“As a country we need all the volunteers we can get,” says Senator Carol Brown

On Tuesday 16 November 2010 Federal Senator Carol Brown made a speech to Parliament highlighting the importance of volunteering within the community. She made particular reference to Tasmania and some of the organisations supporting volunteering. Senator Brown urges all elected representatives to encourage, support, protect and strengthen volunteering.

“I would like to emphasise today that we must not take our volunteers for granted. We must do everything in our power as elected representatives to strengthen volunteering. We need to encourage, support and protect our volunteers, and to work cooperatively with organisations who monitor and respond to changes in the patterns of volunteering, especially as they impact on community resilience and social inclusion…Volunteering is a strategic investment in Australia in terms of its social capital, its contribution to the economy and its offsets to government expenditure,” Senator Brown said.

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