Tasmania: Healthy, accessible food for all Tasmanians

MEDIA RELEASE

Tasmania: Healthy, accessible food for all Tasmanians

As we enter the final days of the 2024 Tasmanian state election campaign, the Tasmanian Food Security Coalition welcomes statements from the Liberal Party, the Labor Party and the Tasmanian Greens commitments to the food security sector.

Tasmanian Liberal Party

The Tasmanian Liberal party have made several key commitments if elected on Saturday including:

➢ $51.8 million extra commitment to the community sector, including increased grants for emergency food relief and capital works

➢ Deliver a whole-of-government strategy to start the shift from emergency food relief to food resilience, with increased funding, capital investment and support, including our food vans

➢ Provide $1 million to retain all increased emergency food relief funding for a further year while a whole-of-government strategy is developed to begin the significant shift from food relief to food resilience in our state.

➢ Provide a $5 million capital upgrade fund in order that emergency food relief organisations can get ahead in maximising cold storage, logistics and commercial kitchen facilities, including $2.5 million in upgrades for Loaves and Fishes for cold storage and to begin its shift to become a Food Procurement and Social Wholesaler organisation.

➢ Additional $400 000 for the School Lunch Program; expanding to reach 60 schools over the next two years

➢ Provide Eat Well Tasmania with $75,000 for a vehicle so that it can continue itsstate-wide presence and delivery of programs across the state.

➢ Provide $120,000 a year for the next two years for each of our food vans – Gran’s Van in the north-west, Missionbeat in the north, and Loui’s Vans in the south. Each of the food vans provide thousands of nutritious meals to those in need each year

➢ Boost operational funding for Neighbourhood Houses, including continuing the Community Connector program and investing in a new House upgrade program.

The Liberals have also committed to invest $200,000 into the development of a long-term food security strategy for the state and the TFSC stands ready to support this strategy and the agreed outcomes.

Tasmanian Labor Party

The Tasmanian Labor party have made several key commitments if elected on Saturday including:

➢ Commitment to School Food Matters, School Lunch Program by providing free, healthy lunches for every Tasmanian government primary school student by 2030.

➢ Labor will also fund the Loaves and Fishes Food Procurement and Social Wholesaler project – operating as a community wholesaler, including a mobile community supermarket for remote communities.

➢ Back in the great work of Sprout Tasmania, with $80,000 a year for three years, as they support our small producers.

➢ Facilitate Tasmanian produce being prioritised in Tasmanian institutions, including hospitals, prisons and our school lunch program, by funding the Sustainable Institutional Food Procurement Tasmania project with $381,719 per year for three years to actively work with and connect farmers to facilities, to encourage greater use of healthy Tasmanian produce.

➢ Review the Food Relief to Food Resilience Strategy and develop a ten year Action Plan with the Tasmanian Food Security Coalition and other stakeholders

➢ Support Eat Well Tasmania to achieve their vision of a healthy Tasmania focussing on our wonderful local producers.

Tasmanian Greens Party

The Tasmanian Greens party have made several key commitments if elected on Saturday including:

➢ An additional $3 million per year for food relief programs (e.g.: Loaves and Fishes and Foodbank)

➢ Funding for five food hubs, expanding the Food Education and Preservation Project, and a social enterprise café in the Sandy Bay campus.

➢ Ongoing funding to neighbourhood houses to support their cost of living initiatives, including food security programs.

The following quotes maybe attributed:

TFSC Chair Carl Saunder said “on behalf of the Tasmanian Food Security Coalition we welcome the announcements by the various parties and their commitment to support our aspiration to move from relief to resilience. The commitments will help to continue our need to build stronger communities and reduce the number of Tasmanians suffering hunger”. Saunder stated “although these commitments will help; neither of the two major parties have gone far enough in their commitments to make significant inroads into the 1 in 5 Tasmanians suffering from severe food insecurity”.

TFSC member and Loaves and Fishes CEO Andrew Hillier said he “was pleased with the strong commitment to the sector in response to unprecedented need throughout the state, however both parties have missed the opportunity to go further and truly address the issues”.

“The three parties have listened and responded to our long and loud advocacy on behalf of vulnerable Tasmanians who are requiring unprecedented help with food, however without further investment we aren’t going to be able to meet the demand for fresh, healthy food every day and we call on whoever forms government on Saturday to look at doing more.” he said.

Hillier said “we also recognise that we have to move away from just giving out free food, to helping communities become more resilient through accessing discounted, healthy seasonal food from local suppliers and we need the new government to deliver on this approach”.

TFSC member and School Lunch Program Manager Julie Dunbabin at School Food Matters said she was pleased to see the School Lunch Project become a program with ongoing and additional funding for a further 30 schools over the next two years.

“Providing a nutritious lunch for our children whilst at school has so many benefits including; happier more settled children after lunch, better concentration levels, principals have commented on better attendance when school lunch is offered, and better socialisation skills due to children sitting down to enjoy lunch together for 20 minutes. The program also connects with the local Tasmanian economy with many ingredients of the meals grown and produced by our farmers and producers. The program also links in with the social enterprise arm of Loaves and Fishes Tasmania through the employment and training of youth in their central kitchen,” she said.

Simone Zell, CEO of Neighbourhood Houses Tasmania and TFSC member said “the support for food relief needs to also include greater focus on building food resilience in Tasmania. Neighbourhood Houses are accessible at a community level, supporting people to learn to cook healthy affordable meals, and to grow more food in community gardens or in our own backyards. Through the TFSC it is hoped that the future government will invest in strategies that build people’s long term capability to access and eat healthy food in the place where they live”.