To improve the lives of Australians, focus on the needs of the people

Earlier this month, as part of my bus trip through northern New South Wales, I held a community forum at Gosford.

More than 500 people came along to put their concerns to me. Of the 31 questions, only two were about economics and one was on foreign policy. The rest were about people: The quality of our society. The breakdown in community relationships. Loneliness, isolation and stress. Youth homelessness and the drug problem. Disabilities and the aged-care crisis. Male suicide, mental health and the need for mentoring programs.

They want more society, more community a new sense of belonging, a new set of social relationships. Among the people that I talk to, there is a real interest in localism.

A good society requires more than high incomes and government services. It needs strong, healthy relationships within active communities. For too long, government policy has ignored this vital part of our national life.

Labor recognises that there is more to life than money. We understand that our community is awash with social problems that will not be solved by government spending alone. We intend to tackle the challenges presented to our society by loneliness, family breakdown and youth alienation.

Much of the modern state is based on a top-down system of control. The parliament passes laws and funds programs. And it is assumed that civil society will respond to these laws in a manner consistent with the government mould.

This is the traditional way of encouraging responsibility and creating services. But it doesn't necessarily create stronger communities. The new role for government is to act as a facilitator or enabler: creating the social environment in which people are more likely to have contact with each other, working together in trusting relationships.

There's a strong feeling in society that too much power has slipped from the people's grasp and has been concentrated in the hands of big corporations and big bureaucracies. I share this concern. And I want to see greater devolution of government power to the community.

People shouldn't have to campaign for better services. They should be running them. When we talk about the public sector, we should talk about community housing, civic education, community banks and other local associations, not just government departments. In many cases, government needs to act as a junior partner to community effort.

We need to open up the political system, creating more forums in which people can have their say. We need to think of modern politics as a civic conversation: decision makers engaging the electorate in a dialogue on issues of public concern.

Only by deepening our democracy can we encourage more people to get involved in civic life, rebuilding communities and social capital. I want this to be the hallmark of a Labor Government, with Lindsay Tanner as our Minister for Community Relationships. The establishment of this new portfolio has created considerable interest.

The public wants to talk about community issues, especially those affecting the next generation of young Australians. In particular, how can the current generation of adult Australians help our youth? How can we help troubled boys and girls adjust to the demands of a fast changing and more stressful society? This is why I have asked Lindsay to work on a national mentoring strategy, in collaboration with the community sector.

Those who have suffered most from the decline of social and personal relationships tend to be boys. Their school retention rates lag well behind girls. Their literacy levels are lower. And in disproportionate numbers, they are the victims of drug overdoses, road trauma and youth suicide.

Our boys are suffering from a crisis of masculinity. As blue-collar muscle jobs have declined, their identity and relationships have become blurred and confused. We need to give our boys a new centre to their lives one grounded in community support and mentoring.

But this isn't just about boys. Girls need our help too. They have a different set of problems, from sexual assault to bulimia and worries about body image.

Young women need stronger relationships and self-esteem to help them deal with these issues. In practice, however, people talk more about the trouble with boys because it is more visible. It's on our streets and in our public places. And when things go wrong, very often the victims are female. We all have an interest in overcoming this problem.

Mentoring is an idea whose time has come. Around Australia thousands of community-minded citizens are creating a network of volunteer mentors to work with young people in need. Mentoring will be our first investment in social capital, mobilising the leadership role of government to create stronger relationships. This is the best way of solving social problems: putting relationships at the centre of government decision-making and working with people locally to rebuild communities.

Often the lack of community comes down to something we can’t buy, time. For many people, the lack of time in their lives is just as significant as a lack of money. It’s the challenge of our generation: getting the balance right between work, family and community. This is an era of great economic and social change. But not all the changes are positive.

We're being asked to work harder and longer. Yet we are losing the traditional sources of support to help us cope: the support of extended family and community.

Our lives are being pulled apart by these twin forces putting pressure on families, strain on marriages, isolating us from friends and taking us out of community activities. For many Australians, life is becoming faster, harder and more stressful.

In the new world of work, the typical family has one-and-a-half jobs. And full-time and part-time employment alike is turning over at a faster rate. There is less job security and greater uncertainty about the hours we are expected to work.

I'm going to put families first. Surely in a prosperous nation, it is not unreasonable for women to be able to work and then after childbirth, spend time recovering and also nurturing their newborn babies. This is why Labor is committed to 14 weeks paid maternity leave. We want Australian families to have more financial options available to them in balancing work and family. It is not unreasonable for workers to come back from parental leave and then seek a part-time job. It is not unacceptable to give casual workers greater security. And with job security, workers and parents are better able to look after their families. It’s not unreasonable to have workplace flexibility job sharing and allowing employees to plan their hours and holidays around the needs of their children.

No one knows the balance between work and family better than the parents themselves. The proper role for government is to provide a range of options and opportunities that parents can mix and match against their own circumstances. The objective must be social flexibility, not social engineering.

When I think back to my grandparents, I think of an era of relationship certainty. Pop worked all his life and Nana looked after the children. Now, in my own circumstances at home, Janine and I have a non-stop dialogue about work and family: how to turn her legal qualifications into a legal career; how to juggle my new work responsibilities against time at home; how to organise child care for the boys; and how to arrange the transport to make all of this happen.

By today's standards, of course, this is nothing special. Millions of Australian families are engaged in this kind of dialogue every night.

We need plenty of give and take. Once more, it’s important not to be judgmental. Work is good and successful careers are even better. But they shouldn't be regarded as more important than the work done by parents who stay at home full-time and raise their children. They're heroes too.

Stronger families produce better communities. That's why Labor will work with voluntary organisations to expand the mentoring of our young people. And it's an agenda that recognises that helping families is not only good for society, its good for the economy.

That's why I will work with Australian businesses, unions and the community to introduce new policies for work and family. Policies that look after the interests of small businesspeople, as well as employees.

As we become more prosperous as a nation, people are demanding that our prosperity has a purpose beyond the accumulation of more possessions. Increased wealth in a society does not necessarily make us happier. People have understood this for a long time.

A Labor Government will unashamedly pursue greater economic growth and prosperity, but it will be prosperity with a purpose. And I believe as a society, we can have no higher purpose than getting the balance right between work, family and community. We can have no higher purpose in the service of the Australian people.