Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to give voice to the concerns of community support providers whom I met at a roundtable hosted by Tim Wilson, the former member for Goldstein and now Liberal candidate for Goldstein. We, together, met with representatives from Bayside Community Emergency Relief, the Hampton and Highett Community Centres, the Committee Information and Support Glen Eira, the City of Bayside Council and the City of Glen Eira Council. I want to thank these organisations not only for taking the time to meet with Tim and me but for the invaluable work that they do in their communities.

Our not-for-profit sector is really doing it tough. Rising rents, mortgages, supermarket prices, energy bills and accumulating daily expenses mean that those who are already experiencing financial pressure are struggling even more. One organisation told Tim and me that their emergency relief has more than doubled in recent times because families are struggling to make ends meet. While it's potentially very easy in this place to talk of economics in terms of dollars and cents, the significant human impact is perhaps the most confronting.

The Committee on the Cost of Living, which I chair, hears from community groups like this, who witness on a daily basis when people are under financial pressure and the human toll it takes. Charitable organisations are doing everything they possibly can to keep up with the demand in their local communities, all while trying to keep up with their own cost pressures. The Albanese government has failed to remove those pressures that are impeding these organisations from helping their communities, and this last inflation data proves that Labor is entirely out of touch with economic reality. The people of Goldstein and indeed the people of Australia can't afford another three years of Labor. That's why they need Tim Wilson back— (Time expired)