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Transcript

9 October 2009

Interview with Mike Welsh, 2CC Canberra

E&OE PROOF ONLY

SUBJECTS: Centrelink Community Engagement Officer program

WELSH: I’ve got Chris Bowen on the line this afternoon. G’day Chris.

CHRIS BOWEN: G’day, good to be with you.

WELSH: Mate, thank you for your time this afternoon.

BOWEN: Pleasure.

WELSH: Seven billion dollars is a lot of do-re-mi, isn’t it?

BOWEN: Well it is, but it’s a very important problem, homelessness. It’s a national, in many ways, a national scandal that we have so many people homeless. And there are no easy solutions to this. Nations around the world are tackling it in different ways. In their own small way, in Centrelink, which is the small part I’m responsible for, we’re as you said, yesterday Tanya and I announced the commencement of 90 Community Engagement Officers. So these will be Centrelink officers who can get in and intervene in cases in which people are at risk of becoming homeless.

Centrelink is not just an organisation to distribute money on behalf of the Commonwealth. There’s a lot of skills there, a lot of social work skills, a lot of intervention skills, and we’re developing a thing called the Homelessness Indicator, which will be a flag on Centrelink files which will go up when indicators show that people are at risk of becoming homeless and that will enable these Community Engagement Officers to become involved with that person, put them in touch with non-Government and Government services, and do their best to make sure that they don’t actually become homeless, because once they become homeless they’re on a slippery slope.

WELSH: What touches me about this is, Chris, we had a case this week and I won’t go into too much detail but a lady that’s 62, got heart complaints, just lost her job, and is in a situation where she’s very concerned for her own health. Well, it’s a friend that’s rung up about it, and doesn’t really know where to turn and she’s been told she’s got to wait a considerable period to get an interview to see does she qualify for housing and this sort of thing, and to me this is the sort of person that these Centrelink Officers would be talking to.

BOWEN: Absolutely spot on. And look, another example: Tanya and I launched this at a facility for the homeless in Surry Hills in Sydney, and after we launched it a lady came up to me at the facility and you know, said that she had mental health issues. She was very honest about it, she had mental health issues, she’d been in and out of facilities, she had been evicted from her home and she didn’t know who to turn to. So I asked one of the Community Engagement Officers to come over and spend some time with her, and they’re doing their best to make sure that she’s looked after and she’s in touch with all the right services so she’s got somewhere to go and is not out on the streets because that would set her back a long way. Another lady I spoke to was very well educated, very well spoken, but had just fallen on tough times.

WELSH: It’s not selective, is it?

BOWEN: No, not at all.

WELSH: A lot of people say they’re only one pay away from being homeless.

BOWEN: Yes, and with unemployment being more of an issue, that’s the biggest cause of homelessness, people losing their home, is when they suddenly become unemployed and going along okay when they’ve got a pay packet to pay the rent or the mortgage but it all comes unstuck very quickly when they lose their job.

WELSH: Is there one thing that you can put your finger on Chris, to say that, you know, the reason for homelessness in Australia? Or is it just too broad, too many reasons?

BOWEN: Look, there are many reasons. Often, as I say, often there have been mental health issues in the past. Often it’s related to economic situations and unemployment, and Tanya Plibersek, the Housing Minister, has done a lot of work on this and because there’s no one cause, there’s no one solution and you need to have a range of things. Build more social housing, more Government housing, we’re doing that.

WELSH: That’s where part of this seven billion dollars is going?

BOWEN: Yeah, that’s a big expensive part of the program. We actually over the last ten years have less Government housing than we did at the beginning of the ten years, which is not a good indicator of how we’ve done over the last ten years. The Federal Government had reduced its investment in public housing. We’ve increased it quite substantially, which means more homes, it means shorter waiting lists. That in itself is not the answer, because of course it’s not suitable for everybody and even having done that, there will still be a waiting list. But it’s part of the solution. The sorts of things we’re doing in Centrelink are part of the solution, and there are many small parts that will make a difference. One particular policy, in itself, is not going to solve it but you put them all together and we can hopefully make a difference.

WELSH: Chris, the people that are homeless, the people that are out there, and you’ve already touched on that many of them have got mental health issues. Is it possible that, what I’m getting at, is it only when these people come through the doors of Centrelink that these Community Engagement Officers will become involved, or is it more outreaching than that, where you’re going out to them and trying to find these people? Because a lot of these people are just lost.

BOWEN: Yeah, well the Community Engagement Officers themselves work through Centrelink and so will have the most exposure to Centrelink clients, and many people at risk of homelessness are Centrelink clients, so they will get a very big proportion of the pool, if you like, of people. And in fact, the 90 Community Engagement Officers that we’re putting on across the country expect to deal with over 200,000 people a year. So they’ll have their work cut out for them but they will come in contact with a lot of people. They’ll be working very proactively with non-Government agencies and identifying people at risk, now some of whom may not be known to Centrelink, but they can almost certainly be told that there’s some Centrelink help, so it’s finding those people as well, you’re quite right.

WELSH: How long before we see this up and running?

BOWEN: Look, it’s already up and running. The first have started, they’re being spread across the country. Every Centrelink employee is, from September, receiving homelessness awareness training and the Homelessness Indicator that I referred to, that flag, which lets Centrelink employees know that somebody is likely to be at risk of becoming homeless, will be fully operational by January 2010.

WELSH: Chris Bowen, Minister for Human Services, I appreciate your time this afternoon.

BOWEN: Pleasure, good to be with you.

Ends