By Kirsty Needham State Political Editor
EXCLUSIVE
A pioneering Aboriginal film-maker and disability activist, Lester Bostock, has labelled the Baird government's plan to sell off Aboriginal Home Care services to a multinational company as "racist".
Worried: Lester Bostock and his partner, Maureen Logan.Credit: Peter Rae
The Aboriginal community fears many Aboriginal jobs will be lost, and families alienated by the privatisation of government care services for the disabled and elderly next June.
Disability Services Minister John Ajaka has confirmed to Fairfax Media the government intends to include the specialist Aboriginal service within the sale of Home Care to a large, non-government provider.
An online petition is urging the retention of the Aboriginal service as a separate entity.
Aboriginal people have a much higher rate of disability, which Mr Bostock describes as the "double disadvantage", and Aboriginal Home Care provides domestic help, respite and transport for 3400 clients.
The founder of Black Theatre in the 1970s, Radio Redfern a decade later, and the first Aboriginal presenter on SBS Television, Mr Bostock is an amputee who has used Home Care for a decade.
He turned 80 this year, a "unique milestone for an Aboriginal person", he says.
Living at home with his sister and brother, with Home Care's assistance for cleaning, maintenance, and transport to medical appointments, was key to reaching his "extraordinary age".
"Aboriginal Home Care understands what I am about, my cultural needs, my transport needs. The mainstream organisations don't understand that," he says.
Mr Bostock said selling off Aboriginal services without consulting Aboriginal people "tends to be a bit racist".
Michael Evans, an Aboriginal man who was the regional manager of Aboriginal Home Care services for western NSW until four weeks ago, is sceptical that a multinational company could provide services acceptable to remote Aboriginal families.
The service was organised to fit in with Aboriginal kinship systems, which weren't understood by outsiders, he said.
"Aboriginal people significantly distrust non-Aboriginal organisations and quite often don't access the services they should because of that," said Mr Evans.
In small towns, Aboriginal Home Care was often the only government agency regularly going into homes, talking to families about a range of government services.
It provided a higher level of transport than mainstream Home Care, which Mr Evans fears would be axed by a company looking to make a profit. He gave the example of a Wilcannia to Broken Hill bus that took clients shopping to buy fresh and frozen food, with a large trailer to bring the food home.
"Any organisation that is to take on Aboriginal Home Care would need to have a majority of Aboriginal staff, not only in operational roles, but up to senior management level making decisions," said Mr Evans. "It would require a significant mindshift."
Labor's disability services spokeswoman Barbara Perry said the Aboriginal service was unique and should be retained as a separate entity, so the expertise already built up in Aboriginal communities wasn't lost.
"There is a great deal of anxiety around the Baird government's transfer of Aboriginal Home Care amongst Aboriginal users, and very little information from the government about how exactly they plan to ensure that it remains a culturally relevant and quality service run by Aboriginal people for Aboriginal people," she said.
Mr Ajaka said: "The NSW government has a clear preference to preserve Home Care as a whole, ongoing entity. It intends that Aboriginal Home Care will remain a vital part of Home Care, retaining its focussed mission and unique identity."
Professor of Social Policy at the University of Sydney, Gabrielle Meagher, said Home Care shouldn't be privatised, because there was no evidence human services were improved by the private sector.
"Around the world, when these sorts of things are privatised, you get really big for-profit companies coming in to dominate. You get a Coles and Woolworths effect, of not much choice," said Ms Meagher.