Speeches
Tuesday, 21 October 2025
South Australian Council of Social Service Conference
I am pleased to join the SACOSS community this morning to open Vital Support: A Community Sector Funding and Workforce Conference.
As Governor, I am honoured to serve, with my husband Rod, as patron or joint patron of some 200 organisations.
A number of these organisations are represented here today.
Each year, Rod and I have the privilege of engaging with not-for-profit, social service organisations.
We visit your offices, meet your clients, and witness firsthand the profound impact of your work on South Australians.
We see how you amplify the voices of those who need, such as through the Hutt Street Centre’s Walk a Mile in My Boots initiative, in which I participated in August.
We observe you providing guidance and resources to young people, such as those supported by Carers SA, for whom I hosted a morning tea for young carers earlier this month.
We are pleased by how you provide guidance and advice to refugees, such as those supported by the Australian Refugee Association, for whom the Governor’s Deputy held a celebration to mark their 50th anniversary in September.
We are also heartened to see you support people with disabilities to reach their potential, such as clients of Community Living Australia[1], whose art exhibitions it has been my pleasure to open in previous years.
From my engagement with your sector, it is clear that you are often working with limited resources and in the face of growing demand.
I am acutely aware of the contemporary challenges not-for-profit, community service organisations are navigating in contemporary times.
Organisations like Bedford and the MS Society of South Australia and Northern Territory have recently faced significant financial pressures, while changes to the NDIS have created uncertainty for providers and participants alike.
These difficulties are compounded by workforce shortages, funding uncertainty, administrative burdens, and the widening gap between demand for services and your capacity to meet that demand.
Within this challenging context, I am heartened by the resilience, agility and innovation I see across the sector as you adapt, collaborate and advocate for better outcomes.
Where Rod and I can, we are pleased to offer organisations opportunities to come together and to meet one another as what we, as former diplomats, would call “likemindeds”.
Each year, Rod and I host a garden party at Government House to thank our patronage organisations for their extraordinary contributions to South Australia.
This gathering provides an opportunity for leaders, staff, volunteers and clients to see the magnitude and diversity of the work being undertaken across the State.
We have also convened working lunches at Government House, bringing together leaders from organisations working in similar fields who may not have previously collaborated, creating space for you to discuss challenges, share approaches and forge new opportunities for cooperation.
I note that today's program addresses many of the critical issues facing your sector.
These include funding sustainability and workforce planning, to the role of artificial intelligence, and the importance of proper resourcing through initiatives like the national Pay What it Takes[2] campaign, which questions whether low overheads are necessarily good for the not-for-profit-sector.
I am particularly pleased to see SACOSS launching its Give Credit Campaign[3] this morning, which will elevate the voices of the more than 77,000 staff and volunteers working across more than 740 organisations in South Australia's community services sector.
This campaign recognises something fundamental: that behind every statistic, every service, every success story, there are dedicated individuals whose names and contributions deserve to be known and celebrated.
We will hear more about this shortly from the CEO, Dr Catherine Earl.
I thank the SACOSS Board and staff for developing and running this conference, and for the organisation's 77 years of advocacy and leadership on behalf of South Australia's community services sector.
Your work identifying and exposing poverty, inequality and injustice, while advocating for policy solutions and fostering collaborative action, makes an indelible mark on our State.
Friends
I wish you all a productive and engaging conference.
As you continue your unwavering pursuit of justice, opportunity and shared wealth for all South Australians, know that your work is, as the conference theme says, vital: vital to the people you serve, and vital to the health and wellbeing of our state.
It is now my pleasure to declare the conference open.
[1] Hutt St Centre, ARA and Community Living Australia are all SACOSS members