WEL’s submission to the Productivity Commission’s draft report on the Contribution of the Not-for-Profit Sector

WEL’s submission argues for that Government needs to recognise the importance of advocacy among the roles played by organisations in the not-for-profit sector. An extract of the submission follows. The full submission is here.

The history of Australia has been built on the complex involvements of factions, fractions and interest groups that pushed for various reforms and changes, some we still celebrate and some that we may now reject.

Groups who have been excluded from the major sites of power and influence have pushed for most of the social reforms for many ‘interest’ groups and areas. These groups have raised questions of justice, fairness, equality, rights on the basis of race, gender and work status, health, abilities and locations over time and made Australia fairer for those outside the mainstream.Yet there is little acknowledgement in the report of these groups. The mentions are brief and tend to falter because influence is not easily measured by the usual economically accepted indicators. So the report focuses on the major service delivery organisations and some others who have countable numbers of volunteers. This is therefore a very conservative report which will no doubt be useful to the now often corporatised sector that delivers services, often on behalf of governments. It is therefore mainly interested in standardising reporting, legislation and other factors that often impede services delivering efficiently, but that is about its limits.

We do not undervalue the need for such changes for their more efficient operations, but are we are concerned that, together with the proposal for the Compact, there is limited recognition of the need for public acknowledgement, and maybe support, for the advocacy, influence and representative roles that many community organisations pursue. While these different roles have long been recognised, we questions whether processes of tidying up and centralising the administration of the not for profits, under the new system, could see the more marginal groups disadvantaged.