Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to bring to the House’s attention the great work that is done by the Southern Junction Community Services group and particularly their current fundraising activity, Feet on the Street. Feet on the Street is a group of local residents getting together to raise money to help disadvantaged families in the southern suburbs. In fact, a wide range of different people are getting their feet on the street to raise money for this group of people. This includes Flinders University, Westpac, ATEC, Brooks, Fairmont Homes, and Savings and Loans. Everyone will be participating as a team in the City to Bay fun run. I shall also be participating that day. Although I will not be doing the complete 12 kilometres—it will be more like six kilometres—I will certainly be putting my feet on the street to help this disadvantaged group.

Southern Junction Community Service does a great job in the local community, particularly in raising money for young families in my electorate of Kingston. The money that will be raised as part of Feet on the Street will be used for parent effectiveness training programs, professional counselling and support groups, family home visiting programs and Christmas hampers for disadvantaged families. These are vital, basic services that are needed in my electorate and I am very pleased that I can lend a small amount of support, as with many other people in the community.

Southern Junction is a non-profit organisation that works collaboratively with community groups and organisations as well as existing government agencies. They offer not just the services that I previously mentioned but also a wide range of support networks and housing options in the southern suburbs. They do a lot with young homeless people not only to help them find homes—bricks and mortar—but also to make sure that, in the long term, when they are set up in a home, they have the support as well. This is something that the Rudd Labor government has been acutely aware of, and our first commissioned white paper was on homelessness. We do know that there are many young homeless people around the country. In fact, 10,000 of these are children under the age of 12. This is a serious issue that we must turn our attention to. I do know that the Southern Junction Community Services group does pay a lot of attention to that. I held a homelessness forum in my electorate of Kingston recently and it was very well attended. What occurred was a really open discussion with all of the different groups within my electorate about what we can do to address the problem. I must admit that there has been a positive attitude towards things that we can do rather than things we cannot do.