BRISBANE archdiocese’s Centacare Employment Group (CEG) has defied a national trend to enjoy a net gain in contracts awarded by the Australian Government to assist disadvantaged jobseekers.
The employment services group learnt on April 3 that it had retained four of its businesses at Maroochydore, Redcliffe/Kippa-Ring, Chermside and Browns Plains.
CEG lost Goodna in the Ipswich ESA (Employment Service Area) but picked up contracts in the South Brisbane and Gold Coast ESAs.
Archdiocesan Centacare executive director Peter Selwood told The Catholic Leader that this had been an outstanding result for the agency’s employment service.
“I would like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to the professionalism of CEG director Glen Halloran and all our employment service staff,” he said.
However, he expressed sympathy for those Church-based agencies that had suffered severe cuts to their programs and staff.
Mr Selwood also supported Catholic Social Services Australia (CSSA) executive director Frank Quinlan’s statement that the Federal Government had treated long-standing, successful providers with “absolute disrespect” during the process of awarding employment service contracts.
Mr Selwood made the comments after a national outcry over the loss of an estimated 2500 jobs as hundreds of employment service providers across Australia lost government contracts.
More than a quarter of the job agencies – up to 100 businesses – missed out on contracts.
The upheaval followed a $4 billion overhaul of the Job Network which will become known as Job Services Australia from July.
Mr Halloran said he believed Centacare’s experience in helping a wide range of disadvantaged jobseekers and the “very sound model” employed to develop the government tender application had ensured the recent success.
“Centacare in the Brisbane archdiocese has been involved in the Job Network for nine years and has been helping people with a disability find work for the past 15 years,” he said.
“All this experience and knowledge went into preparing a tender which looked to the needs of a wide range of jobseekers – it was a very holistic approach.”
However, Mr Halloran said the successful new contract was not about “expansion for expansion’s sake”.
“It’s an opportunity for the archdiocese to continue its mission to provide services to disadvantaged people – in this case disadvantaged jobseekers,” he said.
