Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Pocock for the question and for his interest in this area. This is an area of priority for the government. When I came in as finance minister, we did an assessment of the indexation arrangements that existed for community organisations. They'd been inadequately indexed for a substantial period of time. In the last budget, the most significant investment was made in the community sector to deal with the ability to meet wage increases and other costs. Minister Rishworth has also provided additional investment into the wellbeing and capability grants program, which goes directly to some of those emergency providers of food relief.

We will continue to work with the community sector. I have a good relationship with ACOSS and other peaks, which I meet with pretty regularly, as do other ministers, about prioritising further investments. I am aware of the community legal services issues. Again, they have been operating on very low funding for the work that they do for some time. The Attorney has held a review into that. That work is before government. We absolutely see our role with the community sector as a partnership and work closely with them.

In terms of the funding, some of those grants are time limited. Some of them go through a procurement process. So, on your question about committing to funding, I'm not in a position to do that today. But our focus has been on extra support for the community organisations through direct engagement with them, and that's the way we will continue to engage with them.