Thank you very much Patrick, Richard Grellman, the Chairman of Mission Australia, my parliamentary colleagues, Charles thank you for your very generous words of welcome, ladies and gentleman. It is a particular privilege to be here today to open this new centre and to have the opportunity of paying tribute to the remarkable work of Mission Australia for the over a hundred years of service to the people of Sydney under different names in different guises but always driven by a strong sense of Christian mission to do the right thing by the less privileged in our society.
I pay a particular tribute to the personal contribution that Patrick McClure has made to the direction of Mission Australia. He's been a remarkable CEO. He exemplifies the capacity of the great welfare organisations in Australia to change as needed with the times, but also to remain steadfast to certain principles. And the underlying driving force behind Mission Australia as indeed behind all of its earlier manifestations, was that very strong sense of Christian mission and Patrick exemplifies that and he also exemplifies the greater willingness of so many in the community, particularly at a time when the country is in an overall sense enjoying good circumstances, to work together to help the less fortunate in our community and the presence here today of many of the major corporate supporters of the Mission is testament to that.
Because I have tried in the time that I've been Prime Minister to build a better social coalition, recognising that the government acting on its own is never able to do the job. Governments bring resources, governments bring funds, governments can bring about policy changes, but governments never have the expertise at the coalface to deliver the best solutions and the best support and equally great organisations working on their own don't have the resources or the capacity to do it all. Individuals working on their own don't either, business organisations with the best intentions in the world, working on their own can't do it. And what is really needed is to pool our respective capacities and that is what the social coalition is all about and that is what Mission Australia has demonstrated over the years and this Centre combines the very best of the old traditions of Mission Australia, its sense of concern and mission with a modern recognition of the facilities that are needed to give people the opportunity to recover their self esteem. As I watched that video, what came through so very strongly to me was that one consistent theme of self esteem.
We all know from life's experiences that self esteem is the beginning of achievement and until you have self belief and self esteem, no matter what your situation may be, you're not going to achieve your goals in life and that sense of self esteem that was so obvious in that video is I am sure very much the goal and the objective of this Centre, its varied services, its care for the homeless amongst Sydney's men, its care for low income people in a city whose inner city dwellings once seen as the cheaper form of accommodation now because of changed economic developments are a lot more expensive. I think that is a very sensitive recognition of the realities of Sydney in 2005 and the particular youth services also. So I do, in acknowledging the tremendous work of Mission Australia, I want to pay particular tribute to the way in which it's been able to combine its ancient tradition of caring for those who need caring with a modern recognition that contemporary facilities responding to the contemporary circumstances and needs of Sydney 2005 are needed.
As Patrick acknowledged in many different ways Mission Australia has received financial support from the federal government, some direct support of $250,000 in relation to this centre and of course participation in the many programmes of the federal government running into hundreds of millions of dollars overall, along with the other great organisations of our nation.
We can never do enough to help the less fortunate in our community and in a sense because everything is relative; the more affluent we may appear at a national level, the greater is the sense of alienation of being left out by those who are not doing so well and therefore the role and the contribution of Mission Australia, and its leadership and its voluntary workforce as well as its professional workforce is of enormous value in our community.
So I want to say to you Richard Grellman and to Patrick McClure and all others who work at Mission Australia, as well as those who've led it before and I see some of them in the audience, can I say thank you on behalf of your fellow Australians for your continued sense of mission and commitment to the less fortunate in our community.
I thank the business community of Australia, they often are taken for granted but people say to me do I think business should give more to welfare causes and I say, not so much that business should give more but more businesses should give and by definition, those who are here today are the generous ones and the ones, and I see many well known philanthropic faces of Sydney in the audience today, they are the ones who deserve our thanks and our recognition and our acknowledgement, there are many others who could follow their example and we naturally exhort them to do so.
But to Richard and Patrick, congratulations, I wish you well in your continued, dedicated mission to the homeless and the less fortunate of the city of Sydney, that you are doing wonderful work and you will continue to have the support of my government and I know all men and women of goodwill in public life around Australia and I have very great pleasure in declaring the Centre open. Thank you.
[ends]