Friday, 14 November 2025

 Emma KEALY (Lowan) (17:08): (1409) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Carers and Volunteers, and the action I seek is for my electorate of Lowan to receive its fair share of funding under the community food relief program. My electorate of Lowan is like many areas of the state, which is really suffering under Labor’s cost-of-living crisis. This was further exacerbated by cruel cuts by the Albanese Labor government to our emergency food centres in the region. It was devastating for Uniting Vic to have such a cruel cut of eight services across Victoria, including Bendigo, Blackburn, Broadmeadows, Epping, Footscray, Geelong, Ringwood and St Albans. And for the Christian Emergency Food Centre in Horsham it certainly was devastating, as it was with the cut in Stawell. Some of that funding has been reinstated but not the full amount, so it is an opportunity for the state Labor government to top up the funding that was cut by the federal Labor government.

We also have a magnificent project which is looking to be established in Nhill. I spoke to Lesley Gordon, an absolute champion and a long-term member of the Lions Club in Nhill, who is seeking to establish a food pantry, a community pantry. This has been supported by local businesses, including the local IGA, and they are requiring $23,000 to establish that and to sustain it in the long-term. This is a small amount of money considering how much support it will provide people in a very remote part of the state where there is limited access to support services and there is limited access to public transport to access those other services and people really have very few places to turn. This of course highlights the issues that so many Victorians are facing at the moment when it comes to cost-of-living pressures. We know that Victoria has the second-lowest real household disposable income per capita, which is $1100 less than those who live in New South Wales.

Median rents across Victoria are up around 60 per cent under Labor. The cost of gas has doubled under Labor. Medical and hospital services: the expenses for those have gone up around 69 per cent under Labor. There has been an increase of around 49 per cent in the cost to get an education in Victoria. That is, of course, supplemented by the fact that in Victoria there are 60 new or increased taxes under Labor, and that includes for regional Victoria the devastating hit of the emergency services volunteers tax, which is putting enormous pressure not just on farmers but also on households right across the region. So I ask the Minister for Carers and Volunteers to support our local people who are struggling with the cost-of-living crisis and to make sure that we have got food relief for those who are in need so that they do not have to make cruel cuts to feed their family at night.