DEPARTING Australian Council of Social Service president Michael Raper will take on the Prime Minister for one last time today.

Mr Raper has been a thorn in the side of the Prime Minister for the past four years, criticising John Howard on Centrelink policies, the impacts of the GST and mutual obligation.

Both Mr Raper and the PM will attend the ACOSS congress “Leaping the Chasm”, in Melbourne today.

Mr Raper has served two terms totalling four years as president, the maximum term usually permitted.

The new president, elected by a ballot of all of ACOSS’s 80 national community organisations yesterday, is Bendigo-based Andrew McCallum, head of theVictorian Council of Social Service for the past five years.

Mr McCallum has been a high-profile figure in the sector, focusing on issues of social justice and social inclusion, and will continue to work as head of St Luke’s Anglicare in Bendigo while holding the presidency.

He said ACOSS had for too long been seen as a welfare lobby, “which pushes us to the margins, when our constituency is made up of every facet of our community”.

“Policies should be inclusive rather than focusing on keeping people comfortably poor,” he said.