Prime Minister opening WELA July 2012

Prime Minister Julia Gillard toured the Kimberley last July and stopped in Wyndham where she visited the Wyndham Early Learning Centre (WELA). The Prime Minister opened a new purpose-built building for WELA and committed her support and funding to the centre. But to the shock of families dependent on the centre the majority of the funding, less than one year later, will cease on June 30 – WELA will be reduced to very little, operating only for limited hours.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard was greeted warmly when in Wyndham, many turned out for her at the WELA launch. It was the first visit by a Prime Minister to the predominately Aboriginal town, in the far north of Western Australia.

WELA’s general manager, Jane Parker said she is still reeling from the disbelief that the majority of the funding agreement will cease, especially after the Prime Minister’s visit to WELA during her tour de force throughout the Kimberley.

The Kimberley has one of the nation’s highest homelessness rates – officially seven per cent of its population, and 90 per cent of that homelessness is Aboriginal, of which Wyndham bares a sizeable brunt. The majority of Aboriginal peoples throughout the Kimberley, and particularly around Wyndham, are impoverished.

Ms Parker said the programmes run by WELA give families – parents, grandparents and carers – the skills they need to help their children be ready to cope with school. Ms Parker said that pre-primary teachers say they can tell which kids have been to WELA. Many can count and know their alphabet prior to pre-primary, and they are also taught various manners and behaviours and various coping mechanisms. Ms Parker said that the parents of WELA kids are confident and hence are able to visit the school with that confidence in tow to talk to the teachers about their children’s progress.

“So we do not understand why the funding will be reduced to a paltry amount.”

“We do not understand why this has happened in light of the Prime Minister’s very visit to our centre, her launching of a new building and all the publicity around it.”

Prime Minister Gillard was followed by a huge media contingent throughout the Kimberley and the WELA launch was centrepiece to her tour and the news media fanfare.

“In our town many families are disadvantaged, and WELA makes a real difference in helping families to function better and get their kids ready for school,” said the Centre’s former Chairperson Estelle Hunter.

“In fact, as people from Oombulgurri community now live here too, we need more funding not less, so we can provide outreach to families who are not yet ready to come into the centre.”

Oombulgurri has become near desolate with people having relocated to nearby towns to be within services despite many of them finishing up homeless. Both the State and Federal Governments have let down Oombulgurri and its peoples leaving the nearby towns standalone in providing what support they can.

Ms Parker shakes her head in despair and disbelief.

“In the Prime Minister’s Report on Closing the Gap 2013, the first sentence on early learning says, ‘A child’s health and wellbeing from before they are born through to their preschool years helps to set them up for life.’ If that is the case, we do not understand how the Government can stop funding a service that has won awards, been positively evaluated, and is so obviously delivering what is needed.”

WELA’s programmes were named the winners, two years in a row, 2011 and 2012 of awards in the Department of Communities’ Outstanding Family Service Provider to Children.

“They say programmes are being reviewed. We say that interim funding should be provided until the new scenario is clear,” said Ms Parker.

WELA have sought the support of their new Kimberley member of Parliament, Aboriginal woman Josie Farrer, and of the Western Australian Greens Senator Rachel Siewert. Both are asking the questions at their State and Federal levels. The Stringer has emailed questions to the Office of the Prime Minister. There has been no response.

Ms Parker said that staff are trying to hang on despite the cut in funding because they know how important the programmes are to families, many of which are single parent families. But already one worker has left. She herself has seven children to take care of and could no longer hang on due to the Government’s funding backflip.

“More will have to go by the end of the month. All are Aboriginal women with lots of skills that they want to use helping Wyndham families provide a nurturing environment which, as the Prime Minister states ‘can help to instil positive behaviours and values and steer children along a path to success at school and adulthood.’” This is not the first such story out of the Kimberley where management executives of Aboriginal organisations be they in Wyndham, Warmun, Halls Creek, Derby or Broome have complained of funding cuts or their inability to secure promised funding to address the myriad social issues that their peoples face on a daily basis.

http://thestringer.com.au/prime-minister-laps-up-welcome-but-breaks-funding-promise/#.UbmdQN8iPIU

by Aleisha Orr, care of WA Today

In developing countries there are children who spend their days stuck in a bed or on the ground, sometimes on cold concrete or out in the dirt.

While Australian children with medical conditions that make it difficult or impossible to walk use wheelchairs, they are not always affordable or easy to come by in places such as the Solomon Islands, Libya, Lebanon and the Congo.

A group of Perth retirees have been changing the lives of children in more than 60 countries, having built and distributed almost 26,000 wheelchairs for children in need of them.

Wheelchairs for Kids has been operating for 14 years and has more than 100 volunteers making wheelchairs which have been distributed across 66 countries.

According to those involved, it is the only project of its kind that works on such a big scale.

They work with humanitarian groups to distribute the wheelchairs once they are transported overseas.

Wheelchairs for Kids CEO Gordon Hudson and volunteer workshop manager Olly Pickett have seen the project develop since beginning in 1998, producing about 25 wheelchairs a month.

They have seen Wheelchairs for Kids, a Rotary backed project, grow to what it is today, making about 340 wheelchairs a month and about 4000 a year.

Mr Pickett, who spends much of his day in a wheelchair himself because of mobility issues caused by ankle problems, said wheelchairs gave children a whole new lease on life.

“Their lives would be much the poorer, for the simple reason that these little kids are on the ground and the governments sort of don’t give any help to their parents, particularly their mothers,” he said.

“The children are on the ground, just waiting for someone to pick them up.

“But a wheelchair makes a huge difference to them, not only to the children but also to the family, and the kids can get to school now, can get to the markets,  just get out and have fun with the other kids, who push them around.

“It gives them a lot of dignity.”

Wheelchairs for Kids also provides a great outlet for retirees such as Mr Pickett, who donate their time to the cause.

“I love it. It’s certainly very rewarding in so far that you’re doing something for someone who’s far less fortunate than what we are,” he said.

“If you can get a smile on a little kid’s face because they’ve got a chance to have a life, just to get out and meet other kids and get to school, I mean it really does something for you.”

Mr Picket said the volunteers enjoyed what they were doing so much that no one ever missed their rostered shift unless they were sick or on holidays.

Mr Hudson said a lot had changed since the early days of Wheelchairs for Kids, and the outfit had become very professional.

“In 1998 it was very small; we were making wheelchairs out of old bike frames in the corner of a workshop,” he said.

“After about a year we realised we could make them new for about the same price as we could to make them out of the old bike frames.

“Four years ago, the World Health Organisation did a survey of wheelchairs supplied into under-resourced countries and they found a lot to be desired.

“The ordinary folding wheelchair just didn’t stand up in the rough terrain and they found that wheelchairs needed to be fitted and adjusted to the recipient.”

Two years ago they stopped production of their standard wheelchair and, using the latest advice, redesigned it.

“We now have a wheelchair made to World Health Organisation specifications, which is completely adjustable to all sizes to suit the growing needs of children,” Mr Hudson said.

“[Now] we have 120 volunteers that work in shifts, across four mornings a week, we have about 30 retiree volunteers on each shift.

“There are millions of children out there spending their time in the dirt, can’t get around, can’t go to school, can’t go to play with other children.

“Giving them a wheelchair changes their life, and changes the life of their family.”

Gerry Georgatos manages the Wheelchairs for Kids project, a job that always poses challenges – more so now that the project has recently lost some of the regular funding it relied upon.

“Cutbacks always tear at the soul of an organisation. It means a lot more people power, but people power can’t really replace all of the materials that we need,” he said.

“We’d like to actually secure the future for wheelchairs for children.”

To secure this future and help more people Mr Georgatos said the group needed to buy the factory.

“That’d give us the capacity to grow the output,” he said.

“There’s millions of kids (we could help). The more kids we can help, the more lives we touch and communities we help. Then they’ll have the opportunity for education – and that’s one thing that they’re definitely deprived of.”

For more information or to contribute to the project visit the Wheelchairs for Kids website.

Western Australia’s Premier Colin Barnett has signalled what may become a national trend; the finding of budget saves by cutting spending to initiatives assisting Aboriginal peoples. The Closing the Gap targets are being touted by some as having been reached, while others claim otherwise, may begin to spiral out of control once again in the decade ahead with less funding to be made available by Governments.

WA’s Premier Colin Barnett is refusing to sign the Closing the Gap Indigenous health agreement until after his Government’s August Budget. Premier Barnett will only commit to Aboriginal health, and obviously to other areas affecting Aboriginal peoples, after the State Budget and obviously he will commit only what his Budget will arguably allow him.

The National Partnership Agreement (NPA) on Indigenous health targets was signed by all States, Territories and the Federal Government in 2008. $1.57 billion was arguably invested over four years on Aboriginal health – to treat chronic disease in particular but also to better develop Aboriginal health systems.

But trachoma, diabetes, renal failure and hearing loss are at horrific levels among Aboriginal peoples, especially among the poorest 200,000 Aboriginal peoples, of whom more than 100,000 thousand live in what have been described as third-world conditions by many, including UN High Commissioner Navi Pillay, Amnesty International Secretary-General Shalil Shetty and world-renowned documentary film maker John Pilger.

The NPA agreement is up on June 30, and a new one needs to be signed but there is no way that WA, Australia’s richest State, will sign it before then.

Despite the WA Government stating that it will interim fund the initiative for another three months past June 30, it will not commit to the spending on Aboriginal health initiatives that is being asked of WA at this time, not till after the August State Budget.

Federal Aboriginal Health Minister Warren Snowdon wrote to Premier Barnett to try and secure his signature on the NPA agreement.

“Under the NPA, all Australian Governments have implemented, or are currently implementing, an extensive range of activities to improve Indigenous health outcomes and contribute to closing the gap in life expectancy,” wrote Mr Snowdon to Premier Barnett.

Insiders have told The Stringer that Premier Barnett intends “less will be spent on Aboriginal health but it will be spent more effectively.”

Coalition leader Tony Abbott earlier in the year told the National Indigenous Times that if he became Prime Minister he would take direct control of Aboriginal Affairs, adding it as portfolio – Prime Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, and that he will work alongside Northern Territorian Nigel Scullion in addressing Aboriginal Affairs – the closing of the gap, health, education and housing.

The Stringer has been told by sources close to Mr Abbott that he too, like his fellow Liberal, Premier Barnett, will take control of how much is to be spent on Aboriginal initiatives. He is bent on making financial saves. The Stringer has been told that Mr Abbott, if and when Prime Minister, will engage a powerful troika to “better executive spending” and from the “bottom end up”. Mr Abbott wants to do away with spending on the heavy bureaucracy and the numerous consultants of Aboriginal Affairs.

“He wants to spend funds directly on addressing alcoholism, on getting kids into schools, on providing services, on getting people into jobs.”

“Some can call this assimilation but in the end it’s about changing lives that everyone and everything else tried has failed to do.”

The powerful troika that is being touted behind the scenes but yet to be announced is Warren Mundine, Professor Marcia Langton and Noel Pearson.

These three are well credentialed but also highly controversial figures who have polarised Aboriginal peoples. Mr Pearson is probably the most controversial of the three with hundreds of millions of Government funding that his Cape York Institute has received yet to show any real advances for the people of the York peninsula. Aurukun is an embarrassment for Mr Pearson.

The Stringer posed the question of the troika to Mr Abbott’s office. For the first time they have decided to not respond to the National Indigenous Times. In other words they will neither confirm or deny the troika – but our sources are on the money.

It is a huge gamble to take, at the expense of impoverished Aboriginal peoples, to reduce expenditure on Aboriginal health, education and housing when clearly many targets are still not being met. Ideally it would have been wiser to maintain at least current spending but reduce bureaucracy and the number of consultants.

The Federal Government in its May Budget committed more spending on Aboriginal programs but this does not mean this spending will be met past September 14.

In WA it looks like Aboriginal spending will take a huge hit, one that the mining rich State’s Aboriginal peoples cannot afford. WA, alongside the NT, has Aboriginal homelessness, youth suicide and health issues such as trachoma and otitis media at horrific levels and with some at world record levels. Aboriginal incarceration rates in Western Australia are a national tragedy with one in 14 Aboriginal adult males in prison, the worst incarceration rate in the world.

Premier Barnett is bracing WA for austerity measures, not dissimilar to Queensland where Premier Campbell Newman will do away with 66,000 public service positions over the next five years.

Already Premier Barnett has confirmed that 1,000 public service jobs will go. Therefore more direct control from ministerial offices will be needed in many areas, for instance Aboriginal Affairs, which will see Premier Barnett and the State’s Aboriginal Affairs Minister Peter Collier more involved – and in making and acquitting the decisions of where and how any funding to Aboriginal programs should be spent.

The Stringer will cover a number of issues in the weeks ahead – the troika of Mundine, Langton and Pearson, and their own track records, and the burden they will be carrying for Aboriginal peoples. The Stringer is also aware of looming changes to the Native Title Act and processes which yes will expedite determinations and future acts and compensation payouts before ‘people die waiting’ but which will be peddled with the express intention to speed up Indigenous Land Access Agreements and tenement tenure for extractive industry miners and developers – it will not be about the Native Title Holders and their rights, it will be about encouraging mining projects.

http://thestringer.com.au/aboriginal-affairs-under-fire-funding-cuts-guaranteed/#.Ubj3O98iPIU