Wednesday, 12 November 2025

 Jordan CRUGNALE (Bass) (14:40): My question is to the Minister for Carers and Volunteers. What are we doing to better support our neighbourhood houses? They are community connectors and deliver a breadth of programs and services – food relief, housing support, L2P, youth activities, mental health, navigating government services, IT, being a safe space to connect, and the list goes on and on. It was wonderful to attend the Gippsland network AGM, a collective of 22 houses, this week and accept 860 ‘Keep our doors open’ campaign postcards to give to you in person – more to come – and also from the Blind Bight and Lang Lang community centres. Thank you, network manager Toni Halloran-Lavelle and committee Alyson Skinner, Jenni Keerie, Michael Glebov, Nathan Brown, Richard Lanham and all the dedicated professional and community-at-heart centre managers across this network and in my electorate: Wonthaggi, Phillip Island Community & Learning Centre, Inverloch, Bass, Corinella, Lang Lang, Blind Bight. I am proud to sign the postcard because, as it says, strong communities start here.