Thursday, 9 June 2022

Aboriginal community funding

Mr GEPP (Northern Victoria) (10:30): President, my brother, love and condolences from my family to yours during this very difficult time.

One of the great highlights of this year’s state budget was the $400 million in funding to support Aboriginal Victorians across a range of programs from health to education and family services: $151.4 million for treaty; $35.7 million to promote, protect and celebrate Victoria’s invaluable Aboriginal cultural heritage; $13.5 million to support registered Aboriginal parties; and continued funding and support for the plethora of Indigenous grants this government has initiated and made available since 2014. This is great news for Northern Victoria Region. We have so many mobs in my electorate, and I was honoured and very humbled recently to have been in touch with many of these tireless Aboriginal groups and organisations to inform them of some of the pretty significant funding announcements which were made during the budget and which I will share next sitting week. With the election of the Albanese commonwealth government, the appointment of Linda Burney as Minister for Indigenous Australians and an unwavering commitment to the Uluru Statement from the Heart and truth telling, our shared story as a state and a nation is only going to get so much better and so much stronger.