Prime Minister Scott Morrison has back-flipped on a decision to cut funding from Foodbank, a major hunger-relief organisation in Australia.
The Government announced a plan to cut Foodbankās federal funding and instead have the money split between SecondBite and OzHarvest. This would mean the funding would be split across three organisations rather than two.
The Labor party and the National Farmersā Federation as well as several parts of the charity sector criticised the Governmentās plan. This backlash prompted Scott Morrison to issue a response on Twitter saying that the decision has been reversed and that the budget for food relief would be raised āby 1.5 million over the next 4.5 yearsā as well as asking for more focus to be placed on areas affected by drought.
[1/3] Yesterday I promised to review the Foodbank decision. I have listened and decided to increase the Food Relief budget by $1.5 million over the next 4.5 years and have asked the Minister to place more focus on relief in drought affected areas.
ā Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) November 12, 2018
Brianna Casey, the chief executive of Foodbank was pleased with the Governmentās reversal of the funding cut decision and said it was a āmassive reliefā.
Foodbank is the largest hunger-relief organisation in Australia and provides around 67 million meals every year.
Ms Casey said that the Governmentās plan to redistribute funding was ānot the right sort of responseā and that a competitive tender process wasnāt appropriate for matters that needed to ensure hungry people were fed.
In a second tweet, Mr Morrison said the reversal of the decision was going to maintain Foodbankās funding at $750,000 per year.
In his own tweet, Labor leader Bill Shorten said that the reversal was a good result āfor people power and common senseā.