The willingness of the tens of thousands of people who ensured the smooth running of the Olympic and Paralympic Games to cooperate and work for "the public good", without financial gain (apart from a new pair of trousers and a shirt), was inspiring. They proved that money is not always the main incentive for action.
The volunteers' reward was knowing that they had made a meaningful contribution to a successful project. The public thank you parades were a bonus.
But what of everyday volunteering?
In November 1997, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2001 the International Year of the Volunteer. In Australia, the federal government has set themes for each month: January is volunteer work with pets and animals, February is for the arts and heritage, March is for the environment, April is for youth, and so on until December, in which corporate volunteer programs are celebrated.
Announcing on October 5 that the federal government will provide $2.5 million for local community initiatives (up to $5000 for each project) next year, minister for family and community services Jocelyn Newman said this would continue "Australia's proud tradition of volunteering that had been showcased to the world through the superlative efforts of our Olympic volunteers ... Volunteers and voluntary organisations build leaders, create and sustain communities, develop people's skills and encourage partnerships. Where there is a strong and committed volunteer ethos, there is a strong community."
Organising collectively can strengthen communities and develop cooperation between individuals, but government encouragement of volunteering is less about developing community leaders than about plugging the gaping holes created by the economic rationalist policies introduced by Labor and Coalition governments.
As funding for health and welfare has been slashed, charities and community groups have been called on to put more fingers in the leaking dykes to try to contain the flood of people in need of community services.
The authors of Australians Living on the Edge, a survey of the community welfare sector by the Australian Council of Social Service, said the report "presents a picture of rising needs among low-income and disadvantaged Australians and a community services sector operating under enormous pressure".
The survey found that 67% of agencies reported an increase in the number of people they assisted, the main reasons being an increase in referrals from other agencies, an increase in the complexity of client needs, and changes in federal and state policies.
Some 80% of agencies reported that they were operating at maximum capacity; 35% said they were running at beyond capacity. A reduction in government funding was experienced by 21% of agencies.
Many agencies are asking staff to provide additional unpaid work and are turning to volunteers. One agency worker said, "We will need to access more unpaid workers, whereas what we really require are qualified psychologists and social workers for our client group".
Without full government funding to meet people's needs, the poor, the disturbed, the old and the sick will simply live and die on the streets, or charities will try to tend to the most needy.
As government spending falls, the care of the sick, the young and the elderly will fall mostly to individual women in the home. Grandmothers are increasingly asked to provide not just occasional, but full-time child-care. Women are often forced to work part-time so they can attend to family members. It is mainly older women who contribute the countless unpaid hours for charitable and community organisations.
The federal Coalition's push to revive conservative family values provides the ideological justification for burdening women with ever increasing responsibility for social services.
A few decades ago, a strong women's liberation movement pushed governments to fund public services to do many of the tasks that women had traditionally performed. The decline in strength of the movement has allowed the balance to tip in favour of government cost-cutting. Only the rebuilding of a strong women's liberation movement will reverse this trend.
BY MARGARET ALLUM