Thank you very much Indira, Kay Patterson - my Ministerial colleague and Minister for Family and Community Services and to all of the members of the Prime Minister's business and community partnership that are here tonight. Could I say to Joy Murphy, thank you very much for that very gracious welcome to country. The spirit of these partnerships is a recognition of a reality that we are all very familiar with and that is, that no one section of Australian society acting on its own can solve the nation's major social challenges. Governments might have a lot of resources and they might have a lot of legal authority but they invariably lack the coal faced understanding of the human challenges of social deprivation and social inequality.
Great welfare organisations in Australia is renowned for them - have wonderful coalface experience, they have a wonderful commitment driven by a dedication to helping the less privileged in our community, but they frequently and very understandably lack resources.
Australia is replete with public spirited individuals and many of them are here tonight and many of them over the years have been wonderful examples of generous support for worthy causes in our society. But they alone can't respond to all of society's challenges. So what we seek to do through this wonderful expression of what I've now called for the best part of seven or eight years, the 'social coalition' - I normally use coalition in another context but a 'social coalition' seeks to recognise that working together, different sections of our society can solve a lot of society's problems.
And the really good thing about this partnership is that it really has in a fairly short period of time, made a difference. When you look at the raw data, when you look at the facts, there has been a remarkable improvement in the willingness of Australians to give and to support worthy causes.
I think we were all reminded of that at the beginning of this year with the amazing response to the Asian tsunami from Australians. We in fact on a per capita basis were by far the most generous country in the world, by far. In nominal terms we were only just behind the United States in the generosity of our support. Now that's an amazing commentary on the generosity of Australians, an amazing commentary.
Now I, as many of you know, have frequently said at gatherings such as this that not so much do I ask business to give more because many businesses already give an enormous amount, but I ask more businesses to give and the figures indicate that. Recent research that was commissioned for the partnership estimated that the value of Australian philanthropy in 2004 was over $11 billion.
Business giving has more than doubled since 2000/2001 with more than 525,000 businesses, that's 67% of all businesses giving $3.2 billion in money, goods and services during 2003/4. The value of individual giving has grown by 88% since 1997 to some $5.7 billion in 2004 and more than 87% of adult Australians donated an average of $424 - yes $424 precisely, in the year to January 2005.
Now that is enough of the statistics but I think those statistics are worth talking about because they tell a story of greater generosity which is worth telling and they give the lie to those in the community who constantly say two things - they say the rich have got richer and the poor have got poorer and the more affluent we become as a society, the more indifferent we are to the less privileged within our midst. Both of those propositions are profoundly wrong and inaccurate and disproved by facts and unless those assertions so blindly (inaudible) made are challenged and refuted with fact and reality, they will become accepted wisdom within our community.
Now I haven't come here tonight to engage in reciprocal self praise and to say how wonderful you all are and expect you to say how wonderful the government is. I mean it is, it is quite good, but be that as it may, that is not the purpose of tonight. But surely the purpose of tonight, apart from honouring the people who have really worked together, is to state a reality and that is that yes we are a fortunate, wealthy, affluent country but we have not by and large forgotten the less fortunate in our midst. And that is not to say that we don't have a lot more to do - that is not to say that there are not still huge pockets of underprivileged in Australia.
We have made some progress with health and other matters that are important to the indigenous in our midst but indigenous Australians still remain as a group, the most underprivileged in our society and in continued need of practical assistance. There are still far too many people who are suffering in all sorts of ways from deprivation and under privilege in our society. But I think the message out of those figures and the message out of the community partnerships, the willingness with which so many people in corporations have thrown themselves into the work in partnerships; I think the message out of that is there are a lot more Australians who care than are sometimes given credit for.
Now tonight is an occasion to honour people who've involved themselves in the work of the partnership. I do want to thank Kay Patterson for the tremendous work that she has done as the Minister responsible. This has been a great exercise and Kay does deserve a round of applause.
And I do want to pay tribute to the fellow members, my fellow members of the business and community partnership, so many of them are here tonight and I want to thank them in different ways for all the help that they have given. I think it has been a very successful exercise, it's now become an established part of the government's network of community support but most importantly it has demonstrated to the community the generosity and the decency of corporate Australia and it has also demonstrated the capacity of so many organisations and so many groups in this community to join together in achieving things.
We have a great way in Australia of doing things like this because we are not a society burdened by layers and divisions to the extent that other societies are. I remarked to the Victorian Chief Police Commissioner this morning, I took the opportunity of visiting the Operational Centre for the counter-terrorism exercise that we're conducting at the moment and we both agreed that it had gone so well. And I said that one of the reasons why things like that which involve different groups in Australian society working together closely, why it goes so well, is that because of our egalitarian character and the way in which we relate to each other without too much regard for position or privilege. It's because of that, that we can achieve things that other societies can't or perhaps can't achieve to the same degree.
And I think what we have done with community partnerships is a wonderful example of that. I think it's something of a role model for others. I am certainly very proud of it and I want tonight on behalf of the Government, to thank all of you for the contribution that you have made and you are celebrating a great Australian characteristic and that is when you are doing well yourself, you ought to lend a helping hand to those who aren't and I think you've demonstrated that very well and you deserve a pat on the back for doing so, thank you for your support.
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