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BOOK REVIEW
| Melanie Oppenheimer, Volunteering: Why We Can't Survive Without It, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2008. pp. xiii + 239. $39.95 paper.
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| The recent bushfire tragedies in Victoria have made Australians acutely aware of the contribution that volunteers make to our communities. Their dedication is testament to what Melanie Oppenheimer calls an 'Australian way of volunteering'. This is the central theme around which her book, Volunteering: Why We Can't Survive Without It, is framed. Melanie Oppenheimer charts the history of volunteering in Australia from 1939 until the present day identifying key changes in the way that Australians volunteer. |
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She is well qualified to write this book, not only because of the many articles she has already published on this topic, but also because she has volunteering in her bones. Melanie Oppenheimer talks about volunteering as a gift, and this book is clearly a gift to her volunteering ancestors. Each section of the book begins with a vignette outlining the volunteering work of her great-grandmother who was the Foundation President of the CWA, her grandmother who was the Commandant of Walcha VAD in World War II, and, her mother who received an Order of Australia medal for her volunteering efforts. |
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It is not surprising that it is Melanie Oppenheimer's female ancestors who were the volunteers because, as she shows, volunteering in Australia has usually been women's work. Oppenheimer shows the gendered nature of volunteering is shifting in line with other social change. Two of the most significant impacts on the 'Australian way of volunteering' have been the increased participation of women in the paid workforce and the ageing of the population. While today's volunteer is still more likely to be a woman the gender gap in volunteering is closing. This could be explained in part by the increase in the number of older Australians who volunteer. While the highest rates of volunteering occur in the 35 to 44 year age group (all that school fund raising and sport coaching), the volunteer rates of both women and men in the 55 to 64 age group have risen from 24 per cent in 1996 to 33 per cent in 2007 (pp. 187–88). |
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The increased participation of older Australians in volunteering helps to explains why participation in volunteering is steadily increasing in Australia. The first ABS report on volunteering published in 1996 found that 24 per cent of adult Australian volunteered a decade later, in 2007, this had risen to 34 per cent (p. 6). Not surprisingly all this volunteer work makes a significant contribution to our economy, estimated at around $42 billion on a year (p. 8). Yet the contribution of volunteers has been largely overlooked or taken for granted. Oppenheimer does an excellent job of charting the largely ambivalent attitude of Australian governments towards volunteering. |
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Oppenheimer very effectively uses case studies of volunteer organisations, as diverse as Little Athletics and Meals on Wheels, and the biographies of individual volunteers to show the importance of volunteering to our history. While recording these histories would be a worthwhile enough goal in itself, Oppenheimer is also concerned with a more sophisticated understanding of the relationship between the state and the volunteer sector. The comprehensive way she charts the relationship between successive governments and the volunteer sector means that the book is much more than a touching tribute to the efforts of volunteers; it is an important contribution to public policy debates. |
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During the 1950s, volunteering was at its most vibrant and innovative. New advocacy-style self-help groups were formed, service clubs were consolidated and the performing arts began to grow propelled by volunteers. While Oppenheimer points out the paradox between our perception of the 1950s and the vibrancy of the volunteer sector, I would suggest that the stability and conformity of the period may have provided Australians with enough security to explore new ways of engaging beyond their homes and workplaces. During the 1980s and 1990s, government policies lead to a blurring of the boundaries between the non-profit, for-profit and government sectors, and governments were pressed to provide a clear policy on the volunteer sector (p. 157). |
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Oppenheimer shows how the close association between governments and volunteering organisations has created a unique hybrid form of Australian volunteering. She shows that while newer forms of volunteering are more visible they are still not sufficiently valued. This, she suggests, is because governments 'have never developed a clear philosophy or understanding of volunteering and its place in our society' (p. 25). As we pay tribute to the valiant efforts of volunteers in the Victorian bushfires we need to heed Oppenheimer's invocation to do more than present awards and hold ceremonies to thank them. We also need, as Oppenheimer argues, a whole-of-government approach to volunteering, one that results in regulatory reform of the sector and establishes measures and structures that recognise the economic contribution of volunteers. Only then will we be truly thanking volunteers for the huge social and economic contribution they make to our society. |
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| University of Sydney |
LEANNE CUTCHER | |
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