Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Community Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Deakin for his question. It was indeed a pleasure to be with the member for Deakin at services in his area just a week or so ago. We saw the support being provided to vulnerable families at a time of crisis when they visit the centres. In the budget we saw significant financial support through emergency relief for vulnerable Australians. In fact, there is $171.9 million for frontline community organisations for financial management programs. There are the big providers, such as the Salvation Army, Anglicare, St Vincent de Paul and others, right down to community houses that provide some emergency relief. Certainly, when it comes to emergency relief, a whole range of organisations across the country are providing it. In this budget we have added an extra $83.3 million over four years for emergency relief. That includes $4 million also for Foodbank Australia, which is $1 million each year for the next four years. So there are a whole range of measures in that emergency relief that we are supporting vulnerable Australians with. This measure is after the GFC top-up. In the two previous years, as a global financial crisis measure, we boosted funding for emergency relief during the global financial crisis. As the minister and I went around the country talking to providers, it became very obvious that the need was still there in the local communities, and we had lobbying from members such as the member for Deakin—and I notice that the member for Blair is here also—who were saying that the need was still very high in their local communities and asking what was happening with emergency relief. The end of the global financial crisis funding was 30 June, and organisations were expecting funding to go back to pre-GFC levels. In this budget we have been able to achieve ongoing secure funding of the base funding. It is a significant increase on the base funding. It is in fact the largest increase to the base funding of emergency relief since the program began in 1977.

This additional money will support an additional 500,000 vulnerable Australians and vulnerable families at a time of crisis. Last financial year, with the global financial crisis additional top-up, more than one million Australians were assisted at emergency relief outlets right around the country. I have had the privilege to travel and visit many of these outlets around the country in my role as parliamentary secretary. As I said, whether it be from the larger providers or from the local community providers, it is certainly a much-needed service in our local communities. You get families turning up for whatever reason—they have had a car breakdown or they have had an unexpected bill—who need some additional one-off support. Also, some of the emergency relief providers now, with the flexibility that we have provided them, are putting on case management workers who, on repeat visits with clients, are sitting down with them and asking, 'Is there something else we can help you with?' and then referring them on to other services for their financial literacy skills or their financial support. That might be through low-interest loans, which the government is also supporting with an additional $60 million in the budget, also over four years, through the Good Shepherd organisation or the Brotherhood of St Laurence.

We have put together a range of measures, a whole suite of them, to support these families. The Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs just referred to one of them in terms of the bill that has gone through the House, with more flexibility in the family tax benefit for people. There are a range of measures for these vulnerable families at a time of crisis. The government is providing that support so that they can get a hand up to get on with their lives and support their families and their children.

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