to live a full and fulfilling life in this State.

I want to see us treating the causes of social disadvantage.

You don’t do that by being tough on parents. You do it be working with them.

You don’t do it by blaming the homeless. You do it by putting a roof over their heads and building their capacity.

You don’t do it by quietly allowing children in low socio-economic areas to slip from school into lives of quiet frustration. You do it by working with those kids until they achieve qualifications that can help them get a job and a brighter future.

We can only achieve these things if we build a connected society.

A society in which people know where to turn for assistance.

A society in which social inclusion is not just a theory, or the latest buzz-word, but an everyday reality in the life of every Tasmanian.

That is our joint challenge, and I look forward to working with the people in this room to meet it.