SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC IDELOGY

These articles represent social democratic ideology.

Student need to read this Article and analysis and answer the given question of Assessment 1.

Reference: Gillard,J.,(2007) An Australian Social Inclusion Agenda, Election Speech. Canberra Accessed

https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:%22library/partypol/Z6 1P6%22

Authorised and printed by T. Gartrell, 161 London Circuit, Canberra City ACT 2600

An Australian Social Inclusion agenda

Julia Gillard MP

Deputy Federal Labor Leader Shadow Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations Shadow Minister for Social Inclusion

Senator Penny Wong

Shadow Minister for Workforce Participation

ELECTION 2007

Overview

The Australian economy has entered its 17th year of economic growth but now more than ever a social inclusion agenda is needed in Australia.

Behind Australia’s growth story lies the experience of Australians who, at the time of great prosperity, remain disadvantaged.

Social exclusion is the outcome of people or communities suffering from a range of problems such as unemployment, low incomes, poor housing, crime, poor health and disability and family breakdown. In combination, these problems can result in cycles of poverty, spanning generations and geographical regions.

Social exclusion can happen as a result of problems that emerge during life, or it can start from birth. Being born into poverty or to parents with no jobs or low skills is a major influence on a child’s life chances. Tragically, Indigenous Australians are highly likely to be socially excluded. Australians can also be at risk of social exclusion when living in suburbs which lack services and a sense of community.

Labor believes that to be socially included, all Australians need to be able to play a full role in Australian life, in economic, social, psychological and political terms. To be socially included, all Australians must be given the opportunity to:

secure a job

access services

connect with others in life through family, friends, work, personal interests and local community

deal with personal crisis such as ill health, bereavement or the loss of a job; and

have their voice heard.

Labor’s social inclusion agenda aims to launch a new era of governance to mainstream the task of building social inclusion so that all Australians can share in our nation’s prosperity.

Disadvantage in Australia

Australia has entered into its 17th year of economic growth and has the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years.

But social disadvantage in Australia is still apparent and enduring.

Tony Vinson’s Dropping off the Edge 1 report is a spatial study of social disadvantage that now provides an account of almost a decade of life in the most marginalised communities of Australia.

It is a reminder that aggregate economic growth does not guarantee a significant number of Australians will not be socially excluded. Vinson found that just 1.7 per cent of postcodes and communities across Australia account for more than seven times their share of intergenerational poverty, including low income, limited computer and internet access, early school leaving, physical and mental disabilities, long-term unemployment, prison admissions and substantiated child abuse and neglect.

Sadly, disadvantage is often intergenerational in nature, consigning generations of individuals to an outcome in life that is predetermined by location or family circumstance or lack of economic opportunity.

The Brotherhood of St Laurence has identified 21 federal electorates with simultaneous high incidences of single parent families, low family incomes and high unemployment rates. It also found that these electorates have the highest birth rates. More than 37,000 babies at risk of serious disadvantage were born into just those 21 electorates last year alone. Without action, too many of the next generation of Australians are being born into the communities least able to help them escape a life of disadvantage. 2

There is no community more social excluded than Australia’s Indigenous people. Indigenous Australians face a mortality rate three times that of non-Indigenous infants. Deaths due to accidents, suicide and assault (particularly among young males) are three times higher than for all

Australians. School retention rates for Indigenous year 12 students are 38 per cent compared to 75 per cent for their non-Indigenous counter-parts, while 49.9 per cent of non-Indigenous

Australians have no non-school qualification compared with 71 per cent of Indigenous Australians. Labour participation rates for Indigenous Australians are also almost 20 per cent lower than for the non Indigenous population. 3

But the Australian story of social exclusion does not start or end with postcodes. It can also result from being the person alienated by race or disability.

In 2003, 20 per cent of the Australian population had a disability. This included 1.2 million people with more severe disability. These were people who sometimes or always needed help with everyday tasks like walking or dressing, or who had difficulty communicating. 4

Discrimination in all its forms still excludes Australians from participating fully in social and economic life. Racial discrimination complaints still forms more than 10 per cent of all complaints received by anti-discrimination bodies in NSW, Queensland, SA, WA and NT. Discrimination against those with a disability is most prevalent and still widely reported across most areas of life, and in particular employment. 5

Labor believes that all Australians should be able to realise their full potential and have the opportunity to build a rewarding social and economic life.

Labor believes that work, along with family and community, gives meaning to life. Workforce participation is a foundation of social inclusion; it creates opportunities for financial independence and personal fulfilment.

Labor believes that as well as being good for individuals, increasing workforce participation benefits local communities, regions and the broader economy. Communities are more prosperous and cohesive when those who can work, are working.

Workforce participation is a key economic challenge for Australia, given the ageing of our population and the chronic skills shortages across the economy. The nation simply cannot afford to have potential workers, who can and want to work, excluded from the labour force.

But Australia has a large pool of under-utilised workers. They include the officially unemployed, those who are working but want more work than they can get, and those who would like to work but do not appear in the official monthly labour force figures. While the unemployment rate has fallen, our labour underutilisation rate 6 remains at 9.3 per cent, reflecting the large number of people who want more work and those who want to join in and become active participants in our economy. 7

The pool of potential workers includes young people (particularly early school-leavers), the unskilled and marginalised, mature age Australians, and parents seeking to return to work.

Many who are not in the workforce face multiple barriers to participation, including lack of relevant skills, lack of access to childcare, inadequate social and physical infrastructure and negative employer attitudes. Of those unemployed, 9.7 per cent state that the main reason for the difficulty in finding a job is their disability or illness, while almost 20 per cent do not have the skills or work experience. 9

Access to childcare and other support for those with caring responsibilities is a significant barrier to participation, with about 10,000 unemployed citing this as the main reason for their difficulty in finding work …

Labor is committed to helping these Australians overcome participation barriers. Australia needs a broader participation agenda that tackles the core reasons for Australians not participating in the workforce.

…Federal Labor has made education the centrepiece of this agenda and perhaps the most significant aspect of this platform for Labor’s social inclusion agenda is the commitment to universal preschool education for all four-year-old children. Both the OECD and UNESCO have stressed the contribution of access to early childhood education in reducing educational disadvantage and reaching out to those children at greatest risk of social disadvantage.

If Australia is to combat social and economic disadvantage, social inclusion cannot be an addendum to mainstream policies and programs – all government programs and initiatives must deliver on the social inclusion agenda.

…

Labor believes that people with a disability or mental illness who want to work should be encouraged. However, many find that they encounter a range of barriers that make it harder to gain and keep work.

These barriers can be very diverse, including resistance from employers in hiring people with a disability, difficulty accessing appropriate transport, the costs associated with managing a disability, and the unpredictable nature of some disabilities and illnesses. Labor understands that attitudes must significantly change to ensure that those with a disability or mental illness are given the vocational and employment opportunities they deserve. But more can be done to facilitate and promote employment opportunities.

Labor recognises that helping people with a disability or mental illness gain and retain work requires more than changes to welfare rules; it requires a coordinated national effort to tackle the many reasons why people with a disability find participation difficult.

In Government, Labor’s Social Inclusion Board will be required to develop a national employment strategy for those with a disability and mental illness, in close consultation with people with a disability, employers and experts.

Early Childhood and parenting

Federal Labor will work with the Brotherhood of Saint Laurence to establish 50 community groups across Australia – in disadvantaged communities — to help parents to prepare their children for school, through investment in the Home Interaction Program which will provide support for 3-5 year olds getting ready for school.

The early detection of health problems is critical to maximising children’s ability to learn and develop at school. This is why Labor has already announced a Healthy Kids Check, a commitment to assess Australian kids’ basic health such as teeth, hearing, balance and sight and a commitment to oversee the national rollout of the Australian Early Development Index from 2008.

Housing

Homelessness and unaffordable housing are also taking their toll on families and those who are marginalised. In response to the housing crisis Labor has committed to closing the gap between requests for accommodation and the current supply of emergency housing over the next decade, with an interim target to halve the current turn away rate within five years. Labor will provide $150 million over five years to create an additional 600 homes for people who are homeless.

A Federal Labor government will also work in partnership with business, unions and the community to develop employment opportunities for groups who are under-represented in the workforce.

The community sector will have a critical role to play in delivering an Australian social inclusion agenda.

In 2004, 2.5 per cent of all employees in Australia were working in community services – the full time equivalent of over 200,000 people. The community services workforce increased by 22.6 per cent between 1999 and 2004, double that of the average of all occupations. More than 80 per cent of the community sector workforce are women and of the occupational groupings, the largest employer is child and youth services workers, with over 100,000 workers, followed by aged or disabled care workers, with just over 50,000.

…

…

A well trained, skilled and resourced community sector is a critical aspect of the delivery of social services in Australia. But maintaining and growing a high skilled workforce in the community sector is not just important for the millions of people it services every year. It is also critical to building the social capital which will underpin Australia’s social inclusion agenda. Community and government programs which focus on investment in human capital ultimately build social capital, because by building capabilities in communities and disadvantaged groups we are reducing social isolation.

The community sector also plays a critical role in advising and developing public policy and advocating on behalf of the often marginalised groups it services. Both the 1995 Industry Commission Inquiry into the role of charitable organisations and the Charities Definition Inquiry of

2001 recognised the legitimate role of peak community organisations as representative organisations that advocate for their members.

…Conclusion

Twenty-two of the world’s 30 OECD nations have approached the challenge of disadvantage by adopting action plans, involving cross-departmental work, targets and deadlines. It’s time Australia had new leadership on social inclusion.12

As acknowledged by Tony Blair, prosperity “…masks a tail of under-achievers, the socially excluded. The rising tide does not lift their ships. This issue of social exclusion is common throughout Western nations”.13

The impacts of social exclusion are a serious blight on our prosperity and restrict Australia’s future economic and social development. They include the economic costs of the numbers of people left out of the productive workforce due to the lack of skills now required to compete in a globalised,

They include the high social costs of supporting excluded people and the cross generational exclusion which occurs when the children of excluded families are likely to remain out of the workforce. They include the high costs to cohesion of having whole communities excluded as we have seen in our cities and regions.

investment and will do all it can to foster people’s capacity to participate in work and to gain purpose through work.

If we are to meet growth challenge in the face of an ageing population, in the face of climate change and fiscal pressures emanating from health then we must do all we can to address social disadvantage in a constructive manner, which puts an inclusion agenda at the heart of our social and economic policy.

After a decade of neglect, and a decade of growth, there is no longer any excuse to not accept this challenge; no longer any excuse to turn our backs on those Australians who need us most – and those who can contribute to making Australia’s current prosperity – continue in the future.

Endnotes

Vinson, T., Dropping off the Edge: the distribution of disadvantage in Australia, Jesuit Social services; Catholic Social Services, 2007.

HELP, 37,000 babies at risk each year, Brotherhood of St Laurence, August 2007.

http://www.humanrights.gov.au/social_justice/statistics/index.html

ABS Catalogue No. 4430.0 2003 Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers 15 September 2004.

2005-06 Annual Reports of NSW Anti-discrimination Board, Equal Opportunity Boards of Victoria, Queensland, SA, NT; 2006-07 Annual Report of the WA Equal Opportunity Commission.

The labour underutilisation rate is the sum of unemployed and underemployed and expressed as a percentage of the labour force.

ABS Catalogue No. 6265.0 Underemployed Workers, September 2006.

Parliamentary Library estimations based on ABS September 2007 Labour Force Survey

ABS Catalogue No. 6222.0 Job Search Experience July 2006

10

ibid

11

ABS catalogue No. 6265.0 Underemployed Workers September 2006

12

Cath Smith, Anne Turley, Our forgotten poor, The Age, 29 October 2007.

13

Blair, T, The Economist What I’ve learned, May 31st 2007