The federal government’s backflip on a proposed funding cut for charity Foodbank has returned resources to the status quo but more help is still needed.
Foodbank SA chief executive officer Greg Pattinson said there was a good argument that more funding, not less, was required to keep up with increasing demand for its services.
Social Services Minister Paul Fletcher had said $750,000 in funding for the charity’s Key Staples Program would be cut to $427,000 a year, before Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced on Twitter that original funds would be maintained – following a public outcry.
Mr Pattinson said the program worked with food manufacturers to access important pantry staples, such as cereal, meat and milk.
“These are things we never get enough of donated,” he said.
“We get grain donations from farmers and this helps that get turned into cereal.
“We turn $750,000 in donations into $8 million worth of food.”
Mr Pattinson said before the cut was announced, they had put forward a proposal to increase funding, based on increased demand.
He said the latest survey showed more than 700,000 people across Australia needed Foodbank’s services with a “significant increase in the number of people living in rural and regional Australia”.
“The drought has exacerbated this even further,” he said.
Mr Pattinson said Foodbank depots in Mount Gambier, Berri and Whyalla were all trending well above last year in demand.
He said a recently set-up food hub in Mount Gambier, which allowed people to buy the essential groceries at discounted prices, led to double the demand almost overnight.
But he rejected a suggestion from Mr Morrion’s tweet about the need to find a way to balance food relief with the needs of local businesses.
“We have documented proof that a food hub does not impact on local retail businesses,” he said.
“People still buy other things at supermarkets that they might not have otherwise been able to afford.”
Mr Pattinson said he was also working with the state government to try and minimise the “tyranny of distance” when it came to transporting food to those that needed it in regional SA.
“The rescued food is in Adelaide and we need to get it to, say Pinnaroo and Lameroo, so we’re trying to work out how to get to regional areas more frequently than we have been,” he said.
Mr Pattinson said there had been one positive from the proposed cut, calling the bipartisan support from politicians, and the public, “remarkable”.