Australian Social Policy and the Human Services

Human services NGOs have long played a key role in Australian social welfare, although the ways in which they have been funded or subsidised by governments have changed over time, as has the extent to which they have had autonomy and control over their own decision-making. At the start of the twenty-first century, human services delivered by NGOs were a driver of the fastest growing sector of the Australian labour force. This chapter focuses on the size, scope and importance of the human services sector in Australia, the policy and funding decisions that impact conditions for workers in human services NGOs, the ways in which a focus on NGOs operating in similar ways to for-profit organisations may change the modus operandi of NGOs and the relationships between workers in and clients of the sector, and debates about the roles and responsibilities of volunteers within the broader context of the human services.