While we welcome the partial funding of some of the critical volunteering priorities in the State Budget, the Government continues to fall short of addressing the pressing challenges faced by Tasmania’s volunteering industry, our largest workforce.
The Tasmanian community, government and economy benefit immensely from volunteering and although it is the provision of free labour, it doesn’t happen for free. It requires investment in the systems and structures required to enable best-practice volunteer involvement.
Historically the recognition, representation and resourcing of volunteering has been disjointed and piecemeal in Tasmania. As volunteering numbers decline, we urgently need long term, strategic policy decisions.
Of the five priorities in our budget submission, one has been fully funded, another partially funded and the remaining three not funded at all.
As announced in National Volunteer Week, the Tasmanian Liberal Government will remove Working with Vulnerable People registration fees for volunteers in a two year pilot. This is welcomed and will remove a barrier to Tasmanians volunteering.
The Government has also committed additional funding of $100,000 for the Tasmanian Volunteering Strategy and Action Plan. We are pleased to see this investment, however need to work through the detail of this funding to understand its impact and connection to our budget submission.
No other priorities have been funded. This includes the Child and Youth Safe Volunteering Education Program, the expansion of the Volunteer Connect Service and the Emergency Volunteering Community Response to Extreme Weather program, known as EV CREW.
The introduction of the Child and Youth Safe Organisations Act (2023) and the implementation of the Commission of Inquiry’s recommendations have brought significant policy and legislative change to Tasmania’s volunteering industry. We fully support the implementation of these measures to enhance the safety and wellbeing of children and young people. However, the professionalisation of the volunteer workforce cannot succeed without appropriate resources, guidance and training specifically developed for volunteers and aligned with best practice volunteer management.
Our members tell us that volunteers are harder and harder to recruit, while motivation for Tasmanians wanting to volunteer is on the rise. The Volunteer Connect Service can be a critical conduit to assist already resource poor community and not-for-profit organisations to safeguard the future of their volunteering workforce.
EV CREW was created in response to the unprecedented outpouring of volunteer support in the wake of the extreme weather events and disasters, where there is a need for a coordinated registration and referral service to best manage the wide variety of volunteer skills, availabilities and locations during these events. In a world where these events are expected to increase, to no longer fund this initiative puts further strain on emergency services in times of need and does not equip community to be part of this response.
The volunteer workforce has not been considered with consistency across policy development. The Budget has large infrastructure spending on projects that are often poorly planned and have significant cost blow outs, while Tasmania’s free labour workforce requires more support.
Now more than ever we need to lead through our partnerships to ensure our voices are heard. We are determined to continue to engage positively with all stakeholders to advocate for sustainable and sufficient investment in the Tasmanian volunteering industry.