By Anitra Gorris-Hunter and Natalie Woodlock
HOBART — More than 100 people rallied on the steps of state parliament on August 14 to protest against cuts to women's services and shelters. The Sexual Assault Support Service (SASS), which will suffer a 20% cut in funding, coordinated the action.
The federal government is in the process of abolishing the Community Service Award (CSA), a funding agreement to pay community service workers' wages. This will mean a 20% cut in funding for SASS and similar cuts to other women's services. There are also plans to "untie" the tied grant system.
Jo Flanagan, the coordinator of SASS in Hobart, told Green Left Weekly that if the CSA is axed, after-hours services will be most vulnerable to cutbacks. SASS's 24-hour rape crisis service — the only one in the 002 area — will operate only from 9am to 5pm.
Counselling time will be cut by 25%, leading to waiting times of seven to eight weeks. Services for children under 13 and the telephone counselling service will be abolished. Many other programs will be cut in half.
"Many community services, in the 1994-95 financial year, did their budgets and employed people on the basis of the CSA. Now the government's saying it was a one-off thing", said Flanagan.
The prevention work SASS does will be hard hit.
"We have a very strong position on prevention, and we do a lot of community education. There will be increasing pressure on what we can provide and the people we can talk to. The counselling work is stretched so thin already, trying to cover the demands of the clients we already have, that the funding cuts could mean we don't do any regional or community education."
In the campaign against the funding cuts, the Tasmanian Federation of Centres Against Sexual Assault, formed on August 14, will demand that, as a minimum, funding be maintained at 1994-95 levels.
Flanagan pointed out that current funding levels are already too low. Since June 1995, 256 women and children have been put on a four to six week wait for their first counselling appointment. Primary prevention work has also suffered.
"Theoretically, we cover all schools in the 002 area, but in reality we are only able to cover the metropolitan area", Flanagan commented.
The proposed abolition of the Support and Accommodation Assistance Program (SAPP) — the tied grant SASS is funded by — could mean more cuts to women's services.
Flanagan explained, "For SASS, 53% of the SAPP funds are federal, and 47% is funded by the state government. Basically the agreement is that if the federal government comes up with the money, the state government is obliged to. The federal government wants to get rid of the tied grants system and instead give a lump sum to state governments."
This would mean that funds would no longer be set aside for specific projects or women's organisations.
"State governments will then decide which services get the money and will have to prioritise their spending between the creches, SASS services, the shelters and the other women's services.
"If this happens, we will all be put into a big melting pot. It is a tendency with governments to divide and rule, so what we might find is that they, for example, don't reduce funding to the disability sector, they just reduce funding to Aboriginal services and women's services, so that people aren't acting in unison."
Commenting on the overall impact of the budget, Flanagan said, "The whole structure of our society will be shifted. The network of support services that have been built up are going to be decimated. We are going to see a much bigger gap between rich and poor and a much more violent society."