Contents
- Part 1 Executive Summary
- Part 2 Performance reporting
- Part 3 Corporate governance and accountability
- Part 4 Appendices
- Part 5 Financial Management
Annual Report 2008–2009
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Annual Report 2008–2009
Annual Report 2008–2009 » Chapter 6: Outcome 1
Services and assistance that promote greater self-reliance and engagement for Indigenous families and communities through shared responsibility, practical support, and innovative whole-of-government policy.
Outcome 1 has three contributing output groups:
Key areas of focus for the Department during 2008–09 included contributing towards the historic reform in Indigenous affairs agreed by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in October and November 2008; putting in place the processes and mechanisms to give effect to the Government's commitment to a new engagement with Indigenous Australians; and assisting the Government to develop its response to the review of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER).
Closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is one of the Government's highest reform priorities. Over the year the Department played a significant role, including through our work in the COAG Working Group on Indigenous Reform, in supporting historically high levels of new investment by governments to tackle Indigenous disadvantage in the priority areas of early childhood development, housing in remote communities, chronic disease prevention and care, economic participation and remote service delivery.
The Department assisted the Government in preparing its response to the NTER Review Board's report. This included working across the Australian Government to develop the Closing the Gap in the Northern Territory package announced in the 2009–10 Budget and developing a national partnership agreement with the Northern Territory Government. The Department also assisted the Government in producing a discussion paper on the future directions for the NTER and facilitating consultations with Indigenous people.
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The Department is also assisting the Australian Government to fulfil its commitment to resetting the relationship with Indigenous Australians by ensuring opportunities for their greater participation and engagement in decisions that directly affect them.
The Government is resetting the relationship with Indigenous Australians through initiatives directed at overcoming disadvantage while respecting Indigenous culture and acknowledging the unique position of Indigenous peoples within Australia. Setting the tone for this new partnership approach, the Prime Minister offered the National Apology to Australia's Indigenous Peoples on 13 February 2008. The Government has supported the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and is establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation.
There has also been a renewed focus on engaging and involving Indigenous people in policy development and service delivery, such as the reforms to the Community Development Employment Projects program. Closer to the ground, the Government has adopted a range of mechanisms to improve the quality of engagement with local Indigenous people. For example, the Department has employed Indigenous Engagement Officers in the Northern Territory to work side by side with Government Business Managers.
In 2008–09, the Government supported wide consultations with Indigenous people on the form of a National Indigenous Representative Body that will be established to ensure they have a national voice in policy that impacts on them. In addition, the Department assisted the Social Justice Commissioner and an Indigenous Steering Committee in undertaking further consultation leading to a preferred model.
On the first anniversary of the Apology to Australia's Indigenous Peoples, the Government announced the establishment of a healing foundation to stop the cycle of trauma and grief felt by Indigenous communities. FaHCSIA is providing support to the development of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation. The foundation will provide healing services to help those affected, with a strong focus on the unique needs of the Stolen Generations.
Effective Indigenous governance and leadership are critical to closing the gap. FaHCSIA provides support to the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations to improve the regulation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations. By ensuring transparency and accountability in Indigenous organisations, better corporate governance has contributed to more efficient and accessible services for Indigenous communities. This in turn has supported improved outcomes for Indigenous people and greater economic participation.
The development of strong leadership skills is also essential in overcoming Indigenous disadvantage. The Department's Indigenous Leadership Program has recently been redesigned to assist increasing numbers of Indigenous people across Australia to reach their potential as role models within their families, communities and organisations.
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This section outlines the specific achievements that contributed towards achieving the Government's Indigenous goals, as well as the challenges we experienced along the way. It also reports on the Department's performance against the measures and strategies set out in our 2008–09 Portfolio Budget Statements and related Budget documents.
The Department contributes to Outcome 1 through its whole-of-government leadership and coordination of Indigenous affairs policy. During 2008–09, the Department made a significant contribution to the COAG Indigenous reform agenda by supporting the COAG Working Group on Indigenous Reform. The working group was established in December 2007 and is chaired by the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.
In addition, five Indigenous-specific National Partnerships with a total investment of $4.6 billion cover Indigenous early childhood development, Indigenous economic participation, Indigenous health, remote Indigenous housing and Remote Service Delivery.
These agreements are linked to the overarching National Indigenous Reform Agreement between the Australian Government and the states and territories. Together with the other national agreements and partnerships, these will make a significant contribution to improving outcomes for Indigenous people across Australia.
Acknowledging the significant gaps in the evidence base, COAG established a National Indigenous Clearing House to collect and disseminate information. This is an important step towards building a solid evidence base that facilitates sharing of best practice approaches. Additional resources have also been committed to fill the gaps in data.
FaHCSIA contributed to development of an Integrated Strategy for Closing the Gap in Indigenous Disadvantage and worked towards an Urban and Regional Service Delivery Strategy for Indigenous Australians. As part of amendments to the National Indigenous Reform Agreement, the Working Group on Indigenous Reform worked on developing strategies and identifying areas for improvement in data collection to support measurement of progress towards the COAG targets.
FaHCSIA will continue to work with jurisdictions to improve the living standards of Indigenous Australians through implementation of the National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing and provision of Commonwealth programs. Specific activities include:
The Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) was initiated following the release of the Little Children are Sacred report by the Northern Territory Government in June 2007. The objective of the Australian Government's actions has been to create a better future for Indigenous people in the Northern Territory and to protect children and make communities safer through major investment in law and order as well as additional investment in health, education and child welfare. The NTER is a whole-of-government initiative and involves a range of Australian Government and Northern Territory agencies. FaHCSIA coordinates the NTER in its capacity as the lead Australian Government agency for Indigenous affairs.
In June 2008, the Government appointed a three-person board to conduct an independent and transparent assessment of the NTER measures. FaHCSIA staff provided significant logistical and secretariat support for the Review Board during its investigations.
The Review Board provided its report to the Government in October 2008. The Government made an interim response shortly after, supporting three overarching recommendations. It provided its full response, jointly with the Northern Territory Government, on 21 May 2009 following the Federal Budget announcement to commit $807.4 million until 30 June 2012 for a range of measures commenced in June 2007. The Department's role included coordinating the advice to government and funding proposals from across the Australian Government that formed the basis of the response, and the budget measures.
As part of its response to the Review Board's report, the Government has committed to introduce legislation into the Parliament in late 2009 to remove the provisions in the current NTER Acts that exclude the operation of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. The Department assisted in the development of a discussion paper, titled Future Directions for the Northern Territory Emergency Response, released in May 2009 to aid consultations between Indigenous people and departmental staff, including the network of Government Business Managers and Indigenous Engagement Officers, who have been active in facilitating consultations with Indigenous people.
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Income management implementation and stores licensing under the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) have delivered a much-needed focus on remote community stores. Several communities are now benefiting from upgrades and improved operations of their stores.
Jilkminggan has a population of around 300 people. On 9 December 2008, the Jilkminggan community celebrated the reopening of their community store. This was the result of a collaborative effort between the local Dungalan Aboriginal Association, the Government Business Manager and FaHCSIA, and Outback Stores.
The store was refurbished and while this was under way, FaHCSIA funded a bus that operated twice a day to take community members to shop in Mataranka.
Full-time store staff member Lorraine Doctor says, ‘I thought: the shelves are full! Lots of the good foods to make people healthy. It's really good now—people like it because for the first time they've got all the good foods, all the good things.'
The Government recognises the need to improve interaction with Indigenous people so that relationships are trusting, collaborative and sustainable. The Department is developing strategies to embed this new way of working with Indigenous people rather than imposing ‘top-down' solutions which have been used in the past and have proven to be ineffective.
This involves developing programs and policies that provide flexible, tailored, local approaches to engagement, and encourage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to work as partners to achieve agreed objectives.
At a community level, the 2008–09 Community Engagement Budget measure has increased the capacity of Indigenous people in the Northern Territory to engage with government by improving access to Indigenous interpreters (such as in the Warlpiri and West Arnhem regions). Indigenous Engagement Officers are also improving local understanding of, and participation in, government activity in at least 21 Northern Territory-prescribed communities. The 2009–10 Budget provides funding for an additional 15 Indigenous Engagement Officer positions as well as funding for a range of leadership and capacity-building workshops for Northern Territory communities.
The strong emotional impact of the Apology felt by many Indigenous Australians indicated a continuing need to heal past trauma. On the first anniversary of the Apology, the Government announced the establishment of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation to help stop the cycle of trauma and grief felt by Indigenous people. The foundation will provide healing services to help those affected, with a strong focus on the unique needs of the Stolen Generations.
The foundation aims to provide practical and innovative healing services, along with further training and research to assist those affected. The Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs convened a Healing Foundation Development Team, which will work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to ensure broad support for the foundation. FaHCSIA is providing secretariat support to the Development Team, which commenced a consultative program in May 2009. As part of the 2009–10 Budget, the Australian Government is providing $26.6 million over four years to carry out this vital work.
Returning Indigenous ancestral human remains back to their own country can help the healing process for families and communities. The Department assists Indigenous communities to bring back the remains of their ancestors that have been held overseas.
Major achievements in international repatriation during 2008–09 included the first agreement with Oxford University in the United Kingdom for the return of remains to Indigenous communities. In addition, there was a major return to country of 76 remains from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
The Government is committed to giving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people a voice in their own affairs at a national level. A vital component to delivering on this commitment has been the significant progress made towards establishing a National Indigenous Representative Body.
FaHCSIA conducted an initial phase of community consultation between July and December 2008 on the possible role, responsibilities and structure of this body. Ninety consultation meetings were held and a formal submission process, attracted 106 submissions. Approximately 2,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were directly consulted during this phase. In addition, a community guide covering key issues about the body was developed and circulated through Indigenous print media, the Department's Indigenous Coordination Centre network, and was mailed out to approximately 2,300 Indigenous organisations.
In December 2008, the Government commissioned a second phase of consultation led by Mr Tom Calma, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. Consultations commenced in 2009 and included a national workshop of 100 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders, held in March 2009. Further consultation activities, including focus group meetings, a second public submission process and an online survey were conducted, culminating in a report to government on a preferred model for the representative body.
The Indigenous Leadership Program continued to help develop leadership potential in Indigenous women and men from across Australia, assisting a record 1,033 participants this year. The flexibility of the program provided access to a wider audience in line with the Government's goal of targeting remote communities. The program also engaged other sectors to take action in closing the gap by entering into partnerships with communities, sporting organisations and government organisations.
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The Indigenous Leadership Program provides residential workshops to develop the individual leadership skills and capacity of Indigenous Australians. The program encourages attendees to apply their learnings from the workshops to develop and carry out leadership activities in their communities.
Cassandra Grant from Silkstone, Queensland and Ivy Hill from Goodna, Queensland attended the Women's Leadership Program, and upon returning to their communities, held a workshop that gave young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women the opportunity to support each other in personal skills development and to foster new friendships.
The workshop helped to build the self-esteem and confidence of participants by offering fun and culturally-appropriate activities that were sensitive to their needs. It gave participants an awareness of health support services and networks. The workshop strengthened individuals' capabilities by providing activities that encouraged participants to practice vision and goal-setting and giving information about potential education and employment opportunities.
On 19 December 2008, the Government announced significant reforms to the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) program. From 1 July 2009, the program ceased in non-remote locations with established economies and will continue on a reformed basis in remote locations with emerging and limited economies. The reformed program has a greater focus on providing work-readiness services and community development opportunities that assist Indigenous people to access long-term sustainable jobs in mainstream labour markets.
The Department offered assistance to providers of the former program affected by the reforms to make the transition to other opportunities.
The Department and providers worked with affected CDEP participants to ensure they were informed of changes and, as appropriate, transitioned to jobs, training and development opportunities and employment services provided by Job Services Australia.
As part of the National Partnership Agreement on Indigenous Economic Participation, governments agreed to create up to 2,000 sustainable jobs in government service delivery previously supported by CDEP activities. To support the transition, during the second half of 2008–09 the Department carried out a survey of CDEP activities supporting government services.
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Across the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, community councils recognised that reform was needed in order to tackle a range of community governance issues. FaHCSIA is providing support for the implementation of a comprehensive reform strategy through the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations.
To develop and deliver the strategy, Executive Coordinator for APY Lands, Adrienne Gillam, initiated discussions with the Registrar, the South Australian Government, APY Executive and community councils. With a family representative model as its basis, the resulting project focuses on community-designed structures reflective of cultural identity, social cohesion and Anangu decision making. Initial work on the project began at Indulkana, Mimili and Pukatja in November 2008.
Though in its early stages, the project has achieved significant outcomes. The Indulkana community has been so successful at representing the entire community that the visiting magistrate does not expect to return for the foreseeable future given the improved governance and law and order now evident there.
A new Mimili Council has been formed using the same family representative model. Mimili is enjoying improved functionality of its store, municipal services, rural transaction centre and arts facilities, and is working under its new code of conduct.
The community of Pukatja is also participating in the project. It has identified its representative family groups and is proceeding to elections in November 2009.
These and other achievements under the community governance reform strategy will play a central role in supporting the implementation of the Remote Service Delivery National Partnership Agreement on the APY Lands.
The Department has been instrumental in implementing the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006, which took effect on 1 July 2007. The Act, administered by the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations, introduces the most significant improvements in many years for the registration and regulation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations, while still reflecting cultural needs. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations had until 30 June 2009 to transition their rule books to the new Act. By 30 June 2009, the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations had helped transition 99.6 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations.
The Act also captures more relevant information from corporations which forms part of the public register maintained by the Registrar. Reporting compliance has increased from 52 per cent to 72 per cent in the last two years, with most achieved in 2009. Increased compliance has substantially improved the accuracy and reliability of the public register. For the first time the Registrar out-posted staff around the country to provide face-to-face assistance to help corporations update their records. This was the key to increased compliance.
In 2009, the Registrar developed a new corporate governance training program, Building Strong Stores, in partnership with the Northern Territory Government and the Community Stores Unit of FaHCSIA. The program was developed to improve the governance capacity of FaHCSIA-licensed stores in the Northern Territory. Indigenous leaders from stores in and around Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Katherine and Darwin attended the workshops.
The Registrar also conducted 82 formal examinations of Indigenous corporations to assess their governance and financial position and offer support in resolving problematic situations.
This section describes some of the challenges the Department met when delivering Outcome 1 initiatives and how we worked to overcome them.
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In 2009, the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations, in partnership with the Northern Territory Government and the Community Stores Unit of FaHCSIA, developed a new corporate training program—Building Strong Stores. The training program was developed to improve the governance capacity of FaHCSIA-licensed stores in the Northern Territory.
The program addresses various aspects of running a community store, such as business strategies, the roles and responsibilities of store directors and managers, financial management, decision making and licensing requirements. The objectives of the program are to help participants understand the principles of good corporate governance and key aspects of running a successful community store.
The training material caters for a variety of audiences using plain English, diagrams, visual aids and participatory learning methods. The training materials and exercises within the program accommodate widely varying literacy levels. Trainers encourage participants to draw on their own experiences to stimulate group participation and learning.
Four Building Strong Stores programs were delivered in Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Katherine and Darwin in 2008–09 and 74 Indigenous leaders from the stores attended the workshops. The Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations will continue to deliver training in 2009–10 and will expand the program's reach beyond the Northern Territory.
In November 2008 COAG endorsed a National Partnership on Remote Indigenous Housing, providing significant funding to the states and the Northern Territory to build and upgrade housing for Indigenous people in remote Australia over the coming decade. In the Northern Territory the National Partnership subsumed pre-existing arrangements under a memorandum of understanding signed in 2007 to deliver significant numbers of new and refurbished housing in Aboriginal communities and town camps in the Northern Territory.
While joint governance arrangements have been established in each jurisdiction to oversee the housing rollout, the key challenges are to ensure that at the jurisdictional level sufficient resources and focus are employed to meet agreed targets and timelines and that the Australian Government has sufficient information to ensure that delivery is on track to meet these targets.
The opening of safe places under the Family Support Package—Safe Places was delayed due to a range of factors, including contractual difficulties, the air quality experienced within containers, local weather conditions and cultural activities taking place. The Department worked collaboratively with the Northern Territory Government and Indigenous communities to address these issues. Nineteen out of 22 Safe Places were opened in 2008–09, comprising eight Men's Cooling Off Places and 11 Women's Safe Houses.
The establishment of a new National Indigenous Representative Body in a relatively short timeframe has presented a number of challenges. Effective consultation is important within and across Indigenous communities, and with Indigenous people living in urban, rural and regional areas.
The logistics of arranging workshops across remote, regional and metropolitan regions were complex. Issues associated with geographic isolation, language and cultural sensitivities were also challenging. Ensuring accurate recording and collation of discussions and views of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people was essential, as was the need to provide clarity about issues in the final reporting of those consultations.
The Department worked hard to ensure all of these factors were taken into account, with the learnings and insights gained from the first consultation phase informing the second phase.
The short timeframes also provided challenges for Indigenous people. Communities asked for more time to explore the range of issues. As a result the Minister extended the consultation process and asked the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Mr Tom Calma, to take a lead role and to establish an independent steering committee to assist him. This ensured everyone could have an opportunity to consider the options and provide their views.
A priority for the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations in 2009 was to increase reporting compliance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations to best practice levels of 90 per cent. This presented a significant challenge as new reporting requirements were introduced under the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006. To help achieve compliance out-posted staff visited identified areas to help corporations complete their reports. As a result compliance was raised from 55 per cent in 2007–08 to 72 per cent in 2008–09. The Registrar will be working to achieve 90 per cent reporting compliance in 2009–10.
The Registrar's compliance work also identified a large number of corporations that were no longer operating or no longer required by their members. They will be deregistered in 2009–10.
Providing accommodation for Department staff in very remote communities continued to be a challenge in 2008–09. This year demountable accommodation was placed in 23 communities. Staff reports of fumes within demountables were confirmed. The Department tested all demountables and initiated remedial measures to make them safe for staff. At 30 June 2009, staff had been allowed to reoccupy 18 demountables.
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In April 2007, the Council of Australian Governments agreed to build the evidence base for closing the gap on Indigenous disadvantage through two new measures:
The Australian Government committed $1.7 million to these projects in the 2008–09 Budget, which is being matched by the states and territories. In the 2009–10 Budget the Government committed a further $1.5 million under the Closing the Gap—Clearing House measure. The clearing house will provide public online access to a repository of rigorously assessed and catalogued research, summaries and issues papers. This will provide policy makers and program managers with an evidence base for achieving the Closing the Gap targets and related Indigenous reforms.
The extension of the NATSISS is being completed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The NATSISS provides information about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations of Australia aged 15 years and over and covers a wide range of social concerns. The 2008 survey has increased the average length of each household interview and includes information about children under 15 years of age and data about maternal health and social capital to allow comparison at the national level with data already available for the non-Indigenous population. The final enumeration of the survey was completed in March 2009 and the main results are due for release in October 2009.
The Australian Government committed $10 million over three years to the Indigenous Mothers' Accommodation Fund for new and expanded accommodation facilities for Indigenous women who need to travel from their communities to access medical and related services.
The fund will provide accommodation that is appropriate to the needs of Indigenous women, locating facilities in close proximity to child and maternal health services, and ensuring that facilities can support newborn babies and, where possible, other children staying with their mothers.
The first site in Cairns will provide 24 beds and construction is expected to be completed by the end of 2010.
The 2008–09 NTER Community Engagement Budget measure committed $3.8 million to better involve Northern Territory communities in the Government's decision-making processes, and to build the capacity of Indigenous people through targeted investment.
Under this measure, local people are being employed as Indigenous Engagement Officers and are now providing feedback between communities and government—promoting their community's role in defining needs; setting goals and formulating policies and plans; and working with community groups to bring about greater community input into government decision making.
This measure included funding of $0.9 million to the Northern Territory Government to fund the Northern Territory Aboriginal Interpreter Service to enable increased use of trained Indigenous interpreters in the Northern Territory.
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This is the continuation of four existing early childhood services providing alcohol and drug support, school readiness, literacy and numeracy, family health, family support, nutrition education, behaviour management and parenting services, as well as pregnancy and birth programs for young parents.
At 30 June 2009, there were 57 Government Business Managers across the Northern Territory servicing 73 communities, and 14 other smaller town camps near major regional centres. Government Business Managers are the local face of the NTER. They live in and work with communities, coordinating government programs and services and ensuring that local issues and concerns inform government action.
This measure provides a continuation of alcohol reduction strategies and assistance to the Northern Territory police for a range of infrastructure and services in support of the Australian Federal Police deployment.
This initiative provides improved temporary accommodation facilities for Government Business Managers to facilitate their work in remote Northern Territory communities. Demountable accommodation facilities were installed in 23 communities.
This measure provides for the continuation of five existing facilitated playgroups, and funding for an additional three playgroups for children from birth to five years and their parents and caregivers. Facilitated playgroups strengthen the parenting skills of very disadvantaged Indigenous families.
In 2008–09, the Department continued to work on the implementation of income management as part of the Northern Territory Emergency Response.
Income management directs 50 per cent of government income support and family payments to agreed priority expenses such as food, rent, clothing, health care and utilities. Income management is intended to ensure that payments meant to benefit children are used for the benefit of children.
The BasicsCard was introduced in September 2008 to allow income-managed customers greater flexibility in how they spend their income-managed funds.
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Merchants in the Northern Territory have benefited from improvements since FaHCSIA, Centrelink and the Department of Human Services jointly introduced the BasicsCard in September 2008 in an effort to establish a more user-friendly system for customers on income management.
The BasicsCard is a pin-protected EFTPOS card that has made it easier for customers to spend their income-managed funds at stores for priority items.
The BasicsCard has made income management much easier for stores to manage than the old system, which required funds to be transferred to merchants on behalf of income-managed customers, and the use of store cards which were not as secure as the BasicsCard. A wider variety of stores, including furniture and electrical stores can now take part in using the BasicsCard, eliminating the red tape previously associated with overseeing income-managed funds.
The Community Capability Fund provides streamlined access to flexible funding to address immediate needs identified through a multi-level community-based approach to improve the safety of families and children in Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory.
The fund can provide support that cannot be met by other programs for projects such as minor infrastructure enhancements or upgrades to community facilities. It can fund projects that result in immediate benefit and improvements in the living environment and health of the community. The fund can also be used for projects that encourage community participation as a training tool to complement other program activities.
Designed to adapt to diverse conditions, the Community Capability Fund was developed on the basis that there are no ‘one size fits all' solutions for Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory.
The Youth Alcohol Diversion measure is aimed at young people aged 12–18 years who engage in, or are at risk of, alcohol and other substance abuse in the Northern Territory Emergency Response designated communities. The programs and infrastructure are designed to offer a range of safe and healthy activities as an alternative to drinking and substance abuse. In addition, the activities will encourage and support attendance at school and re-engagement with education, transition from school to further education and/or work, and the expansion of the capacity of Indigenous youth services in the Northern Territory.
This measure will enhance employment opportunities (including through the provision of around 30 Community Employment Brokers) and continue to provide employment services for Indigenous people who previously received Remote Area Exemptions relating to activity testing for income support.
This measure also includes funding for Community Development Employment Projects in the Northern Territory as part of the Government's commitment to review and reform the program.
This measure also applies to Outcome 2.
The Australian Government provided $9.8 million in 2008–09 for this measure to support families in the Northern Territory through:
This measure also applies to Outcome 3.
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On 4 March 2009, the Minister for the Status of Women, the Hon. Tanya Plibersek, MP, launched the documentary Yajilarra at the 53rd session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, held in New York.
Yajilarra, partly funded by FaHCSIA's Office for Women, documents the efforts of a group of Indigenous women from the Fitzroy Valley in Western Australia in their fight against alcohol abuse in their community. The women of the Marninwarntikura Women's Resource Centre successfully lobbied for the banning of full-strength take-away alcohol. Since the introduction of these alcohol restrictions, the Fitzroy Valley community has experienced a reduction in the incidence of alcohol-related domestic violence, and a substantial reduction in the number of people seeking emergency health assistance due to alcohol-related injuries.
Recognising the importance of this story of positive change, FaHCSIA funded two women from the Fitzroy Valley to attend the UN Commission on the Status of Women and share their experience at the premiere of the film. More than 200 people attended the event. Yajilarra's powerful message of strength, resilience and community leadership resonated strongly with the international audience.
Yajilarra was later screened at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and at a special viewing for Members of Parliament at Parliament House. It is currently being distributed throughout Australia as an important example of women's leadership bringing about community change.
In response to community needs, 36 integrated Children and Family Centres will provide a mix of services, including child care, early learning and parent and family support services. The operations of the centres will be underpinned by integration of their management, governance and service systems. Community engagement is integral to the measure's success.
Funding of $17.2 million has been committed to a program for removal of asbestos-containing materials identified as being in poor or damaged condition in the 73 NTER prescribed communities.
In 2008–09, the Department established this program and worked with the Northern Territory Government to gain its commitment on aspects of the removal project and the future management of asbestos-containing material in these communities.
The majority of removal work will take place in 2009–10.
FaHCSIA received funding at Additional Estimates to implement Operation Sunlight, the Government's reform agenda to improve the openness and transparency of public sector budgetary and financial management, and to promote good governance practices.
FaHCSIA worked closely with the Department of Finance and Deregulation (Finance) to develop a new budgetary framework comprising outcomes, programs and program components, with reporting focused mainly at the program level and concentrating on whether each program has achieved its objective. We also redeveloped our performance framework, replacing nearly all of the 2008–09 key performance indicators, and introducing deliverables below the indicator level in accordance with Finance's requirements. All FaHCSIA's 2009–10 programs align with our seven new outcomes, and all program components with the programs to which they belong.
Further change is expected. While redeveloping our key performance indicators, we identified some gaps in performance information. These gaps will be addressed to improve the quality of performance management and reporting in 2010–11.
This measure also applies to Outcomes 2, 3 and 4.
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