LA EIC - Disadvantaged Jobseekers Inquiry Submission no. 69 Received: 31 July 2019

Submission in response to the Inquiry into Sustainable Employment for Disadvantaged Jobseekers Legislative Assembly – Economy and Infrastructure Committee

Submitted by Moonee Valley City Council

V2_Revised August 2019 [email protected]

For any enquiries, please contact: Ms Kate McCaughey Manager, Community Planning Introduction

Moonee Valley City Council is pleased to have the opportunity to provide feedback to the Legislative Assembly – Economy and Infrastructure Committee in relation to the Inquiry into Sustainable Employment for Disadvantaged Jobseekers.

Moonee Valley has been funded by the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions until June 2020 to improve employment outcomes for women and young people living on Flemington Housing Estate. The program, Flemington Works, is co-designed with young people and women, predominantly from African backgrounds. We are pleased to say that it has so far resulted in 60 employment outcomes over the past 12 months (casual, contract, full time and part time), and has also supported the establishment of 4 micro-catering enterprises, employing 10 women.

In this submission, we draw on our experiences in the first year of Flemington Works to demonstrate the successes we have had so far in working with Flemington residents to secure positive employment outcomes. We would be delighted to discuss our experiences further and invite the committee to visit us at the Flemington Community Centre to learn more about Flemington Works directly from our staff and program participants.

About the City of Moonee Valley Moonee Valley is located in the inner and middle north-western suburbs of , between four and 13 kilometres from the CBD. Approximately 128,000 people call Moonee Valley Home. This is forecast to grow to 177,000 by 2041. While our community is ageing, there will also be more young professionals and a regeneration of families by 2040.

Almost one-third of our population was born overseas, and around 30 per cent speak a language other than English at home. While diversity is a major strength for Moonee Valley, health and wellbeing outcomes can be quite different for different groups. Moonee Valley can be described as a ‘tale of two cities’, with those who are relatively advantaged and disadvantaged living in close proximity. Our municipality has eight of the top 24 most disadvantaged small areas in in terms of socio-economic disadvantage. We also have the third-highest proportion of social housing dwellings in Victoria, with major housing estates in Flemington and Ascot Vale. Both are slated for major improvement as part of the Victorian Government’s Public Housing Redevelopment program.

We also have a strong economy, with more than 38,000 jobs across the municipality, and Moonee Valley is home to major employment precincts

2 including Essendon Fields/Essendon Airport. However, these work opportunities are not equal for everyone.

In 2018, Moonee Valley published our long-term plan, MV2040, which guides how we will make Moonee Valley a great place to live for current and future generations. Under this Strategy, we’re working toward a Moonee Valley which is Fair, Thriving, Connected, Green and Beautiful.

The Flemington community is growing rapidly. By 2041, the population of Flemington is expected to grow by 28.1%. The population of neighbouring Travancore has already tripled in the last decade. A significant factor in the growth of Flemington will be the introduction of 845 new public and private dwellings as part of the Flemington Housing Estate redevelopment. A further 15,000 people are projected to move into neighbouring Arden-Macaulay, in the .

At the same time, the Flemington community experiences high demographic diversity. According to the 2016 Census, 47.3% of Flemington residents were born overseas, while 49.4% speak a language other than English at home. Flemington has a higher rate of unemployment than the Victorian average, and a lower median weekly personal income.

Flemington Works

In 2018, Moonee Valley received $650,000 in funding from the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions to improve employment outcomes for women and young people living on Flemington Housing Estate. The announcement was made at Flemington Community Centre by then-Minister for Industry and Employment and Member for Niddrie – which falls within the Moonee Valley municipality – the Hon. Ben Carroll MP. The program aims to place 70 estate young people and women in meaningful employment, and establish at least 20 new resident-owned and operated businesses over the two years of the funding.

Flemington Works takes a place-based, systems-change approach to addressing the root causes of unemployment, ensuring the project moves beyond ‘job- matching’ and creates a long-term commitment to supporting employment opportunities for social housing residents. Flemington Works acknowledges a commitment to participatory design is critical to build effective local responses to unemployment.

To help deliver the program, Moonee Valley has engaged two dedicated employees who work out of the Flemington Community Centre. We are also

3 partnering with the Brotherhood of St Laurence as an existing service provider in this space.

As part of the program, the following components have been developed:

The following components have been developed as part of Council’s approach to delivering Flemington Works:

1. Whole-of-organisation policy development - Social and Sustainable Procurement Guidelines and Policy

Developing and embedding social procurement policy/targets, requiring suppliers to provide employment opportunities for residents living in social housing to win council contracts. This has the added benefit of encouraging Council staff to increase our spend on goods and services from businesses located in Moonee Valley.

CASE STUDY: A recent Council cleaning contract has created 35 employment opportunities for women living on Flemington Housing Estate.

2. Fostering entrepreneurship – Women’s micro-catering enterprises

Supporting micro-catering enterprises, owned and operated by women, through business development and securing business through Council events.

CASE STUDY: The Cultural Diversity Week Twilight Market earlier this year provided an opportunity for women to test their catering micro- enterprises. You can watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w7pcGDDgA8

3. Workplace experiences - Direct and temporary recruitment at Moonee Valley City Council

Brokering employment opportunities through short-term labour hire;

Providing 20 x week-long paid internships for young people from African backgrounds.

4. Participatory design – Lived experience

4 Employing 10 x young people and 10 x women living on Flemington Housing Estate to identify the issues impacting their peers, and design and deliver responses to improve employment outcomes.

CASE STUDY: In March this year, local community leader Barry Berih brought together 11 local employment agencies, 162 young people and 8 mentors to connect and learn about career journeys and local support available at Flemington Community Centre. You can watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhlVHKrt2pA

Macro-drivers of unemployment

The reasons young people and women face unemployment are complex, and connected to systemic and structural challenges. However there is often a perception that jobseekers themselves are ‘the problem’. These inaccurate narratives risks simplifying the issue and blaming individuals rather than the wide range of significant factors, which include:

1. Changing employment markets, including a reduction in entry level roles 2. Globalisation 3. An education and training system which does not prioritise job-ready skills 4. Race-based and geographic discrimination.

We have seen these complex challenges illustrated through participants in another of our local community-based employment projects which we operate out of the Flemington Community Centre, DriveLink. DriveLink is a program which assists newly arrived migrants and refugees living in the Flemington and Ascot Vale areas to gain supervised driving practice, helping to prepare them for the licence test and for safe solo driving into the future. Participants in the program have access on loan to a vehicle owned by Moonee Valley City Council and are partnered with a volunteer supervisor driver. Eligibility for DriveLink is for adults of a migrant or refugee background who face disadvantage in gaining enough driving practice to attain a drivers licence.

Whilst the DriveLink program works with a range of adult-age migrants, it is most strongly targeted at women of migrant backgrounds, with participants in the program to date being almost exclusively female. The DriveLink program was first initiated under the banner of the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services’ Flemington Neighbourhood Renewal project. Through this project, it was identified that many housing estate residents did not have a drivers licence, and that an inability to drive was creating multiple barriers to full economic and social participation. It was identified that this was particularly the case amongst women.

Research commissioned by several place-based taskforces across Melbourne has shown that disadvantaged cohorts of job seekers have much lower levels of car ownership (as seen through registration rates) and lower rates of possessing

5 a valid drivers licence. They often have to travel outside their local area to access entry level jobs that provide an essential start on the pathway into employment.

Entry-level jobs that require no or limited qualifications and experience are shrinking in number - across Australia they represent only around 15% of advertised jobs (Anglicare, 2017) - and are increasingly competitive. Elsewhere in Melbourne’s north, the Jobs and Skills Taskforce explored the jobs pipeline provided to JobActive participants in Hume by Jobs Victoria over the course of a week (9th-13th October 2017). Of the ‘entry-level’ jobs on offer:

• None required formal qualifications or experience BUT • All involved travel, so access to a driver’s licence and vehicle was almost essential for these jobs • Many of the jobs involved shift work, in addition to travel, making access without a private vehicle almost impossible.

Coupled with this is a rise in casualised, irregular and contract-based work. Some members of the Flemington community have reported having to turn down shifts offered at short notice because the public transport timetable would not facilitate their arrival on time. Being forced to turn down casual shifts can, in turn, lead to a reduction in shifts or even subsequent loss of employment. These kind of barriers are disheartening and demoralising for new migrants in Flemington, who have a keen willingness to participate and are highly motivated to find work.

In addition to the practical element of being more readily able to access work, we have also observed that learning to drive increases social participation through increased independence, a sense of self-confidence and better access to a range of services. One of the key learnings from the DriveLink program is that the ‘soft’ employability skills necessary to gain a job, are often learnt by participating in an extended mentoring program such as driver education.

Our participants in the DriveLink program to date have been overwhelmingly positive in their feedback. We have compiled a video featuring some of this feedback which can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC5SnTAbqr4 .

Local perceptions

Below are some of the things we have heard from young people of African descent living in Flemington:

1. “High school is not getting us work ready.”

Young people describe they don’t get enough time to explore careers, build networks, or develop and explore their interests and passions as curriculum lacks flexibility.

6 2. “We don’t have the right networks .”

Limited social capital is impacting young people’s ability to secure their ‘first job’.

3. “We are from Flemington and we are black.”

Race-based and locational discrimination are frequently referenced as significant barriers to securing work.

4. “Job services don’t help.”

Government-funded employment organisations do not adequately cater to the unique needs of young people. Often program responses stigmatise jobseekers, rather than responding to their needs, and rarely are young people involved in their design and delivery.

Women from African backgrounds said that the most significant challenges for women hoping to secure work include:

1. Systems barriers for mothers seeking employment (location and flexibility of workplace to support caring responsibilities)

2. Language barriers and English courses – design of English language courses needs to be informed by local women

3. Insufficient support from the service system

4. Discrimination of women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds

5. Inadequate skills and knowledge of the Australian service system

6. A lack of confidence and optimism

7. Insufficient support from the local community.

One of the ways that we are addressing some of these barriers is by working with local women to prototype a ‘community leadership and social procurement program’. The aim of this program will be to:

• Match women looking for work to local female employment leaders to deliver holistic, culturally-appropriate and individualised employment support • Connect women to employment opportunities generated through Moonee Valley City Council social procurement targets.

7 Specifically the leader would:

• Explain the service system, laws and individual rights to those who do not know

• Make women feel more comfortable and will be relatable

• Be more willing to help them

• Understand English, the Australian service system and have job networks.

Investing in employment programs in Melbourne’s inner west

Embedding organisational change to create the conditions for more employment opportunities for women and young people living in social housing requires longer term investment. However it is achievable.

To date, Flemington Works has re-invested 33% of all funding received to directly benefit young people and women living in Flemington through procuring their goods and services. The model has demonstrated early success, influencing the way local agencies work alongside communities to design responses to resolve unemployment and create institutional change to ensure commitments to marginalised jobseekers are ongoing.

We are excited for the future of Flemington Works, and believe that with continued funding we could continue to develop the model, furthering the great employment outcomes we have already seen for local young people and women.

Conclusion We thank the Committee again for the opportunity to provide a submission in response to the Inquiry into Sustainable Employment for Disadvantaged Jobseekers.

Should you wish to discuss any of these matters further, please contact:

Ms Kate McCaughey Manager, Community Planning

OR Ms Meghan Hopper Advocacy Coordinator

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