Social services sector makes call on pollie promises
Exclusive: The state’s peak body for social services has released its election scorecard, with minor parties thumping Labor and Liberal on several key metrics. See the scorecard.
The South Australian Council of Social Services (SACOSS) has today revealed its report card on politician promises ahead of next weekend’s state election, Labor and Liberal both performing worse than some minor parties.
SACOSS assessed pre-election commitments against the peak body’s own wishlist to determine the rankings, which saw the SA Greens and Tammy Franks outscoring the major parties by a mile.
The peak body, which represents the non-government health and community services sector in South Australia, had called for vital homelessness funding and more public housing as two key asks in its state election policy, released in February.
Of the major parties, Labor rated ahead of the Liberals with its best scores in housing and health.
Connie Bonaros’ SA Best also scored well on human rights and health, while the Greens nabbed five stars for housing and human rights, and Franks got full marks on human rights and healthy communities.
But Sarah Game’s Fair Go for Australians Party and One Nation both performed poorly, neither scoring above one star on any metric addressed by SACOSS.
SACOSS said both parties’ policies would “add more cost-of-living pressures to all South Australians”.
SACOSS CEO Dr Catherine Earl said that while Labor provided a comprehensive response to the election platform, “they did not agree to all our proposals, but scored relatively well in housing based on the increases in public housing and rental reforms”.
“Perhaps the most disappointing thing from the major parties was the lack of commitment from either party for sector funding or for a Human Rights Act,” she said.
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“These are not big-budget asks, but they would make a substantial difference in the lives of vulnerable people.”
Earl said that she was surprised by “the lack of real policy detail from some minor parties”.
“Quite apart from SACOSS’ obvious (human rights) objections to discriminatory policies which demonise and undermine often vulnerable groups and people, the lack of understanding of housing and energy policy would do no favours for people who are under pressure,” she said.
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