Community Services

Community services face a workforce retention crisis. Recent research demonstrates that current levels of State Government funding for community services are inadequate even though non-government organisations offer greater efficiencies in delivering many services. Additional complexities, like competitive tendering, are wearing away at the collaborative strength for which this sector is well known.

Women make up a high percentage of the community service workforce and the low pay in this sector impacts on Western Australia’s gender pay gap, which is the largest in Australia (women earn an average of 27% less than men). The community service sector plays a vital role in sustaining our economy and supporting our social infrastructure. Urgent action is required to address the funding shortfall. 

Goals

The Greens (WA) want: 

• well-funded community services to strengthen social infrastructure.
• adequate and secure funding for not-for-profit welfare and advocacy organisations. 

Initiatives

The Greens (WA) will initiate and support legislation and actions that: 

• support increased funding for community services specifically addressing the urgent need for improvements in pay and conditions
• extends eligibility for Government Regional Officers Housing to NGO community service workers
• support a well resourced not-for-profit sector that is able to provide direct advice to government on social services.
• close the gender pay gap in community services.

(See the Australian Greens Social Services policy and the range of Caring for People policies of The Greens (WA) on the website: www.wa.greens.org.au )

Background

Every day thousands of Western Australians provide help to people in a range of community services. They work in a wide range of areas from childcare to aged care, including social workers, youth workers, counselors, and people who hand out blankets and food from soup kitchens to the homeless.

In regional areas community service workers play a particularly important role in maintaining the social fabric. The human services industry is valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars and yet individual non-government workers are amongst the poorest paid in our society. They receive dramatically lower wages than people who do a similar job in the public sector. Inadequate pay and poor savings leave them teetering on the poverty line and at risk of joining the people they help.