Wednesday, 14 May 2025

Legal and Social Issues Committee

Inquiry into Food Security in Victoria

Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:07): I rise to speak about the Legislative Council’s Legal and Social Issues Committee’s food security in Victoria inquiry of 2024. This report came out before I was on the actual committee, but given my expertise in education, I think it is important to bring this matter to the house. Given the importance of food education in fostering healthy eating habits and addressing food security issues within the school curriculum, I am responding to this report and calling on the government to commit to funding recommendation 1 of the Legislative Council Legal and Social Issues Committee inquiry into food security in Victoria November 2024, which states:

That the Victorian Government provide support to schools who wish to expand their food education programs, including encouraging them to take a place-based approach by working collaboratively with local communities to meet the specific needs and challenges of each region.

The place-based approach means involving potentially local farmers, chefs and food-related businesses who collaborate with schools to provide hands-on learning experiences. I commend the work of the committee, which has as its terms of reference:

(1) the impact of food insecurity in Victoria, on –

(a) physical and mental health;

(b) poverty and hardship; and

(2) options available to lower the cost of food and improve access to affordable, nutritious and culturally appropriate food.

These experiences could be something like farm visits, cooking classes or gardening projects, helping students to develop practical skills like growing, cooking and preparing nutritious meals. The goal of this approach is to connect students with their local food systems, fostering both a sense of community and a deeper understanding of sustainable healthy eating practices.

The report outlines that one of the worst impacts of our recent cost of living crisis is food insecurity, and we have seen in Victoria that there has been a huge increase in both the number of people needing to access food relief services and the amount of food that has been distributed across the community. There are many reasons why people are in this position – obviously the government has to take responsibility for this – with the obvious one being the rising price of food connected with the dire circumstances that families are now finding themselves in financially.

Food security has a dramatic impact on individuals and families. The committee heard how physical and mental health suffers when people do not have access to adequate nutritious and culturally appropriate food. What happens to our most vulnerable children – our children – when they do not have enough food? This, according to the inquiry, has been a recurring theme that has been raised through the inquiry: the importance of integrating food education more thoroughly into curriculums and community programs. I do know that teachers are overwhelmed with the clutter in our curriculum, but the Victorian government have acknowledged in their submission to the inquiry that one of the key challenges faced by young people is limited nutrition literacy, as well as insufficient opportunity to source and cook nutritious food.

I had the great privilege of doing a school visit to Oatlands Primary School last year. In inquiring about a particular mural that they had designed I was taken internally into the school to discover that they actually have a food tech room for primary school students. Outside that food tech room they have a beautiful vegetable and herb garden, and the children were actually growing vegetables and herbs and then having lessons on how to use those vegetables and herbs in their own cooking, which was being facilitated in this gorgeous primary school food tech room. I personally think that that is a great facility. It really distresses me that Oatlands Primary School has been chopped to pieces by this government and been forced to halve and reduce its staff. I think they were forced to reduce 40 staff last year, when they had a thriving school, were doing an incredible program and were actually meeting some of the needs that were reported about in this particular report.

There are other schools doing other things. Some schools have embedded food literacy as a mandatory component of the curriculum and others are doing it on an elective basis. Submissions made to the inquiry highlighted the benefit of school programs providing practical skills around food preparation, cooking and nutrition, which will help young people build confidence and knowledge in healthy eating practices. These are all from submission 78, page 7; 35; and 7 to 38. These findings show that teaching these life skills early in childhood education is seen to empower young people to make healthy food choices throughout their lives. I do want to commend this. There are a number of great programs suggested here, but one in four children are living in poverty just in the Greater Dandenong area alone, so this does need to be addressed. There are a number of things in the inquiry worth looking at.