UnitingCare Australia is an agency of the National Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA). We represent the UCA's network of UnitingCare community services of which there are over 400 nationwide.

The UnitingCare network is one of the largest providers of community services in Australia, providing services to 1.8 million Australians each year, employing 35,000 staff and 24,000 volunteers nationally. It provides services to older Australians, children, young people and families, Indigenous Australians, people with disabilities, the poor and disadvantaged, people from culturally diverse backgrounds and older Australians in urban, rural and remote communities.

National Director welcomes general thrust of Budget

UnitingCare Australia National Director and ACOSS President, Lin Hatfield Dodds said she was pleased with the overall direction of the Federal Budget.

“This Budget is a down payment on social inclusion,” she said.

“We are pleased that low income and disadvantaged people were spared from most of the Budget cuts.

“We welcome the changes made to the Job Network to provide more support for highly disadvantaged jobseekers including a greater emphasis on training and more flexibility and the decreased compliance regime.

“It has been good to see that the eight weeks lost of payment penalty is a last resort and we believe that having participation requirements developed in consultation is a good move. These changes are an important step in the right direction and we have fought hard for them in the community sector.

“We will need to monitor the effects of the overall reduction in spending, however. The benchmark will be assessing whether the overall package actually targets disadvantaged job seekers and increases their workforce participation and social inclusion.

However, she it was disappointing to see the Government delivered the tax cuts and that it appeared to make no provision for capacity building in the community sector to address the very serious workforce and funding issues it faced.