Social policy for tougher times: 2013 Sambell Oration

How should we tackle the challenge of welfare reform in constrained economic times? What role can community organisations play as fiscal constraints limit what governments can do?

In his 2013 Sambell Oration, Social policy for tougher times, keynote speaker Professor Paul Smyth sees a reform opportunity by embracing the idea of "Inclusive Growth".

Named after former Brotherhood of St Laurence Executive Director Archbishop Geoffrey Sambell, the oration, delivered each year since 1981, offers a forum for ideas that advance a fairer Australia.

The outgoing General Manager of the Brotherhood's Research and Policy Centre, Professor Smyth addressed an audience of around 300 at the Melbourne Museum on Wednesday 4 December 2013.

Professor Smyth held this position for 10 years, setting the directions for the Centre as a space that combines academic expertise with close engagement with disadvantaged clients and their experiences of poverty and exclusion.

In his speech, he said that rigorously applied social policies must not be dismissed as wasteful entitlements. Instead, they should be seen as sound investments in employment and productivity which show how economic reforms will translate into a better society for all. Inclusive Growth is a new approach to economic growth – integrating economic and social policy goals by seeking to boost growth while reducing inequality and exclusion, Professor Smyth said.

It can be applied to both developed and developing countries – as relevant to Germany and the United States as it is to China and Indonesia.Economic success must include social measures for inclusive growth to occur, he said. Benefits don't "trickle down" after you achieve economic growth – policies for inclusion and growth must be made together.Non government organisations can play their part by becoming community builders, Professor Smyth said.

"For nearly two decades now the sector has operated within a governance environment laid out at the height of the economic rationalist period. A shift towards inclusive growth can allow us to redraw the roles of state, market and civil society in ways that the Brotherhood believes are much needed.

NGOs should replace competition with each other for government funding with collaboration for "collective impact" – based on equality, fellowship and the even dispersal of power through the community.

Professor Smyth gave the example of the HIPPY (Home Interaction Program for Parents and Youngsters), pioneered by the Brotherhood in Australia, as an example of collective impact.

HIPPY is an early childhood program that helps parents from disadvantaged backgrounds prepare for children for school. Professor Smyth said that rather than "own" the initiative, now funded by the Australian Government, the Brotherhood sought out partnerships across the nation with existing community organisations with genuine local credentials.

"While the Brotherhood supplied the service model and has continued to supply high-end legal, research and corporate support, these organisations operate in their own name and own right while valuing the back up the Brotherhood is able to provide.

"Another outstanding example of this approach, he said, has been the Work and Learning Centres supported by the Victorian Government and based on the Brotherhood's flagship centre in Fitzroy, Melbourne.

"The Geelong centre is an inspirational example of what this approach can achieve. It is well known that the current model of contracted employment services has come to replicate the strengths and weaknesses of the bureaucracy it replaced. It is very efficient at delivering stock standard, one-size-fits-all products but weak at engaging more complex cases, especially those needing serious community engagement.

"Thus in Geelong there were some suburbs with high numbers of unemployed whom the standard services failed to touch effectively. So, with the support of the Victorian Government, the Brotherhood teamed up with an inspirational community group called Northern Futures.

"The group is spearheaded by leading business people with a vision for a Geelong with a strong economy in which no neighbourhoods are left behind. So, with a small crew of paid staff and a larger number of volunteers, they have taken on the Centre for Work and Learning with the Brotherhood’s assistance and are getting great results with the people whom the mainstream system has failed.

"The importance of these kinds of initiatives at the local level should not be underestimated," Professor Smyth said.

Read the speech (PDF)