The Premier
of NSW, Mr Bob Carr today announced
the State Government has approved the extension of funding for the
Redfern-Waterloo Partnership Project until 2006.
The Budget
Committee of State Cabinet – as part of the mini-budget – earlier this year
approved $2.5 million a year for the next two years.
In 2006,
the project can re-apply for funding as part of the normal budget process.
Set up in
2001, the Redfern-Waterloo Partnership Project is a joint government –
community approach to combat the complex range of serious, long-term problems
including crime, alcohol, housing, health and education.
Some of the
current initiatives funded as part of the Partnership Project includes:
- The eight-person Redfern-Waterloo
street team, which operates seven days a week and works with children and young
people, aged 11 to 16 years who are at risk to harm or anti-social and
criminal activity; (It has recorded on average over 300 contacts with young
people each month since March 2003); - A specialist three-person Department
of Community Services (DoCs) team, which provides a whole of government
approach to dealing with high risk children; - Barnardo’s
Intensive Family Support Service-which provides an intensive home visiting
service to local families,; - Mudgin-Gal Aboriginal Home Family
Support Service-providing practical support for
Aboriginal families including nutrition, parenting programs, domestic violence
counselling, housing information and support and drug and alcohol programs; - Mentoring programs and the Redfern
Police Youth Holiday Camps to build or restore relationships between local kids
and police; and - Redfern-Waterloo Anti-Drug Strategy-which
targets the commercial supply of heroin and related social issues.
“There
is no magic wand to solving the issues in the Redfern and Waterloo areas, but we have a responsibility
to try to address their root causes,” Mr Carr said.
“Crime
and anti-social behaviour is still at unacceptable levels, but it has dropped
since the government set up the Redfern-Waterloo Partnership Project. For
instance, assaults have dropped by 19.5 per cent and stolen vehicle offences
are down by 26.9 per cent.
No one is
saying that it can be fixed overnight as 67 per cent of people in Waterloo and 35 per cent
in Redfern are not in the labour force. In Waterloo, 46 per cent of families are headed
by a single parent.
In
addition, there are more than 4,000 public housing dwellings within the two
areas. This accounts for 69 per cent of Waterloo’s entire housing available.
And the
weekly income in 56 per cent of Waterloo
households is less than $400 a week and 25.8 per cent have incomes less than
$200 per week.