2015-09-16
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — My question is to the Minister for Families and Children, Ms Mikakos. As the minister would be aware, Colac Area Health has had the funding for its youth worker cut. However, the person in that position continues due to local efforts to continue some measure of funding for the position. Is the minister able to confirm that the funding for this position was cut under the coalition government, and in the same vein has the minister been able to take any steps to find a way to have ongoing funding reinstated?
Ms MIKAKOS (Minister for Families and Children) — I thank Mr Barber for his question. I can confirm that the defunding of this program did occur under the previous government. The 2015–17 Engage! program funding was finalised by the former government last year, and all funding has been committed for this program for three years. I understand that Colac Area Health has been extremely disappointed about not receiving Engage! funding during this three-year process, and I understand that it and many other organisations that had previously received funding for important youth programs in their areas missed out on funding for that three-year period that the previous government announced last year.
The thing that has disappointed me the most in relation to the information I have seen relates to the process the previous minister undertook in making deliberations around which groups were going to get funded. I have heard of a number of organisations that were concerned about this process, and some significant questions need to be asked about how the previous minister and government went about engaging in this process. Organisations like Colac Area Health and many others that missed out on funding deserve an explanation. An analysis of the grant applications shows there was a significant proportion of applications that seemed to be geographically skewed in how they were allocated — for example, 62 per cent of applicants from the eastern metropolitan region of the Department of Health and Human Services were successful, while only 17 per cent of applicants were successful from Mr Barber's and my electorate in the department's northern metropolitan region. I am sure that is not as a result of poor submission writing on behalf of organisations in the northern parts of Melbourne.
Regional Victoria also fared very badly in the allocation of grants by the previous government. Between 33 and 49 per cent of applications were successful from the regional areas of the Department of Health and Human Services, which is significantly less than the number that were successful in many parts of metropolitan Melbourne. A lot of questions need to be asked about how decisions were made by the previous government.
As I have explained to the member, the previous government essentially locked up the funding for this program for three years, from 2015 to 2017, so that puts me in a very difficult position in terms of assisting Colac Area Health in relation to this. However, I am very sympathetic to the position it is in. I encourage it to continue to have discussions with my department, as it has had, about its particular needs going forward into the future.
[Speech was interrupted. Click here to view the full debate.]
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — By interjection the minister was suggesting just then to the coalition member that he was asking her to fix it. In fact it is the Colac area community that is asking the minister to fix it. While that was a useful statistical analysis of the first part of my question, the minister would also be very well aware of the statistics of disadvantage in the Colac area, including high levels of school absenteeism, family violence — including family violence where children are present — and of course drug use. Apart from discussions between Colac Area Health and her department, what action is the minister willing to take in order to provide some certainty to the community about the future of its position?
Ms MIKAKOS (Minister for Families and Children) — I thank Mr Barber for his supplementary question, and I certainly hope his new-found interest in the Colac community is not related to an upcoming by-election in that community. As I said, I am very sympathetic to the Colac community in relation to this issue. As I have explained, the previous government essentially locked up funding for three years — for 2015 to 2017 — in the Engage! program in the way it made those funding decisions. I encourage Colac Area Health to continue to have discussions with the Department of Health and Human Services about its needs going forward, but the Engage! program is fully committed until 2017 under a decision of the previous government.
I have been very sympathetic to Colac. I have just announced last week a new men's shed that will be established in Colac — —
[Speech was interrupted. Click here to view the full debate.]
Ms MIKAKOS — It is interesting hearing from members of the coalition, who clearly did not speak to the minister at the time, last year, when he made the decision to defund Colac Area Health. It is very belated interest on their part.