Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to highlight the case of a local adult education centre in my electorate. The Narre Community Learning Centre is a fantastic centre which recently approached my office regarding the loss of their right to allow individuals and businesses to claim tax deductions on donations to the centre. The centre is based in the heart of my electorate and is used by a lot of people who are coming back into the education stream—wives, people who have been out of work et cetera.

The centre previously provided a program that gave it a classification as a prescribed benevolent institute but, due to the Howard government’s scrapping of the funding of this program, the centre is subsequently losing this classification and, as a result, any donations to the centre, which are quite vital to keep the centre operating, may no longer be claimed as a tax deduction. How do you think that affects people in my electorate?

This will be a significant disadvantage to the centre, which already has to compete with larger TAFE institutes for donations and sponsorship to continue to be able to provide their students with much needed chances to return to study. The centre has a completely different client base to that of the larger TAFE institutes in that students are typically from what some could categorise as being a disadvantaged background. The services that the centre provides are vital to adults returning to study, whether it be to finish their VCE equivalent or to undertake a course to further their chances of returning to the workforce with greater skills and confidence.

As a consequence of this particular change the centre, which estimates that it received last year between $25,000 and $30,000 in sponsorship and donations, fears that this year it will not reach this amount again, let alone the goal amount that it previously had to raise, which was $100,000 in sponsorship this year by approaching larger businesses such as Bunnings to sponsor, say, a room for about $10,000.

The Narre Community Learning Centre is a centre of very high repute in my electorate. It services the areas of Narre Warren and Narre Warren South. My electorate has the highest rate of couples with dependent children in this country by a mile. It has the highest rate of people with mortgages in the country by a long way. People such as housewives wanting to return to work and people wanting to finish their VCE are trying to access these programs. This institution, in trying to do the right thing, is trying to raise money and trying to get government support. What it has got from the Howard government is a slap in the face. It is about time the Howard government started doing something to assist families in the region in this area, rather than slap them in the face. (Time expired)