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Beyond the lobby

by
May 2007, no. 291

Inside the Welfare Lobby: A history of the Australian Council of Social Service by Philip Mendes

Sussex Academic Press, $49.50 pb, 145 pp, 1845191196

Beyond the lobby

by
May 2007, no. 291

Most of you will have heard of the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), but for those who have not, it is the peak lobby group of the community welfare sector. ACOSS’s website will tell you that its aims ‘are to reduce poverty and inequality by developing and promoting socially, economically and environmentally responsible public policy and action by government, community and business while supporting non-government organisations which provide assistance to vulnerable Australians’. ACOSS has seventy member organisations, including eight Councils of Social Service at state and territory level, and another four hundred associate members. Every year, Council of Social Service staff lobby federal, state and territory politicians and bureaucrats with proposals and budget submissions. And every year, bureaucrats and ministerial staffers craft careful speeches for politicians game enough to face the Council’s tough questions about budgetary allocations.

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