PM's Community Business Partnership Awards
31 October 2005 at 12:10 pm
Community business partnerships that focused on diverse issues such as health awareness, housing, youth and indigenous leadership and community access to technology were honoured in this year’s Prime Minister’s Awards.
Prime Minister John Howard had to sidestepped noisy protestors outside a black tie function at the Melbourne Museum to deliver the national community business partnership awards.
The protest against planned changes to the industrial relations laws didn’t dampen the enthusiasm inside the venue for the successful award recipients.
The Prime Minister told the audience that there is a remarkable improvement in the willingness of Australians to give and support worthy causes.
He said the message from the Prime Minister’s Community Business Partnerships (PMCBP) was the willingness of the corporate sector to engage with communities.
He said business giving has more than doubled since 2000/2001 with more than 520,000 businesses or 67% of all businesses, giving $3.2 billion in money, goods and services since 2003/04.
He said the awards celebrate a great Australian characteristic that when we are doing well we ought to lend a hand to those who aren’t.
The PM said that the six national winners brought their own innovative approach to focus on issues that are important to the community.
The business category winners were drawn from a strong field of fifteen short listed finalists.
The national winners are:
The Small Business Award was won by a NSW partnership between Prime Television Wollongong and WAVE FM with Illawarra Division of General Practice. The partnership demonstrates the long term commitment of the partners to the health and well-being of the Illawarra and has led to the production and broadcast of 28 commercials highlighting health issues for the community.
The Medium Business Award went to a partnership between PMI Mortgage Insurance Ltd with habitat for Humanity Australia , based in NSW. It offered a hands on approach to working with Habitat for Humanity to build simple and affordable housing for and with disadvantaged families.
The Large Business Award was won by Lend Lease and other partners with the Abraham Mott Centre- City of Sydney for the Millers Point Youth and Employment Partnership. This partnership involving 12 partners has developed and implemented a mentoring program and a film festival for young people in the local community.
Special Awards
A special award of Impact on the Community was presented to BHP Billiton to acknowledge its work in partnership with a number of community organisations to achieve sustainable and long term benefits to the community. The award says the company’s focus on creating and developing indigenous leadership opportunities is providing business benefits to BHP Billiton as well as strengthening the communities in which it operates.
There were two joint winners for the special Award for Longevity – Microsoft Ltd with Work Ventures and Midland Brick Company with Hills Community Support Group.
The Microsoft Work Ventures partnership has been operating for almost 20 years and provides opportunities for people who are unemployed and disadvantaged to develop IT skills, thereby increasing their employment prospects and opening up opportunities to use technology. The partnership also has an environmental focus, through refurbishing and re-using computer hardware that might otherwise be discarded.
Midland Brick Company and Hills Community Support Group have worked together for more than 20 years. The partnership has focused on working with youth at risk and marginalised young people and their families, to provide support, training and employment opportunities.
