A decision to slash charity Foodbank's funding in half six weeks before Christmas is under review, Minister for Families and Social Services Paul Fletcher says.
The $323,000 a year cut to Foodbank's budget was announced last week and is set to come into effect from January 2019.
In a statement, Mr Fletcher said he shares the concerns of Foodbank CEO Brianna Casey on the timing of the decision ahead of the busy Christmas period.
"Foodbank has particularly highlighted its concern that the competitive selection process resulted in it being notified of the decision only a few weeks before the busy Christmas season. I share that concern," he said.
"I have sought urgent advice from my department as to why that happened and for options to provide additional funding to Foodbank to assist in managing the transition to the new arrangements."
The development comes after a volunteer for an organisation that works with Foodbank began an online petition to restore Foodbank's funding, which has collected over 10,000 signatures in seven hours.
Ms Casey said she was astonished by the decision so close to Christmas.
“We are dumbfounded. This funding program enables us to leverage an extremely modest investment from the government into more than $8 million of essential foods for distribution to 2,600 charities around the country," she said.
Foodbank CEO Brianna Casey. Source: Twitter
The Key Stapes Program funding will be now halved, hampering the charity's efforts to provide food for 710,000 Australians a month who experience economic hardship or are recovering from natural disasters.
A quarter of those who receive food supplies are children, with the organisation the nation's largest food provider to schools for breakfast programs.
Volunteer starts petition
Volunteer Allan Casperson has started an online petition on change.org to ensure staple foods reach those who need it.
On the petition page, Mr Casperson urged Treasurer Josh Frydenberg to restore the Foodbank funding.
"Foodbank uses this money to buy staple food that is not donated or recovered. Their funding will be cut from 1.5mill to 750k. This will cause far more food insecurity," he said.
He said the people he helps desperately need what Foodbank provides.
"I volunteer for svdp and meet the people affected," he wrote. "We took food (from Foodbank) to a homeless DV woman who had not eaten for 7 days. No food - she starves, in a rich place like Oz. Fair? No!"
The program sees food manufacturers produce food using spare production capacity, while suppliers donate or subsidise ingredients, packaging and delivery.
Drought-affected communities to suffer
Foodbank's Hunger report released last month found that food insecurity is on the rise, and that regional Australians are 33 per cent more likely to experience hardship.
"On top of this we are facing extreme drought conditions across large parts of the country and are coming into the natural disaster season when we know from experience we will see even greater demand for emergency food relief," Ms Casey said.
"I just cannot fathom why this is happening at all, let alone at one of the most challenging times of year for vulnerable Australians and our drought-affected communities.”
Three funding cuts in four years
In February Foodbank asked the government for $10.5 million over three years, which it said would return $316 million to the Australian economy.
But the charity says this latest cut - the third since 2014 - may mean the end of the Key Staples program.
"The federal government funding is essential to glue these production arrangements together," Ms Casey said.
Despite growing demand, Ms Casey said government funding had gone down from $1.5 million a year three years ago, to $427,000 a year from January 2019.
The charity says this latest cut - the third since 2014 - may mean the end of the Key Staples program. Source: AAP
A 'mean and foolish decision'
On Thursday, Social Services Minister Paul Fletcher announced food charities Foodbank, SecondBite and OzHarvest will share in more than $4.5 million.
But the money will be spread over four-and-a-half years, starting in January.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has written to the Coalition government asking for the cut to be reversed.
"I am genuinely surprised by this mean and foolish decision," Mr Shorten said.
Foodbank provides 67 million meals a year to charities across the country, as well as more than 1750 schools.
