Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I wish to raise in the House the outrageous treatment of the Fairfield Community Aid and Information Service by the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, formerly the Department of Family and Community Services. Fairfield Community Aid has not received its funding for 2005-06. As a result, it has closed its service to the public. Fairfield Community Aid has for 36 years carried out the vital role in my electorate of providing emergency funding to the least well off in our community. The Department of Family and Community Services have said that they have identified some accounting problems at Fairfield Community Aid, and I accept that. I accept it as their right to withdraw funding as they see fit.

My argument with the Department of Family and Community Services is that they have put in place absolutely inadequate safeguards, considering the withdrawal of that funding. It took me and the local paper some time to find out that $40,000 in emergency funding had been provided to the Salvation Army to compensate for the withdrawal of funding from Fairfield Community Aid. But the department said that they would not release that information, they would not make it public, because too many people might come and knock on the door of the Salvation Army and ask for the money, and that might cause a riot. Sir Humphrey Appleby has arrived in Fairfield! They are saying that they will not announce where emergency funding has gone, because too many people might need it. Too many people might come and ask the Salvation Army for the money. The Salvation Army have indicated that they have very limited resources—(Time expired)