Sharing the Wealth of the Lucky Country - ACOSS Conference
1 March 2012 at 11:22 am
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| Last year's conference in Melbourne |
The peak body for Australia's community and social services sector, ACOSS, is hosting its 2012 National Conference in Sydney on the 29 – 30 March, 2011 with the theme Sharing the Wealth of the Lucky Country.
ACOSS says the Conference is the premier national event for policy-makers, researchers and those engaged in social services and advocacy.
This year's conference brings together a high profile group of speakers including Don Henry, Eva Cox, Mark Butler MP, Simon Sheikh, Tanya Plibersek and Tim Costello.
They will join key leaders, researchers, and other workers in the community sector to dissect a wide range of social policy topics and issues relevant to equality and community service in contemporary Australia, around the central conference theme: ‘Sharing the Wealth of the Lucky Country.'
ACOSS has also invited the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader to present their visions for improving equity and fairness in Australia.
ACOSS says as inequality in Australia continues to increase, this year's event promises to address the policy, programs and action needed to promote fairness and equality.
One of the highlights will be a panel discussion addressing opportunities for employers to support disadvantaged jobseekers, featuring major players in business, politics and the community sector, chaired by Sky News host David Speers.
The conference will culminate with a discussion addressing the new frontiers of social policy over the next decade and ask a collection of well-known panelists to imagine Australia in 2030.
In addition to a packed two-day conference program, ACOSS will be hosting a very popular NGO Media Forum on Wednesday March 28.
Speakers include:
- Annabel Crabb | Political Editor, ABC Online
- Anne Hollonds | CEO, The Benevolent Society
- Catherine Gander | CEO, Women's Refuge Resource Centre
- David Locke| Special Adviser, The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission
- David Speers | Political Editor, Sky News
- Diana O'Halloran | Professor, Department of General Practice, UWS
- Don Henry | CEO, Australian Conservation Foundation
- Eva Cox| Research Fellow, Jumbunna IHL, UTS
- George Megalogenis | Columnist, The Australian
- Jennifer Westacott | CEO, Business Council of Australia
- Judith Yates | School of Economics, University of Sydney
- Lesley Hall | CEO, Australian Federation of Disability Organisations
- Louise Tarrant | National Secretary, United Voice
- Rebecca Huntley | Director, The Ipsos Mackay Report
- Richard Weston | CEO, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation Limited
- Simon Sheikh | National Director, GetUp!
- The Hon Robert McClelland MP | Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness
- The Hon Sussan Ley MP | Opposition Spokesperson for Employment Participation
- The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP | Minister for Health
- Tim Costello | CEO, World Vision
- Tshibanda Gracia Ngoy | Human Rights Young People's Medalist 2011
Where: Australian Technology Park, Redfern, Sydney
When: Thursday 29 – Friday 30 March, 2012
ACOSS is offering financial support to people with disabilities and people from rural and regional organisations to attend the conference. For full details, including sessions, speakers, and program visit the website: www.acoss.org.au
As Jerusalem Slim was purported to have said, “The poor will always be with us.” And Slim was right; but he should have added, “as long as we accept the notion that the producers of wealth are not entitled to control and own what they create.” There are two sources of wealth: natural resources and human resources. The human resources are purchased for wages and produce the wealth of nations, including the wealth of the ‘Lucky Country’. That they neither control nor own the wealth they create is demonstrated by the fact that 50% of the Australian population control/own only 7% of its wealth, while the top 10% control/own 45% of Australia’s wealth.
A class divide, between owners of the wealth the workers are employed to create and those self-same producers of wealth who receive wages in exchange for their skills and time, haunts the capitalist system world wide. A U.N. report of 2009 revealed the top 10% of the world’s population control/own 71% of the wealth produced by people who are obliged to sell their abilities to labour for wages in order to make a living, including that produced out of natural resources. This problem will not be effectively dealt with by charity measures, despite the best of intentions of social liberal reformers who gather at countless ACOSS Conferences.