What Cape York communities can do to help themselves

It is about allowing local families to voluntarily pool and manage their income as a household, nuclear family or extended family (it's up to them to define the "family"). The system aims to address three basic facilities that remote people in Cape York currently do not have:

• proper banking facilities to save money and pay accounts through automatic deductions and payments.
• loan facilities: we propose to establish access to joint loan facilities, where families take out joint loans, rather than just individual loans.
• access to goods and services:.we are looking at on-line catalogues and establishing purchase facilities with suppliers and brokers.

The responsibility therefore falls to families to manage and make decisions about their pooled funds. They may decide to manage 50% of their income, and leave the remainder to individual members as discretionary income. But the system will ensure that those family members who are currently spending all of their money in a discretionary way while other family members are paying the bills and buying the food make a contribution. Families will have financial advisors available to them to provide advice on budgeting and planning.

The Family Income Management system we propose does not therefore take responsibility away – it is aimed at building responsibility at the family level, reinforcing family responsibility and encouraging personal income management. And it can be done on a completely voluntary basis.

The role of the business community in welfare reform

In the era of welfare reform there is a lot of talk of "community/business partnerships", "social coalitions" and "business philanthropy". Business has been cajoled into more philanthropy, and unfavorable comparisons have been made between the levels of corporate contributions in Australia versus the USA and elsewhere.

We need to be clear about what role the business community will play in welfare reform. There are three kinds of contribution that business could make:

1. disinterested financial support;
2. contacts/networks/opportunities/mentorships/expertise/advice to support people to get out of welfare dependency; and
3. interested financial investment in enterprises that will provide opportunities for welfare recipients to get out of dependency.

We should not pretend that the corporate sector will provide the charitable capital necessary to support welfare-dependent people and to help them to get out of dependency. We should be very clear that governments must provide the capital investment for welfare reform. It is through the taxation system that the corporate sector contributes to government investment to disadvantaged people in disadvantaged areas.

The business community’s financial contribution will always be marginal compared to the needs of those dependent upon government social investment. Rather, the business community can make strategic contributions to encourage innovation and the development of social entrepreneurial approaches to welfare reform. Business working in partnership with the community sector can lead welfare reform by developing new approaches that risk- and innovation-averse governments are too slow or reluctant to adopt.

From my experience with business partnerships and from what business people say themselves, while businesses are not willing to provide financial contributions in the form of charity, they are prepared to provide non-financial contributions – which are very valuable in themselves. This is where mentoring, employment and training opportunities, advice, networks, contacts, support and other kinds of valuable leverage – become extremely valuable resources for people who currently have no networks, no experience and no opportunities.

And of course the third form of contribution is another vitally important area for partnership, where businesses are encouraged to enter into relationships with welfare-dependent people and locations, to invest in mutually beneficial business opportunities. In these cases businesses generate opportunities for disadvantaged people and locations in their own interest. Governments should be developing strategies that encourage and support this form of business partnership with Indigenous communities.