Tuesday, 28 October 2025

 Anasina GRAY-BARBERIO (Northern Metropolitan) (22:45): (2037) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Carers and Volunteers, and the action I seek is to increase the funding to the neighbourhood house coordination program by 25 per cent to restore the original 80–20 wage to operating cost split. Neighbourhood houses across Victoria are struggling because of years of government underfunding and underinvestment. Funding from the neighbourhood house coordination program has fallen so far behind that every dollar now goes straight to paying staff wages, leaving nothing for essential operations like electricity, internet and phone bills.

For some neighbourhood houses the neighbourhood house coordination program does not even meet the cost of employing a manager. Almost half of all neighbourhood houses have been running at a loss for the past two years, and four have already closed their doors because of insolvency. Many others are cutting back their opening hours to save costs, meaning fewer opportunities for people to connect, learn and get support. This is not because communities do not care, it is because this Labor government has stopped investing in them. Across the state 401 neighbourhood houses and 16 neighbourhood house networks generate $921 million in measurable community value every year. That is approximately $21.92 of benefit for every dollar of government funding. Each week neighbourhood houses welcome 185,000 visitors, employ 5900 Victorians and support 12,000 volunteers. They run 426,000 activity sessions, provide 2900 tonnes of food relief and help thousands of people access vital government services.

Before arriving to this place, I used to volunteer at the Dallas Neighbourhood House in their popular food relief program, and it was very clear to me that the need of the community is increasing, but the funding support is not keeping up. Neighbourhood houses are an essential part of the local infrastructure, Minister, and they deserve to be resourced, supported and funded adequately and fairly to meet rising local needs.