Neighbourhood Houses need indexed income: Drum

State funding for Neighbourhood House programs was being eroded and should be automatically indexed, National Party MP for Northern Victoria Region, Damian Drum, told State Parliament last night.

Mr Drum said the Labor Government was keen to link its own taxes and charges to the Consumer Price Index, so they rose automatically, but did not apply the same principle to its on-going funding of organisations such as Neighbourhood Houses.

Addressing his concerns to State Treasurer, John Lenders, Mr Drum cited an example of a Neighbourhood House in Robinvale which was struggling to maintain its Adult Community Education program.

“Five year ago, the State Government provided the Robinvale house with $6.11 per student contact hour. That’s a very modest sum when compared with the $9.42 per student contact hour paid to the TAFE system. It’s a level most recognise as appallingly inadequate.

“Five years later, the house now gets $6.34 per student contact hour. Even if the original amount of $6.11 had kept pace with inflation, it would now need at least $7.28 just to maintain its level of operation.”

Mr Drum said that in real terms, the neighbourhood Houses were trying to make do with an effective 14 or 15 per cent cut in funding.

The failure of the State Government to link payments such as these to the CPI meant that programs such as the Adult Community Education project would disappear. People already disadvantaged in the community would suffer again.

“I call on the Treasurer to align the payments out of Treasury for general revenue to be indexed in the way that fees and charges and taxes that come in are indexed at the moment,” he said.