My grievance this afternoon is about the recent round of Community Settlement Services Scheme funding for 2004-05 and, in particular, the shock defunding of two organisations, the Victorian Immigrant and Refugee Women's Coalition and the Victorian Arabic Social Services.
This year's round of CSSS funding has seen at least 10 current programs lose funding nationally. Six of those programs are in my home state of Victoria. The reasons that have been given by DIMIA for the defunding of the two organisations I wish to speak about this afternoon are, as far I am concerned, far from satisfactory. I would like to take this opportunity to call on the Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, Minister Hardgrave, to immediately review DIMIA's decision to defund both the Victorian Arabic Social Services and the Victorian Immigrant and Refugee Women's Coalition.
The Victorian Arabic Social Services—affectionately known as VASS—is based in my electorate of Calwell and services hundreds of Arabic-speaking residents, from newly arrived families to young people—especially young boys—and women in the Broadmeadows area. VASS was founded 25 years ago and evolved from a lobby group into a comprehensive and highly professional service provider. VASS is a non-political, non-religious and non-sectarian agency which was founded on the basis that it would represent the welfare needs of and provide advocacy for all Arabic-speaking communities on an inclusive basis. The operative word to describe the strength of VASS is `inclusive.' It is a very inclusive organisation.
Another strength of the organisation, as well as its inclusiveness, is its proficient understanding of the language and culture of the people it services. This is an organisation that is providing an important service. VASS has hundreds of families on its books. My office works closely with VASS, and I often seek its advice and guidance on issues—so do other service providers in my electorate, such as the Dianella Community Health Centre and the Hume City Council.
VASS works closely with other community networks and has become a leader in helping to break down the barriers of racism by developing innovative and creative programs to help the broader Australian community understand Muslim Australians. It works with local schools to develop programs to strengthen links between parents and schools and provides a means by which people of Arabic-speaking backgrounds can participate in the Australian community. It actively promotes citizenship and has recently commenced working very closely with our local job providers to help deal with the very high unemployment amongst the Arabic-speaking community in Broadmeadows and especially the difficulty of young Australians of Arabic background in finding work.
In light of these services, it is fair to suggest that VASS is doing a great job and is a valuable service. Therefore, I cannot for the life of me understand why it was defunded in the current round of CSSS funding. In fact, I am astounded, because there is a huge need for VASS's services in my electorate. We have many emerging migrant and refugee communities and, in particular, a very large Iraqi community. These are new migrants who desperately need settlement services. Because of this senseless decision by DIMIA, a vital service has been arbitrarily terminated and is in fact in danger of being lost altogether. But such is the dedication of the people at VASS that they have said to me they will not turn people away and will in fact continue to provide their services on a voluntary basis, if needs be.
DIMIA's claim—the reason that they put forward for terminating funding to VASS—was that there are other organisations in the surrounding area that offer settlement services to the Arabic community. In their view, that creates an overlap. My grievance this afternoon is not about why one organisation was funded and not the other. I am definitely not here to pit one organisation up against the other, because I am familiar with the other service providers and organisations and I know that they also do a tremendous job and have rightfully received funding. I am here to ask why VASS in particular was defunded, because it certainly should have been funded again. The strange thing about VASS is that it is physically located in the catchment area it services, making it convenient and accessible to its clients. It complements the work of existing services rather than, as DIMIA says, duplicating them.
The second organisation I wish to talk about is the Victorian Immigrant and Refugee Women's Coalition. This is a state-wide advocacy body that addresses the various concerns of refugee women. It works with relevant regional, state and national agencies and monitors the impact of government policies on immigrant and refugee women in Victoria. It has a membership of 58 organisations, with a total individual membership of some 2,000 people. It was launched in 1998. It received a two-year grant out of the 2002 CSSS funding, which enabled it to hire a full-time worker. Its current activities include: mentoring programs; a multicultural women's cooperative; training women for work in the hospitality area; and referral and training support for 30 grassroots women's groups. It functions as a policy forum. It has an employment partnership program, an English conversation program, a multicultural women's choir, volunteer training courses and leadership programs. As you can see, it too is conducting much needed work—work which is innovative and far reaching. Again, I am unable to understand why it was defunded in the current CSSS round. The defunding will result in the organisation losing 90 per cent of its funding, which will mean that it will no longer be able to employ staff. Certainly the wonderful programs that it runs will cease, and the organisation will simply fold. I wonder what sense there is in making that decision.
Again, the organisation was told by DIMIA that it had been defunded because it had failed to meet its outcomes. Given the nature of its work—and, as you can see, it is very extensive and highly professional work—how could anyone believe the excuse that it had failed to meet its outcomes? The excuse seems even more curious when we are told that DIMIA never ever mentioned to the organisation that it was not meeting its outcomes. In fact, in the last 18 months there has been no indication—not a word—from DIMIA that it was not happy with the organisation's performance. It is nothing less than an outrage that it should be slapped with this highly unflattering report card and lose its funding.
Rather than the excuses that have been put forward in relation to these organisations—that is, the claims of duplication of services or, indeed, alleged failure to meet outcomes—the defunding of these organisations is, in my view, a case of selective penny-pinching by the government, which has overseen massive cutbacks in service programs across the board, particularly in the area of multicultural services. These are cutbacks to the service sector and, as I have said, they are not the result of a lack of money, because this government has truckloads of money, as we have seen in recent times. Rather, these cutbacks are the consequence of the government's misguided and inhumane priorities when it comes to the delivery of services.
There is obviously no extra money to expand rather than reduce settlement programs, but the government has no problem in lashing out $6 million to buy the Maygar Barracks in Broadmeadows for a new 200-bed detention centre. It also has no qualms about spending $7 million upgrading the Maribyrnong detention centre, even though it is going to sell it in a few years. Obviously there is money to burn—it is just that it is being spent in the wrong areas. Imagine how many settlement programs that money would fund. There is money for detention centres but there is no money for services. Those are twisted priorities from an opportunistic government. My electorate is worse off because of those twisted priorities.
If the government is serious about enhancing our multicultural society and about easing the transition of migrants and refugees in the Australian community it should take immediate action to redress this stupidity and restore funding to these organisations. The minister must review the decision, otherwise we will have no reason to believe anything other than that this government is not really committed to servicing the needs of migrant communities and is simply playing politics with multiculturalism—playing favourites with multiculturalism. I ask the minister, finally: if these groups were able to pose a serious threat to the government in this election year, would he immediately move to restore their funding, as has been the case with other groups?
