By Deanne Jeffers
COSTS are increasing and demand for relief services are skyrocketing. To understand the impact on the community, Federal Member for Nicholls Sam Birrell and Senator for Victoria Jane Hume, who is also the Shadow Minister for Finance, Public Service and Shadow Special Minister of State, met with service providers and businesses in Shepparton on Monday.
“Australians are really doing it tough. Real disposable incomes have gone backwards 7.8 per cent just in the last two years alone,” said Senator Hume. “Sometimes we hear that regional communities have very different experiences of the cost-of-living crisis, and certainly there are some similarities with the metro-areas, but there are also some unique challenges faced by a community like this.”
Some of those unique challenges, as highlighted by Greater Shepparton Lighthouse executive officer, Amy Robinson, are transportation, housing, food security, and a lost sense of hope, particularly after the floods.
“We’ve gone through the complexity of the floods and the effects that had on our community and in particular, people’s mental health and wellbeing,” Ms Robinson said. “A lot of families are really, really doing it tough, and it’s really heartbreaking.” She said many young people are going to school without lunch and domestic violence and family violence are increasing as families are stretched to their limits.
Glenn Peric, executive officer of Shepparton FoodShare, said it the current circumstances are, “the worst we’ve ever experienced.”
“We’ve gone from averaging 400,000 kilos [of food] distributed a year to 490,000 kilos. We’ve had over 20 extra agencies registered with us in the last 12 to 18 months, which is a record for us. And the collection of food has almost doubled per day,” Glenn said.
He said Shepparton FoodShare has been lobbying the State Government for yearly funding for the last three years as the organisation does not receive recurrent funding. “We’d like to see, especially food, come up to the top and be treated like an SES or CFA-type service, to recognise that we are actually an organisation that is required, not just an emergency relief situation, but ongoing.”
Mr Birrell MP acknowledged the increased demand on services and that a new cohort of people are turning to these organisations to cope with the cost of living, adding pressure on organisations also grappling with rising costs.
“One of the things I will take home today is the distance that so many people are from hope,” Senator Hume said. “It used to be that if they found themselves in rental accommodation, if they got themselves tied over till the next pay packet, then that hope would be restored.”
“Hope is further and further away for so many families and these are families even with two incomes, families that might already have a rental accommodation.”
Across the board, service providers said they were all seeing an increase in the number of people requesting assistance, the volume of assistance required and negative outcomes from cost of living and its real-life impact on the community.
