Mission Australia

Mission Australia is a non-denominational Christian community service organisation providing family, community, employment, housing and early learning services throughout Australia. It is part of an international network of City Missions. In 2014 the organisation employed over 3800 staff with 570 services across Australia. From 1997-2006, Patrick McClure AO was CEO. From 2006 it was headed by CEO Toby Hall. From March 2014 former COO Catherine Yeomans became CEO.

The precursors to Mission Australia, the City Missions (founded by Benjamin Short), were inspired by the London City Mission established by David Nasmith. The Sydney City Mission was established in 1862, the Colporteur Society – later known as the Town and Country Mission – and then as the Brisbane City Mission established in 1869, and Adelaide City Mission – later known as Mission SA in 1867.

Australian city mission related bodies merged on 1 November 1999 to form Mission Australia, these were:

Mission Australia seeks to influence government policy on social issues through research and advocacy.

Patrick McClure, whilst Chief Executive Officer of Mission Australia chaired the Australian Government's Reference Group on Welfare Reform (1999–2000) during the second term of the Howard government. This group produced a blueprint for welfare reform "Participation Support for a More Equitable Society" (2000).

This research and advocacy is also seen in the series of reports on people experiencing disadvantage and marginalisation in Australia.

In the lead up to the 2013 Federal election, Toby Hall, Chief Executive Officer of Mission Australia spoke on the need to reform welfare.

Mission Employment, the employment services arm, has been a beneficiary of the Australian Government's privatisation of employment services since 1998. It is a major provider of Job Services Australia with roughly 140 sites throughout Australia. In December 1999, in the second round of contracts, it anticipated and became a significant provider of the then Job Network services, '(it) become the second-largest job agency in Australia behind the Salvation Army', as well as in 2000 providing 17.5 per cent of the Work for the Dole program. However, it initially struggled to achieve results compared with other agencies.

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