Welfare Report backs co-operative solutions

25 February 2015

Australia’s member-owned businesses are critical to long-term job creation and alleviation of welfare dependency, according to the Government’s landmark inquiry into welfare reform, the McClure Report, released today.

The report singled out co-operatives and mutuals as a key strategic  business sector for the Federal Government to achieve its objectives for sustainable employment growth and local-level community empowerment.

The Report, which recommends (pg 183)  that Government “work with the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals, to ensure an enabling regulatory, economic and social environment to support mutuals and co-operatives”, says the Federal Government should promote the value of mutuals and co-operatives, noting their potential to: generate positive social outcomes for people and communities; generate economic and social resilience for individuals, communities and organisations; and achieve higher levels of consumer engagement and improve employee wellbeing in the delivery of services.

The work of the Council through the White Paper on Public Services Mutuals as well as the mapping work BCCM has been doing to provide evidence of the scale and impact of the sector is explicitly recognised in the Report, including “impressive examples of mutuals and co-operatives currently operating in Australia” such as bankmecu and CBH group.

The Council will use the recommendations in the report to continue to build a coalition of the willing in support of the important role of co-operatives and mutuals in the economy. The Report’s recommendations reinforce the imminent need for the proposed Senate Inquiry into the barriers and impediments faced by the sector.

• Read the BCCM Media Release: Co-operative and Mutual Businesses Instrumental to Welfare Reform, 25 Feb
• Read Final Report Executive Summary (pg 32)
• BCCM Submission to the Welfare Inquiry