Federal Member for Nicholls, Sam Birrell MP has called on the Government to turn around years of generational disadvantage and significantly improve health outcomes in Northern Victoria by providing funding to build the Seymour Community Wellbeing Hub in the upcoming May Budget.

Mr Birrell and Nationals Senator and Shadow Minister for Shadow Minister for
Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development Bridget McKenzie met with project
stakeholders in Seymour on Friday April 2.

Funding for the centre is urgently needed to ensure residents across the Seymour area
have access to health and wellbeing support.

“The Seymour Community Wellbeing Hub is a critical piece of infrastructure and will drive
social and economic development of the region,” Mr Birrell said.

“The centre would provide a range of integrated services for people in the community and
would significantly lead to better outcomes in education and physical and mental health,”
Mr Birrell said.

Mr Birrell said the community led project needs to be funded in Labor’s upcoming budget.
“This project has been developed and championed by the community stakeholders,” Mr Birrell said.

“The previous Coalition Government committed funding committed ahead of the last and
I’ve spoken in parliament about the value of the project and called on the government to
make a $10 million commitment to the hub,” Mr Birrell said.

Senator McKenzie said the Albanese Labor Government’s decision to scrap funding
programs for the regions has left the Seymour Community Wellbeing Hub out in the dark.
“The Nationals understand the importance of community focused health services such as
the Seymour Community Wellbeing Hub.

“That’s why in Government we established regionally focused grants programs such as the
Building Better Regions Fund, to enable councils and regional community organisations to
apply for funding.

“It is disgraceful the Albanese Labor Government abolished $10 billion in regional
programs in their October budget, including scrapping the Building Better Regions Fund.

“For the past 10 months there have been no grant programs available for councils like
Mitchell Shire to apply for funding from the Commonwealth for initiatives like this.