Tuesday, 1 April 2025

Western Victoria Region

Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (13:04): (1504) My constituency question is to the Minister for Multicultural Affairs, and it relates to the funding certainty of multicultural groups, particularly the Ballarat Regional Multicultural Council. The problem is that there is no funding certainty. What can essentially be described as bridging grants have been made available, but there is no long-term funding certainty. BRMC do great work in the Ballarat community, from job advocacy to skills development, mentoring, language, education support and so much more. My question to the minister is: will multicultural groups, in particular Ballarat Regional Multicultural Council, be given long-term funding certainty in the next state budget, or are they going to be left in funding limbo year on year on year without any confidence of long-term security? Without funding long term, there are staff resources that could be allocated for long-term purposes but it just cannot happen at the moment.