Government Partnership
Our Partnership with Government
Establishing the SPPU
· The Council of Australian Governments (COAG)-Indigenous partnership in Shepparton was established between the three levels of government and the Indigenous community and formalised in the signing of a COMPACT in late 2003. This agreement details how the partners will work together and their priorities, vision and objectives. The partnership was established to improve the social and economic well-being of the Aboriginal community and support cultural sustainability.
Shepparton was chosen as one of eight locations nationally to create these partnerships due to the outstanding leadership and innovation of local Aboriginal organisations and leaders in the area.
· The Aboriginal community are undertaking a major project to reshape their representative arrangements. Until these arrangements are in place, they are being represented by an interim group, the Aboriginal Community Facilitation Group, (ACFG), consisting of representatives from a range of Shepparton’s Aboriginal organisations.
State and Federal governments funded the Aboriginal Community Strategic Planning and Policy Unit (SPPU) in 2006 for a two year period (recently extended for another four years) to support the ACFG and give it the capacity to have an equal voice at the partnership table and meet its commitments under the COMPACT. SPPU does this through community engagement, policy development, research, capacity building and building stakeholder partnerships.
Achievements
The Shepparton partnership has been an important learning experience for all and, to date, there have been valuable achievements in education, in the creation of planning information, in the opening of a new Community Art Gallery, in the development of a quarterly newsletter distributed to all households and in the establishment of a Community Engagement Team and the Strategic Planning and Policy Unit. These achievements are outlined in our Report to Community 2007.
In 2006, the Shepparton COAG trial was formally evaluated. For further information see the Evaluation Report: www.oipc.gov.au/publications/default.asp
A partnership networking analysis undertaken in 2007 by the Evaluation Unit of the State Department of Planning and Community Development using an instrument developed by the University of Melbourne, has shown that without the SPPU and State ‘Outcomes Broker’ the day-to-day work of the partnership could not be achieved. It also found that the maintained commitment of the State and Federal governments and community members was identified by all parties as a major achievement of the partnership.