Subjects: Society of St Vincent DePaul; social coalition; welfare organisations.
E&OE................................
Well thank you very much Mr Rogers, Mr Pat O'Flynn, Mr John Moore, Mr David Barr, Councillor Jean Hay the Mayor of Manly, ladies and gentlemen.
I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to involve myself in the launch of this winter appeal by the Society of St Vincent de Paul. I am so for a number of reasons. First and foremost it does give me an opportunity to publicly honour the great work of the society in helping the disadvantaged, not only in Australia, but around the world.
The society is one of a number of great institutions which have been in existence for a long time who've been based upon a desire to help our fellow country men and women who have either fallen upon hard times or through other combinations or circumstances are in need of help. And it is a reality that no matter how generically wealthy any community may be, no matter how much we may be able to boast of economic growth, and from time to time dazzle ourselves with economic statistics about national economic performance. There are always a group of people within our community who have missed out. And a group of people who are deserving and understanding of dignified support, of sensitive treatment, and of what I'm sure all of us would describe as practical warmhearted Christian charity. And the society has been in the forefront of welfare organisations in Australia and it has built up a great reputation, a deserved reputation for helping the disadvantaged within our community.
In the time that I've been Prime Minister I've spoken a great deal about the importance of trying to build within the Australian community a social coalition to tackle social and welfare issues. And it's important when talking about a social coalition to understand that that is not some kind of euphemism or some kind of excuse for the Government reducing its role or retreating any way from its responsibilities. There will always be a fundamental and important role for governments to provide income support, to draw upon the general fund of taxpayers to help the needy and the less fortunate in our community. That responsibility can never be abandoned, it should never be abandoned and it can never be negotiated away.
But there are, I believe, approaches which better combine the capacities of the Government, philanthropic individuals, the welfare sector, and the business community. And the social coalition is really about each of those groups getting together and doing what they can best do in order to help the disadvantaged within our society.
Governments are good at writing checks. Governments are good at drawing upon the tax payers money to provide pensions, unemployment benefits and forms of welfare support. Governments are not always good at the coal face. And that of course were organisations such as your society come in. The human compassion dispensed by the Society of St Vincent de Paul, by the Salvation Army, the Wesley Mission, by Anglicare, and I can go onto name the great welfare organisations of Australia. That kind of human compassion is irreplaceable and unmatchable and can only be provided by the warmhearted members of organisations such as your own.
But your organisations can do more than provide relief and human compassion at the coal face of disadvantage. You can only provide, drawing on your experience, you can also provide policy advice. And you can be involved in reshaping and remaking the policy approaches that governments adopt in relation to welfare problems. And one of the things that we also have endeavoured to do is to draw upon the policy expertise of the welfare organisations of Australia. And I know most of you will be aware of the McClure report, taking its name from Patrick McClure the executive director of Mission Australia, another great welfare organisation. And that report has given the Government a blueprint for welfare reform, and that will be a focus in the budget to be delivered on the 22 May. It won't be, as I mentioned earlier, any kind of platform or excuse for the Government reducing its role, rather for the Government more energetically involving itself in the process of welfare reform.
And we have endeavoured to involve organisations such as your own in building a new approach, a better approach, in relation to the delivery of welfare assistance. But there is a role also of course for the corporate sector of Australia. I frequently call on the corporate sector to give and support those in need. My call is not so much that business should give more, but rather that more businesses should give. There are some very spectacular examples, and you would know many of them, of great generosity on the part of wealth people in Australia. The point of course is that not all people who are able to give do give. And I hope that the spirit of corporate philanthropy, which I'm pleased to say is focusing more prominently in the thoughts and in the attitudes and in the minds of many business leaders in Australia, I hope that spreads even more widely. And the growth of partnerships between companies and welfare organisations in providing relief and help for the disadvantaged has been a very welcome feature of the whole welfare scene in Australia over the past few years.
Your organisation deals right where it occurs. Yours is an organisation which daily comes into contact with human suffering and human misery. And you bring to the relief of those in need a sense of compassion, of Christian understanding, a spiritual commitment which is the basis on which the Society was formed, taking it's guide from that great injunction in St Matthew's gospel. It is an organisation that I very warmly support, I admire, I appreciate the battles that it has fought over the years in the name and in the interest of the disadvantaged within the Australian community. I hope that this winter appeal is a great success. I announce that the Commonwealth Government will itself contribute $100,000 to the winter appeal. I know that you will provide warmth and comfort to many Australians in need of that assistance, and I renew the commitment I've made on many occasions that the Government seeks to work in a constructive manner, in as bipartisan a political atmosphere as possible with organisations such as your society to provide help and hope and sustenance and inspiration to those within the Australian community who are less fortunate than us. I declare the appeal open, I wish it a great success, I commend it to generous Australians. And I hope it provides a real vehicle for the relief of distress and suffering within the Australian community.