Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Bendigo Foodshare provides food to those most in need. Last financial year alone, it rescued and handed out over 585,000 kilos of food to our local community. Bendigo Foodshare supports more than 40 schools with breakfast programs. It supports more than 40 organisations in preparing meals and distributing emergency food relief. However, the organisation was hit pretty hard at the beginning of this year and the end of last year when Foodbank Victoria stopped delivering refrigerated food to Bendigo. The donations that it received and the food that it was to hand out almost halved, meaning that people in Bendigo were literally going hungry.

Today, we can acknowledge the state Labor government, who have stepped in to help out by providing funding to Bendigo Foodshare to help ensure that that refrigerated food does get to Bendigo and can be distributed. I have also written to the Treasurer and asked that he match that funding in tonight's budget to help ensure that our emergency food relief agencies are able to receive food and to distribute the food to those most in need in our regional electorates.