The next Federal Government must take serious  action to properly invest in the community sector, recognise our clear leadership role in civil society, and better support our major national contributions. This includes collaborating with the Sector and charities more generally, to resource and implement the National Not-for-Profit Sector Development Blueprint (the Blueprint), both its policy vision and proposed governance structure.  

The Blueprint offers a detailed, non-partisan and independent reform roadmap to ensure our sector can thrive and better support Australia’s people and places as well as civil society. In implementing the Blueprint, the next Federal Government must prioritise improving the financial sustainability of the sector, as outlined below. 

Given that, for the 2025 Federal Election, the community sector is urging all major parties and candidates to guarantee fair funding for frontline services, and to adopt the following policies for the next Federal Parliamentary term: 

Make the funding system fairer and more flexible for the sector and its workforce 

1. Develop a better funding model in collaboration with the sector that covers the full cost of providing complex social services to people and communities in need across the country (refer to Initiative 4 of the Blueprint).
   
   
2. Ensure a robust sector workforce with quality jobs and services through adequately funded standards for accredited training and staffing levels, investing in sector-specific skills and training, lifting pay and improving job security (Refer to Initiatives 4 and 11 of the Blueprint).
   
   
3. Guarantee Commonwealth funding for relevant pay decisions, or improved work conditions, made by the Fair Work Commission, as well as any further determinations such as improving gender pay inequity in the sector (Refer to Initiatives 4 and 11 of the Blueprint).
   
   
4. Ensure indexation applied to Commonwealth grants for community organisations is fit-for-purpose, consistent across different agencies, more equitable, more transparent and better aligned to changing sector operating costs over time (Refer to Initiative 4 of the Blueprint).
   
   
5. Increase the length of standard Commonwealth grants to community services to a minimum of five years, and 10 years for service delivery in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, with a 6-month minimum notification period for renewal or cessation of funding (Refer to Initiative 4 of the Blueprint).
   
   
6. Improve flexibility in Commonwealth grants so that organisations have more control over how to best use funds to help people in need, especially responding to disasters.
   
   Address urgent community need for more crisis response services
   
   
7. Inject emergency funds into crisis response services to help more people currently facing severe financial distress such as food and emergency relief, community legal services and financial counselling.
   
   
8. Immediately boost funding to expand specialist domestic, family and sexual violence services to stop gender-based violence.
   
   
9. Provide quarantined funding to specialist services and workforces for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities (Refer to Initiatives 4 and 8 of the Blueprint).
   
   
10. Further invest in prevention and early intervention services that work with people before problems become crises, and reduce the community need for crisis response services in the medium to longer-term. Collaborate with our sector to design these services.
    
    Strengthen our voice as community advocates for people in need
    
    
11. Adequately fund community peak bodies and advocacy organisations to undertake their systemic advocacy and engagement work to improve government decisions, policies and services (Refer to Initiative 3 of the Blueprint).