Helping families in the Kimberley balance their budgets

Families in Western Australia’s Kimberley region are being encouraged to take advantage of services to help them better manage their money, with a series of advertisements launched in Broome today.

The Minister for Families, Community Services, Housing and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, visited Broome Circle to launch the advertisements, which will be run across Broome, Derby, Fitzroy Crossing, Halls Creek and Kununurra during May.

Seven community sector organisations will receive $3.6 million from the Australian Government to deliver financial counselling and money management services in the Kimberley. They help people develop financial literacy skills, manage their family budgets and save for the future.

The services also link people with affordable and safe credit and deal with immediate financial crisis and complex financial stress.

The Australian Government is investing $169,000 in the advertising campaign, including providing local company Goolarri Media $61,000 to produce the work. The advertisements feature Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and point people towards their nearest service provider.

More than 5,500 people across Western Australia accessed money management and financial counselling services to help them better manage their money last year.

Money management services also benefit Western Australian families identified under the child protection income management measure and people who voluntarily participate in income management.

The Australian Government is investing an extra $17.9 million to continue the trial of income management and financial management support services in Western Australia.

This will continue to 30 June 2012 the trials of child protection income management and voluntary income management currently being conducted across the Kimberley region and metropolitan Perth, in cooperation with the Western Australian Government.

The child protection income management measure gives the WA Department for Child Protection the power to recommend to Centrelink that income support and family payments are quarantined to ensure welfare is spent in the interests of children.

Currently, 94 families in the Kimberley are on child protection income management and 537 people are participating in voluntary income management.

The television advertisement will be broadcast on GTV35, GWN and WIN and the radio advertisement will be broadcast on mainstream and Indigenous radio.