It’s becoming more of an issue that people are below the poverty line in our city, which, in a country like Australia, is quite unacceptable, such an affluent country. 14% of people in Bendigo live below the poverty line, according to VCOSS figures that came out today. That’s defined as $350 per week of disposable income. How can the state government address this?

Nakita Thomson (Greens)

I think there is a huge issue with poverty. I myself am probably included in those figures.

I’m on Youth Allowance, which is a federal issue again. I think one of the problems is that Youth Allowance and NewStart haven’t been increased for a long time.

There are people that rely on that income.

Of course I’m studying as well as running as a candidate, I struggle to have a full-time job to raise the money to study.

A lot of the things we can do - invest in solar to reduce people’s power bills because that’s a huge amount of the cost. Another thing we can do is invest in public housing.

The Greens have a plan in building 40,000 homes over the next six years, and again another 40,000 over the next six years because the need will have increased after that time.

Currently we have 80,000 people on the public housing waiting list because we’ve barely built any since the 80s.

We’re selling off public housing in Melbourne as well, which is more of a city issue.

25,000 of the people on that waiting list are children, so those poverty statistics don’t surprise me at all and we really, really need to invest in our younger generation, and that comes through education and the proper funding of our schools.

Proper Youth Allowance - I struggle to pay rent and for food and my bills, because Youth Allowance is so low.

I’m going to eventually contribute to the economy once I have a job, but I just need that support and that time.

There are many other people, many other students, many other young people, in my situation that just need that extra leg up to contribute to the economy.

Michael Belardinelli (Independent)

I’ll refer to a federal government policy called Work for the Dole which I think is $3 billion up against a wall.

It’s also caused one death on site and 60 per cent of the sites aren’t OHS compliant.

So $3 billion into rural jobs grants would help.

Give an employer a $10,000 grant to employ someone, or $20,000. Help the employer employ somebody.

It’s transferring money from one program to another.

Helen Leach (DLP)

(More public housing) would help a lot.

People need homes to live in.

That actually reminds me of the Residential Tenancy Acts amendments just recently, this year, that the rules have been changed which means that all sorts of things like people can have a lot of dogs and things like that in the house.

Basically the rules have been changed so that all the onus is on the landowner and really, there’s very fews regulations concerning the behaviour of the tenants.

So what’s happening is, since these amendments, a lot of landlords have taken their properties off the market which is going to leave an even bigger gap of this kind of public housing.

It’s rentals - that’s one problem.

I do believe there should be more public housing, as in government-built houses.

I’m not against people having a dog or whatever, but it should be negotiable with the person who actually owns the house because a lot of landlords have told me that they’re not willing to risk their property because they will not get their investment back.

Ian Ellis (Liberal)

We are talking more around federal issues in relation to allowances, but there are lots of programs that we have that address poverty.

There are various grants that are available.

Gaelle Broad (Nationals)

I think it’s quite significant in Bendigo, we have major issues with poverty in our region, and challenges that cross generations.

I’ve heard from a number of people at different agencies that talk about inter-generational poverty that’s happening now.

I know from reading your newspaper, the Bendigo Advertiser, it said about 25,000 people in Bendigo actually accessed community support services. That in itself, when we have a population of 108,000 in Bendigo, that says something about the number of people that really need help and are looking for assistance.

I think we’ve got to say, we can’t let Bendigo continue to go backwards. We’ve had crime increase by over 12 per cent in four years, we’ve had increase in drugs as well in our region and that has concerned many people who have got in contact with me.

I think we need to be looking at these issues, not shying away from them, but actually talking about them and seeing what we can do to improve that situation in Bendigo.

We need to create more jobs, and more opportunity, so we can get Bendigo moving forwards again.

Nakita Thomson

Considering rent is predominantly the major cost for people in poverty, would your party to commit to building public housing, and the amount of public housing we need is at least 40,000 over the next six years. Would your party commit to that?

Ian Ellis

I don’t see any reason why we wouldn’t.

Public housing is essential.

Nakita Thomson

Do you have a policy for it?

Ian Ellis

I don’t have that detail in front of me.

Gaelle Broad

It’s interesting though that the Greens - I find it quite challenging - you do put out a lot of policies that cost a lot of money, but where are the other policies that actually pay for them?

Nakita Thomson

All of our policies are costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office, so they are affordable and costed. That’s an independent authority that costs our policies.

Jacinta Allan (Labor)

We need more investment in public housing and I could have a sneaky shot at the Greens tonight and point out where they’ve opposed some of the public housing projects in Melbourne.

Nakita Thomson

And Labor has also sold off public housing in Melbourne.

Jacinta Allan

Bendigo does have some real challenges. We have had them for a number of years and there are a number of agencies that work very strongly in this area.

An agency like FoodShare who has thankfully had a reprieve from the federal Liberal government cuts that we have seen in the last couple of days for the distribution of food.

One of the key areas that we’ve been working on in supporting people to get the skills they need for the job they want is of course investing in TAFE.

Building back up TAFE has been a big job over the past four years. We have made investments in bricks and mortar in Bendigo, the new food and fibre centre on Charleston Road, the $60 million revitalisation of the CBD McCrae Street campus.

Investing in the staff and the courses - we’ve got our priority free TAFE courses that are encouraging people to come to TAFE because that’s the pathway to getting a job, to getting the skills they need.

There’s a lot of other places you need to invest in - housing, reducing power prices.

I also want to pick up a couple of facts. The unemployment rate in Bendigo today is less than half what it was when we took government less than four years ago.

You have got to keep working really hard to keep that rate down, you have got to invest in a number of key areas.

It’s only Labor that’s offering Bendigo investment in things like the day rehabilitation centre at the hospital, the law courts in Bendigo, Bendigo Metro III, projects that create jobs during construction, and projects that will deliver services once they’re built.

Helen Leach

I would just like to talk about the TAFE courses that have sprung up recently. A lot of them are not actually going to lead to jobs, they’re not pre-apprenticeship courses or something like that.

What’s happened is they have put other people, like community centres, out of jobs.

There’s that - ‘we’re great, we’re going to put more courses in TAFEs’, mickey mouse courses, but - I shouldn’t say mickey mouse - they’re good courses, but they’re not actually quite job ready courses.

The problem is, by putting those courses in the TAFEs, they’ve taken them out of other places and put other people out of work.

Ian Ellis

I can’t say for sure on that (if Labor promises will be matched by the Coalition).

What I wanted to comment on, was the free TAFE courses.

There’s very limited courses, it’s very limited for people who can actually do them.

And free? Isn’t it taxpayers-funded courses?

Jacinta Allan

The government is subsidising someone to not have to pay to go to TAFE to get some skills in an area of shortage.

Ian Ellis

Where’s the money coming from?

Jacinta Allan

All the money for that initiative was in this year’s State Budget, it was a budgeted commitment.

Ian Ellis

And where did the money come from for your budget?

Nakita Thomson

There is a reason why we pay money as taxpayers, and it is to invest back in the community.

I think it is a good investment in the community by providing education for free.

The Greens support free TAFE overall.

Michael Belardinelli

They build houses that use 9/10th of the power of ours: talk about saving on power bills. That’s what they should build, public housing like that. I think it was only $4000 a square.

TAFE’s great in relation to the courses. I as an ex-teacher didn’t want to do a fourth year because you’d have to go up with the course.

Then it was changed so I could do community care which was a lower course which I wanted to do. Someone changed the law, I liked it.

I’m glad I could get into another area.​