Mr BYRNE (9:00 PM) —I rise tonight to talk about a large group of people, in particular a couple of organisations, that have missed out on the largesse that has been spread around by this government in the last federal budget—in fact, in the last couple of budgets. We have heard much about the amount of funding that has gone for tax cuts—$21 billion. The amount of funding that went through the last budget was $66 billion.

I want to look at the effect on the poorest and most disadvantaged in the community in my electorate. How a government looks after the poorest and most disadvantaged within the community is always a hallmark of a government—a test of a government, a test of its credibility. There are families that are struggling. I have heard my good friend Tony Abbott, the Minister for Health and Ageing, talking about the Medicare safety net and how that provides assistance to people in need. But in looking at the last budget and its effect in two key areas, I seriously question what the government is actually doing, particularly in the federal electorate of Holt. I will look at two areas. One is the Commonwealth Financial Counselling Program. The second is the provision of the emergency relief funding. They are two key areas. None of us on either side of the chamber could disagree that it is government’s role to provide funding to people in financial need as a consequence of marriage break-up et cetera or to people who are really struggling as a consequence of their financial difficulties.

If you look at the Commonwealth Financial Counselling Program in particular and the Casey Cardinia Community Legal Service, which is one of the recipients of the Commonwealth Financial Counselling Program funding, you would think, as a consequence of this massive budget surplus, that this organisation would be awash with funding to provide financial counselling to those in need in an incredibly fast-growing area in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne.

For those who do not know what the Commonwealth Financial Counselling Program is, the objective of the program is to provide access to quality financial counselling services free of charge to people in low-income groups experiencing financial crisis due to circumstances such as unemployment, sickness, credit, overcommitment and family breakdown. Unfortunately, notwithstanding the enormous growth within the economy, what has happened is that there is a large group of people experiencing family breakdown, with large levels of debt, who need this sort of service.

This is particularly so in the area of the city of Casey. The city of Casey is a microcosm of the community. The population of the city of Casey at the present time is 217,590. You might ask why I refer to this. It is basically because the population increases by 153 people per week. The city of Casey has a dial that flutters because of the number of people shifting in per week—about 50 families per week, 153 people. There are 217,000 people within the city of Casey. The 2001 census figure had the city of Casey population at about 175,000. There is enormous growth.

One would think that an organisation like the Casey Cardinia Community Legal Service, which is the primary body that provides financial counselling to people in need within the city of Casey, would have got an enormous amount of funding given the largesse that we have within the budget. In fact, when one looks at the 2005-06 budget allocations, one sees that an appropriation of approximately $2.9 million was made to the Financial Counselling Program. Under the general element, there are about 41 community based organisations like the Casey Cardinia legal service which get funding of about $71,000 per organisation to provide much-needed financial counselling. Yet despite the population and the great need that there is, given the massive number of families that are shifting into the region, the Casey Cardinia legal service has had no substantive increase in funding. The Commonwealth should have at least doubled the funding.

The same applies with the emergency relief services. The Berwick and District Benevolent Society disburses about $130,000 in emergency relief funding per annum. It is a fantastic community based organisation that provides emergency relief funding to people in need. Given that it provides the service to that same growth corridor with 217,000 people, one would expect a substantial increase in funding from the $62,000 per annum that it receives from the federal government to provide emergency relief to that enormous number of families in financial need. There was no increase in funding—no real increase in funding. That is a disgrace.

As I said, it is the hallmark of a government that it provides services to those most in need. This government, in relation to those two organisations, has failed the community. (Time expired)