Emergency Relief Funding

Question

Senator Ayres: which is drawn from that discretionary fund. The four organisations that you mentioned, I think, recently-last December-received on top of that base funding an additional $500,000 each. Anglicare, the Salvation Army, St Vincent de Paul and UnitingCare said this funding is welcome and necessary. They went on to say they'll help make sure people can get support when they need it most. There are substantial increases in funding there. Senator RUSTON: I suppose that definition of substantial- Ms McKenzie: I might be able to help there. As the minister is describing, when we did the new funding agreements, which started in, I think, October last year, there was a significant increase to the base level of funding for those organisations. It was about tripled. Senator RUSTON: From what to what? Ms McKenzie: It's tripled to about $4 million. We can get you the detailed breakdown. Senator RUSTON: Each? Ms McKenzie: No, overall. Senator RUSTON: So they get about $1 million each. Ms McKenzie: Now they get about, on average-it's different by provider, so it's an average rather than an allocation. So what had happened historically was- Senator RUSTON: So they were getting about $300 million- Ms McKenzie: quite significant surge funding. There'd been a base level, and then a lot was less predictable. Obviously, it's very important in running organisations to have continuity and confidence in the base. Senator RUSTON: What would be really helpful would be to actually get, for the last six years, the base funding plus additional funding for those four organisations, just to get an idea of what they'd been getting over that period of time. Ms Hrast: We can do that on notice.

Answer

Please see attached answer.

Documents

• Question with answer (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
• DSS SQ26-000762.pdf (opens in a new tab)