28th Nov 11

On November 24th 1971 a flight landed in Sydney just after dawn. From Heathrow via Frankfurt, Beirut, Tehran, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Darwin, it disgorged its weary load of migrants after 38 hours of flying time.

I was one of those migrants.

I remember the scent of frangipani in Darwin, the quality of the Sydney light, the strange sight of men wearing shorts to work and the overwhelming hospitality of ordinary Australian families to this stranger in their midst.

There were nearly 13 million people in Australia. Australian forces were bogged down in an unwinnable war in Vietnam. There were fears of a dominant China. Compared with the rest of the world Australia was a land of great opportunity. The music-driven, drug influenced baby boomer cultural and social revolution which had been building for a decade had already produced the summer of love in San Francisco in 1967, anti-Vietnam war protests across the world and the May 1968 wildcat general strike in Paris. Older generations just did not get it, as Bob Dylan sneered “something’s happening here and you don’t know what it is, do you Mr Jones”. My parents, in their late thirties when I was born, were sadly left behind, forever disconcerted by rapid, unanticipated changes they could neither fully understand nor control.

The surging but chaotic tide of hope and expectation was to lift Gough Whitlam to power a year after my arrival. It was a time of significant change and heightened expectations.

Riding the same wave in 1974 an embryonic LCSA was formed as the Local Community Services Division of NCOSS and by 1976 there were 40 member centres.

We all know how our sector has grown haphazardly in its rich diversity as individual centres built on the strengths, responded to the needs and reflected the hopes and aspirations of their own particular communities. However we have always been held together by some simple common principles and philosophies which are well expressed in the neighbourhood centre policy: social inclusion (originally expressed as affirmative action towards disadvantaged people and groups), local participation and control and community development.

The intervening years have been filled with twists and turns which no one could have predicted at the beginning of the 1970s. Cycles of economic boom and bust, the expansion of government into many more areas of daily life, the rise of both economic rationalism and the development of the stock market as a casino for the super rich, purchaser/provider relationships between government and service providers and globalisation all have had their impact on the nation as a whole and on our individual neighbourhood centres and services. Many hopes withered and remain unfulfilled as the summer of love generation discovered its capacity for power, affluence and security.

Who knows what the next 40 years will bring?

In the midst of all this there have been two change trajectories which I believe are particularly significant.

The first is the rise, then decline and now renewal of community development. Recognition of the role and significance of community development was essential to the emergence of neighbourhood centres as a significant resource for their communities. However over time governments neglected the capacity of communities to engage their strengths in their own development, focussing almost exclusively on service delivery through casework. The inadequacy of this approach is now evident. Across the world there is a new interest in community development as community building, community strengthening and community capacity building.

The other is the communications revolution which has the potential to generate even more profound social change than that heady era 40 years ago.

Today, there are nearly 23 million in Australia. Australian forces are bogged down in an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. There are fears of the military implications of a resurgent China. Compared with the rest of the world Australia is a land of great opportunity. The profit driven, nerd influenced electronic revolution which has been building for over a decade has already produced teenage millionaires, iPad, facebook, the txtng evolution of the English language and sedentary children. Young people know my generation just does not get it in this digital age.

However the hope of 40 years ago seems to be missing. As four decades of western avarice unravel in the economies of Europe and the United States, uncertainty and fear dominate. The new revolution is profit driven, promoting efficiency and speed not the advancement those who are missing out or in danger of being left behind. Access to technology can widen already existing divides.

However, the digital revolution is democratising the flow of communication, information and opinion. It is no longer the sole preserve of the powerful and the media elite. Anyone can start a blog pass on something they think is important or engage social media at virtually no cost.

Like my parents four decades ago, I experience this current revolution as unanticipated and something I cannot fully understand nor control. Like them, I may well be left behind. Nevertheless, I find myself excited by the possibilities the digital revolution offers our sector as we continue to promote the values and practices our movement has nurtured through the challenges and chances of the past four decades. I believe we can rise to its many challenges and opportunities.