Prices and people: Community Prices and people – panel discussion
perspectives on infrastructure reform – panel discussion
Chair: Brendan Lyon, Chief Executive Officer, Infrastructure Partnerships Australia Panellists: • Ian Holland, Director, Services Development, UnitingCare • Michael Traill AM, Chief Executive Officer, Social Ventures Australia • Catherine Yeomans, Chief Executive Officer, Mission Australia
Key points: • Effective economic and social infrastructure is a key consideration for vulnerable and low-income households. • The privatisation of public assets should be considered in terms of wider social impacts, and should be structured to deliver long-run community benefits. • The role of the not-for-profit sector will enlarge, as governments seek new models to drive efficiency into social services costs. • Social benefit bonds and ‘full service’ social infrastructure PPPs offer new opportunities to drive innovation and improvement into the social sector.
Brendan Lyon (BL): We talk a lot about reforming infrastructure markets, reforming services markets, asset privatisations and other things, and often, the unspecified impact on the vulnerable is used as a 104
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reason not to reform, and therefore used as a block for privatisations and other things. Can each of you give the audience a sense of your own engagement in the industry, and your own outlook in terms of some of these issues? Catherine Yeomans (CY): Mission Australia is one of Australia’s largest community services organisations. Last year, we worked with over 300,000 vulnerable and disadvantaged people across the nation. Our focus is on reducing homelessness and strengthening communities, and we do that by offering integrated services. We offer housing and homelessness services, we help the long-term unemployed find employment, and we work with a number of members in our community who are at risk, such as young people or young children in families, as well. We are also a community housing provider. We have over 2000 homes that we own and manage, including the $32-million Camperdown development in New South Wales. We are focused on delivering evidence-based programs to meet community need and to advocate to governments, and to influence public policy that impacts on the people that we work with.
Volume 5 Number 1
31/10/14 4:40 PM
