Food relief funding remains intact

The Liberal-National Government’s overall funding for food relief programs has not been cut.

New funding of $4.5 million starts on January 1, 2019.

This is the same level of food relief funding as in the previous period.

The Department of Social Services received six applications from organisations to deliver Food Relief.

After a rigorous, competitive selection process managed by DSS, three organisations, Foodbank, OzHarvest and Second Bite, were found suitable to deliver Food Relief to Australians.

Two of the successful organisations, Foodbank and Second Bite are existing providers. The selection panel considered that the introduction of a new provider would complement existing arrangements.

FoodBank does excellent work in the food relief space. They’ve received $1.925m in the latest round of grants – more than any other organisation.

OzHarvest is receiving funding for the first time and SecondBite has had an increase of $100,000.

The Liberal-National Government has also announced $200m in Emergency Relief funding across Australia.

Emergency Relief goes to regions covering all of Australia. For most of the NGOs involved, funding has remained constant or has increased.

More than 530,000 disadvantaged Australians were helped through Emergency Relief last year.