Housing, petrol, rent or mortgages, bills and even food — the cost of living is so crushingly high that most Victorians can’t afford the essentials.
It’s a significant and unavoidable issue that impacts individuals and families, but it also places a strain on local organisations that provide support.
“The cost-of-living crisis affecting households is also a cost-of-doing-business crisis for many, particularly small businesses facing higher wages, energy bills and rent,” Victorian Senator and Shadow Minister for Finance Jane Hume said.
“Margins are being squeezed to the point that we’re seeing record levels of insolvencies, particularly in regional Victoria.”
On Monday, August 5, those worries rippled through a roundtable discussion hosted by Federal Member for Nicholls Sam Birrell and Senator Hume.
Representatives from local service providers gathered at Mr Birrell’s office in Shepparton to share their perspectives on the specific areas affected within their organisations and collaborate on potential solutions.
One of the providers present was Shepparton FoodShare, which collects and redistributes food donations for free to people in need.
Shepparton FoodShare executive officer Glenn Peric said the cost-of-living crisis has been the worst circumstance the charity had experienced in its history, inclusive of COVID-19 and the October 2022 floods.
“(We’ve had) a significant increase in demand at the moment — from averaging 400,000kg distributed a year to 490,000kg,” he said.
“The collection of food has almost doubled per day ... we’ve gone from averaging about eight to now 16 collections.”
Mr Peric said local agencies reported that many middle-income individuals who had never used their services before were now accessing food assistance.
To keep up amid a limited supply and increased demand, Mr Peric advocated for establishing local and regional food hubs with recurrent funding and collaborating with other agencies to continue helping those in need.
Mr Birrell called it a “frustrating issue”, considering the unique identity of Greater Shepparton.
“We are in the food bowl of Australia here, yet we’ve got people who are struggling with food security,” he said.
“We’re all in it together, and we all want to develop policies that improve lives and make sure that these community organisations have what they need to deal with this issue, particularly in relation to food and a couple of other key points.”
These include the swelling population coupled with housing shortages, as well as opportunities for the region’s youth.
Later in the day, Mr Birrell and Senator Hume met with local businesses and groups, including the Greater Shepparton Business Network and Committee for Greater Shepparton, to discuss the economic impacts of the cost-of-living crisis.