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SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P 3 KEAITING MP
MATTHEW TALBOT HOSTEL APPEAL
SYDNEY 11 JUNE 1993
Ladies and gentlemen
It is a prl~. ylege to be invited here to launch an appeal
by one of the great charitable organisations of
Australia, for one of the great humane institutions of
Sydney. The St Vincent de Paul has been around f or a very long
time of course. It doesn't have as high 8 profile 8s some
of the other charitable institutions, but it is
unquestionably the biggest, it provides more help to more
people than any other, and none is more efficient.
Rather like John Menadue, it is modest and effective
and like the airline he used to run, there's a bit of the
spirit of Australia about it. That's certainly true of
the Matthew Talbot.
Because the Matthew Talbot has been around for a long
time too. It's part of the Sydney legend. it was built
during the Great Depression sixty years ago, when 8 third
of Australia's workers were unemployed, and the idea that
governments should provide a safety net for the victims
of poverty was still pretty much just that an idea.
These days It is much more of a reality. But in modern
Australia where we have one of the better social welfare
systems in the world, we continue to need organisations
like the St Vincent de Paul Society and places like the
Matthew Talbot Hostel for Homeless -Men.
And while we would like to think that the day will come
when we don't need these charities, life being what Is,
and perfection being pretty well beyond us, the fact is
we will always need them.
And, in truth, when it comes to delivering the help that
people need when they are on hard times, in many ways the
charities do it better than the government and nobody
does it better, of course, than the St Vincent do Paul
Society.
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The Matthew Talbot speaks for itself: every day and every
night three hundred men sleep here, 2000 free meals are
served, nursing and medical services are provided, and
counselling along with acceptance, friendship, love and
hope. The men here have come by different routes through
family breakdowns, sickness, alcohol and drug dependence,
unemployment but at Matthew Talbot they all get the
same thing, which in a word is Cag Care and very often
another chance.
I know in her book about a family's experience of coping
with schizophrenia, Anne Deveson pays special tribute to
Matthew Talbot for the care and friendship given to her
son, Jonathan.
I am very nitdti aware that the demands on the society and
on this hostel have been dramatically increased in the
last couple of years as a result of the recession and now
the intractably high levels of unemployment.
I wish I could say that unemployment vias going to rapidly
fall. But it is not going to and wishing will not make
it go away.
Just the same, there are things we can do and are doing
to create jobs and train people, give the young work
experience, and keep those who are older in touch with
the labour market.
We can do these things to give people a chance to reenter
the workforce when the recovery gathers more pace
and business looks for new people. And of course we will
continue to fund the charities and our own welfare
programs to help people through.
There may be other things which can be done I am sure
there are, and that's why we've established a high level
committee to assess thoroughly our policies on
unemployment and to come up with whatever solutions they
can. Because of the long term personal and social damage it
does, unemployment simply has to be our highest priority.
I am well aware that while funding such places as this is
essential, by far the best thing we can do is get our
economy flourishing again and create jobs.
And that, by the way is a message for the whole
community. It's a message business might listen to.
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If we are committed to the country and the people as well
as to the company or corporation, maybe we could make
some useful improvement by changing the set of our
business minds and looking for ways to employ people
rather than disemploy them. It is not really an
altruistic suggestion to take on new blood now so that
they will have skill and experience on their side when
the economy begins to buzz again.
I think these days, at every step in our economic life,
the consequences for employment have to be considered.
when companies make an investment decision, when they
look at their operations, when banks decide whether or
not to lend to companies wanting to begin or expand.
We need business which is tough and competitive in a
tough and competitive business culture. But that does
not mean efther that business has no responsibility
beyond the balance sheet, or that the operations of the
human heart are inimical to success.
And unions might be thinking along the same lines is
their duty only to their members, or ts it also to the
country and the people? And, therefore, is it really in
their interests to deny work experience to young people,
to close out the unemployed, to make them someone else's
problem? That is something I believe we are learning in the
nineties unemployment is never just someone else's
problem. It's a problem for all of us.
it's a national problem and the solution will have to be
a national one. It will require a concerted effort.
Rather like the effort which is made here.
I don't make the comparison lightly this is a great
cooperative enterprise between the Society and other
groups, governments and individuals. The roots of it are
in the vision, good will and compassion of the people of
St Vincent de Paul and all the volunteers who work here.
They are the roots and the government adds water and
fertiliser. In this enterprise government plays a
supporting role, rather than a leading one and it is all
the more effective for that.
We have provided $ 5.5 million towards these marvellous
renovations but we did not provide the inspiration. The
inspiration came from the people here. It was not the
government which decided that the homeless men of Sydney
deserved a re-built hostel, a safer, more efficient and
friendly building, one so good that I'm told you could
feel the lift in morale. It is rarely in the nature of
governments to understand needs so well.
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Similarly, it was not the government which decided that
this hostel for homeless men should not be a place for
41warehousing" people, but one providing decent and
dignified accommodation; that no one should be turned
away; that the front entrance of the Matthew Talbot
should cease to be a security gate and become a receptIon
office those sorts of decisions can only be made by
people who are passionate enough about their vocation to
have a vision, and practised and knowledgeable enough to
understand reality. I mean the sorts of people paid
and unpaid who work here.
Governments do not have the capacity to do these things
so well. But they do have the capacity to recognise
social need. They even have the ability to share the
good will. And when they do that they spend their money
wisely. So the Matthew Talbot does provide a model for the
problems we now face it is proof, I think, that where
the resolve exists, inspiration and cooperation will
follow, and when we cooperate, when we work cohesively,
when we think imaginatively, we can w6rk miracles like
this. Old Matthew Talbot could not have imagined this piece.
When it was founded sixty years ago no one could have
imagined it. 5ut you will often find in the history of
Australia when the collective will has existed the
unimaginable has happened.
And there is one more thing for us to learn from this
place. It seems to me that the best measure the truest
measure of our worth as a society and as a nation
really is the degree to which we care for each other. I
mean the fellow feeling among Australians and how much
importance we attach to it.
Not only Is that intangible thing a measure of a
compassionate and just society, but of a strong societya
society capable of solving its problems.
We will. be stronger for Including everyone in the
national equation, just as Matthew Talbot is stronger for
turning no one away.
And we will be better able to solve our problems if we
face them unflinchingly, as Matthew Talbot does, and if
we recognise that all of them economic, political and
social are essentially h~ uman problems.
And nothing speaks more eloquently of that than life at
Matthew Talbot. All of us who might sometimes forget can
come here and remember that when we get it wrong in those
things we call the economy, or the family, or society, or
the democracy, it falls out in the lives of ordinary
people and the last place they fall is here.
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There is one more thing to learn from Matthew Talbot it
is that problems can be solved. That despair can give
way to hope. That ways can be found to re-build lives.
And that we are all strengthened by our involvement in
the process.
Thank you for having me, and I mean alU of you the
board, the staff, the volunteers and the men for the
inspiration you give the rest of us.
And for the rest of us it remains to give.