Learn from the mistakes of others

MARENC Speech Notes

Mr. Ross Cameron, MP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Family and Community Services
To Open the Marriage and Relationship Educators' National Conference (MARENC)
Lincoln College, Adelaide
Friday 26 September 2003

Thank you Father Fewings for your introduction. It is a pleasure to be here this morning at this important conference.

Congratulations to the conference co-convenors for organising this three-day event. It is great to see so many people here today–people from right across the country who have a common interest in improving marriage and family relationships.

As Parliamentary Secretary responsible for Australian-Government funded marriage and family relationship services, I share this interest with you.

Strong relationships support and nurture the physical, mental, emotional, and psychological well being of every family member, especially the children.

But families don’t live in a vacuum. They exist as part of an interdependent and wider network within their own communities a network that can encompass myriad cultural, social, economic and religious factors.

Looking at changes to families

Our family policies recognise all these factors and they are underpinned by recent data.

The data reflects changes in the demographics of family make-up and the pressure on parents to find the right balance between work and family life.

In Australia, the traditional model of father, mother and two children still exists. But there are many other family types for example, single parent families, blended families, couples without children, and single people as well.

• There is a steep fall in the proportion of women having large families, the fertility rate is down, and the population is ageing
  • One or two-children families represent around 60% of the families of women born after 1960, compared to 40% of the families of women born between 1930 and 1940.
  • Australia’s fertility rate is now 1.75 the lowest on record, and since 1976 has been below replacement rate (2.1 births per woman).
• Relationships are less stable
  • Divorce rates have remained relatively steady at between 2.4 and 2.9 divorces per 1000 people each year.
  • However, the ratio of divorces to new marriages peaked in 1996 with one divorce for every two new marriages.
• People are marrying later in life
  • Between the late 1970’s and 1995, the proportion of people marrying each year went down from 7.9% to 5.9% per 1000 Australians.
  • In 1971 the average marrying age for women was 21.4 years, and for men 23.8 years. In 2000, the ages increased to 28.3 years for women and 30.3 years for men.
• The number of sole parent families is increasing
  • Just over one-fifth of families (22%) are now sole parent families increasing from 16% in 1991.
  • Just under one million children are growing up in these families of these 570,000 families, 88% are sole mother families.∑ The number of jobless families is increasing
  • In June 2001, there were 435,000 Australian families with dependent children under 25 in which no parent had a paid job.
  • Two-thirds of jobless families were sole parent families.
• The nature of work and family balance and workforce participation is changing:
  • The proportion of the working population doing a 35 to 44-hour week fell from 42% in 1988 to 36% in 1998.
  • 40% of women worked full-time in 2000.
  • In February 2001, over 72% of women with dependent children had spent at least part of the previous 12 months in the workforce.
  • Fathers say they want to spend more time with their children with a recent study finding that 68% of fathers felt that they did not spend enough time with their children and that workforce barriers prevented them from being better fathers.

The role of government

In responding to families’ needs, the Government does have responsibilities and an important role to play in paying income support and funding family and children’s services.

There is also a clear role for governments in, for example, helping to drive reforms to workplace arrangements so that they become flexible and family friendly, and they take account of the special needs of families with young children and of people who care for older parents or disabled children.

But we have to ensure we do not engage in social engineering.

I do not agree with those who say the State should take on all the responsibility for individual and social progress. Indeed, I have argued in the past, that the agency of the state has sometimes had the reverse effect.

Everyone has a vested interest governments, communities and citizens alike in helping Australian families and communities to be strong.

The answer is not necessarily chipping in more and more government resources.

It often makes more sense to focus on better harnessing the resources we already have, rather than pursuing increased public funding to solve human problems.

Supporting families involves broad and inter-connected issues

To develop effective responses to families’ needs we must consider the broader, inter-connected, and complex social issues that impact on families and communities.

Many of you would know how the connections between crime, drug abuse, gambling and suicide have disastrous effects on family relationships.

First and foremost, the Government supports an early intervention and prevention approach.

Indeed, most experts share this view.

For example, the recently released Report on the Inquiry into Substance Abuse in Australian communities recommended that the different levels of government cooperate to ensure that early intervention and prevention programs for young people be expanded to:

• Actively encourage and support young people to get involved in communities, families and with their peers in a way that is valued and recognised
• Create opportunities for them to connect with adults in schools, local neighbourhoods and families, and
• Promote skills in young people and adults for making those connections

The Government’s welfare reform initiatives, our Stronger Family and Communities Strategy, and programs like Reconnect and the Family Relationships Services Program already reflect these directions.

Building social capital through community networks

There are no easy answers as to whether, and how much, government should act in response to the changing nature of Australian families.

For its part, the Howard Government quite deliberately works with others to come up with answers including stakeholders in the business community sectors, and from parents, teachers, health professionals, child care workers, and so on.

It takes a joint effort like this to develop the kind of culture that strengthens and supports family relationships.

I go so far as to say that success depends on government remaining subordinate to the role of civil society in the task of strengthening and supporting marriage and family.
To get the settings right, we have to listen to what people like you who work at the grass roots, have to say.

This is fundamental to building social capital in communities. To a great extent, success relies on individual goodwill and community capacity and strength.

In a sense, social capital is the ‘glue’ that holds communities together and the ‘oil’ of a civil society.
Research shows that community networks provide protection against the worst effects of poverty and disadvantage. It also shows that support services are more effective when they operate in strongly networked communities.

These networks build community capacity to help themselves. Community capacity comes from the commitment, resources and skills that a community can draw on to grasp opportunities and solve local problems.

Support services for families

The Department of Family and Community Services, alone, spends around $60 billion a year on programs and services for Australian families and communities. That’s about one-third of Australian Government spending.

This includes unprecedented investments in early intervention and prevention programs, including funding for parenting education and marriage and relationship education and counselling.
Family relationships services

In 2003-04, the Government will spend $53 million on family relationship services.
This amount includes extra funding announced in the 2003-04 budget:

• $5.1 million more for 53 men’s services funded under the Men and Family Relationships Initiative, and
• another $1.4 million to continue Family Relationships Education services.

Family law system

While there’s always room for improvement, we are also heading in the right direction with changes to the family law system by:

• Focussing on conflict resolution, not litigation
• Identifying solutions which help people to move forward with their lives, and
• Putting the interests of the children first.

Earlier this year, the Government responded to the Family Law Pathways Advisory Report which made some recommendations about helping separating families navigate the complex legal pathways in the family law system pathways which in themselves often hindered rather than helped them.

The Government’s response to the report highlights three themes:

• Early help connecting people to information and services
• Better outcomes for children and young people; and
• An integrated system that meet families’ needs.

The Family Court and other government agencies are now working alongside professionals and local community organisations that deal with families in the family law system.

This cooperative approach recognises the value of involving and consulting communities to find the best on-the-ground solutions for delivering more effective and integrated services that is, we are harnessing the individual goodwill and community resources, mentioned earlier.

Policy development

Another role of government is to respond to social debate and discussion.

House of Representatives Inquiry on Shared Parenting

The House of Representatives Inquiry on Shared Parenting reflects the Government’s determination that, to the greatest extent possible, children have the benefit and love and care of both parents when a couple separates.

Among other issues, the inquiry is looking at whether the existing child support formula works for both parents in relation to their care of, and contact with their children.

Separation and sorting out custody arrangements is not easy. We need to see how we can better integrate support from all players in the system – including the Child Support Agency, Centrelink, lawyers, community services, mothers, fathers, grandparents and other family members.

In particular, the inquiry has ignited debate and brought the important role of fathers under the public spotlight.

I look forward to the inquiry’s findings, especially when it comes to how we can best equip parents to put their children’s needs first.

National Agenda for Early Childhood

The first important stage in developing the National Agenda for Early Childhood Agenda is finished, following extensive consultations across the country on what the agenda might include. To those of you who participated in these, thank you for your contributions.

In general, the feedback has been very positive and there is widespread support for the development of a National Agenda.

There is optimism that the timing is right to make some real improvements in the way governments and services respond to the needs of children and their families.
Relationship educators, like other professionals, will be able to play a key role in the three, major action areas:

• Early child and maternal health
• Early learning and care; and
• Supporting child friendly communities.

During the consultations parents in particular said they wanted to see more value placed on the role of parenting within the community and more support provided to parents in that role.

The message was: we need to take more account of their needs and work out how best to meet them. At the same time, we have to recognise more, the diversity of families these days.

One of the things the National Agenda can do, for example, is sharpen the focus on fathers and on the support and encouragement they need to help them have ongoing and positive relationships with their children.

In what he called a ‘downpayment’ on the agenda, the Prime Minister announced $10 million for early childhood intervention and prevention programs to be developed under the National Agenda for Early Childhood.

Research/building the evidence

When developing new policy initiatives, particularly in the current complex and dynamic climate, Government needs to base its policies on good quality, objective evidence.

In the case of research into families, we have an ongoing research program with groups like:

• the Australian Institute of Family Studies
• the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales
• the Melbourne Institute, and
• the SPEAR Centre.

The amount and quality of objective evidence is also being increased through other research, such as the nine-year Longitudinal Study of Australian Children and the HILDA Survey.

Those of you here today from services funded by the Department of Family and Community Services also contribute to our research base by collecting data for FaCSLink.

FaCSLink gives the department valuable information to use when we review the effectiveness and efficiency of taxpayer-funded programs. Having a strong evidence base also means we can respond better to the ever-changing needs of families.

Conclusion

I want to acknowledge the crucial role you play in strengthening family strength and well-being, both on the ground and through our interaction with your three industry representative bodies:

• Catholic Welfare Australia
• Family Services Australia, and
• Relationships Australia.

It gives me great pleasure now to officially open this year’s Marriage and Relationship Educators’ National Conference.

I’m sure in going to ‘the Art of the Heart and the Heart of the Art’, you’ll have a very productive and stimulating three days.

Thank you.

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