Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today in the House to raise concerns about funding for financial counselling services across this nation. Although we will not know until the budget, there is a lot of concern within the financial counselling sector about what might occur with respect to rumours of cuts in the order of 20 to 30 per cent. The importance of financial counselling—particularly in the current environment, where so many people are losing their jobs—would be understood by all members. The fact is that we continually see people in our offices under severe financial stress, and it is often imperative that they get the advice that they need to ensure that they can safeguard their personal circumstances.

So I would urge the government to be very careful and think twice before it moves down the track of cutting support in the financial counselling sector. When we look at the funding in this area, we are talking about a situation nationwide where funding is roughly $20 million from the Commonwealth and some $23 million from state and territory governments, so you will see a direct impact, probably beyond the actual cut, across the board if these changes are made.

When we look at financial counselling, we can see a situation where some 2.5 million Australians, some 13 per cent of the population, live in households of high financial stress, and there are some 960 financial counsellors, roughly one for every 2,600 people in financial difficulty. Face to face, they see between 80,000 and 100,000 clients per year, and there are 120,000 calls to the 1800 number. This is essential to providing the services needed to ensure people can deal with the difficult financial circumstances they are facing at this time.

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