Over the past few months, FCVic has been directing our advocacy activities in line with the Advocacy Priorities established earlier this year. You can read our last Advocacy Update from April here.
Priority 1: Increasing funding to the sector, and public awareness of the importance of financial counsellors
FCVic has commenced member consultation on our 2025-26 State Budget Submission.
With the significant input and contribution of our members and partners, last year’s FCVic State Budget Submission was an excellent opportunity to capture the sector’s funding needs in a single document. We provided the Submission to the Minister for Consumer Affairs, the Victorian Treasurer, and MPs, following up with several meetings to advocate further.
These advocacy efforts resulted in FCVic’s first ever invitation to attend the State Budget lockup, to consult with ministerial advisors on the day on Budget inclusions, and we believe, influenced the announcement of the additional $15m funding round for financial counselling services through Consumer Affairs Victoria.
Members and other key stakeholders are encouraged to contribute their thoughts by:
- Filling out an online form with guiding questions. This will take about 10-15 minutes: https://form.jotform.com/242168200350040
- Emailing Amanda at [email protected] directly with your thoughts. This could include providing robust project proposals that your organisation has previously tried to get funded.
Priority 2: Addressing barriers to safe, secure and affordable housing
FCVic is working with Financial Counselling Australia, Mortgage Stress Victoria and Consumer Action Law Centre on a strategic advocacy campaign relating to strata levies and hardship practices within this industry. This follows a dedicated advocacy campaign in NSW on this issue, and alarming increases in the number of clients reportedly facing aggressive legal debt collection relating to strata levy arrears including forced bankruptcy proceedings.
An early result of this advocacy includes enhancement of the information on the Consumer Affairs Victoria website to support strata owners in the event that they cannot pay their strata levies. Further enhancement of information on other channels is expected soon. Long-term, we are working towards a comprehensive set of legislative amendments to improve safeguards for homeowners experiencing hardship with their strata levies.
To contribute to this campaign, we need case studies! Members and stakeholders are encouraged to share case summaries on this issue with FCVic to inform our work: https://form.jotform.com/241827710508052
Additionally, FCVic has contributed a submission to the State Government consultation on Minimum Standards for Rental Properties and Rooming Houses. This submission highlights the consultative and collaborative nature of our advocacy, with inputs from members of the FCVic Utilities Working Group, and through our ongoing utilities advocacy work with other stakeholders including VCOSS, CALC, Energy Consumers Australia, the Brotherhood of St Laurence, and more.
Priority 3: Addressing the rising cost of living, including insufficient wages and social security payments
On 21 August, FCVic’s EO and Advocacy Coordinator, along with member Rachna Madaan Bowman, appeared at a public hearing for the state Inquiry into food security following our submission.
Our message was simple and clear – that food insecurity does not stand alone as a single social problem as all social problems are interconnected and intersectional. To address one, you must address them all, and so our recommendations were centred around three central themes of:
- Increasing access to healthy staple foods
- Investing in frontline and preventative social services
- The State Government’s role in advocating for an increase in household financial inputs
We look forward to the final report of the Inquiry and to working further with government on improving access to essential goods and services.
Other key submissions by FCVic under this Priority Area in the past two months include:
- Services Australia consultation on Centrepay Reform
- Essential Services Commission’s Energy Retail Code of Practice Review
- Submission to the Network Outage Review Interim Report
We continue to engage in conversations on Centrepay, and will be heading to Canberra in September for a consultation on this issue. Any thoughts on reform to Centrepay can be sent to [email protected].
We thank the members of the FCVic Government Services Network and Utilities Working Group for their contributions to the above submissions.
Priority 4: Influencing change in responsible lending and compassionate hardship practices
Further to our ongoing engagement work with creditors and lenders, we are elevating the voice of financial counsellors in the gambling harm minimisation landscape, at a time of great media scrutiny of government’s role in this space.
Supported by our Gambling Issues Network, we have written to Prime Minister Albanese on the recommendations of the ‘You win some, you lose more’ report from the Inquiry into online gambling and its impacts on those experiencing gambling harm. We have also recently attended a consultation with the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission on their inquiry into bingo, with the firm message that while the social elements of bingo may be desirable for vulnerable cohorts, care must be taken to ensure that bingo does not become the gateway to gambling harm.
Other relevant submissions by FCVic under this Priority Area include our submission on the Minimal Asset Procedure in the Personal Insolvency Consultation, in consultation with members of our Bankruptcy Working Group.
Priority 5: Supporting and promoting the professionalism of the financial counselling sector
A focus in the past two months has been on supporting our member-based collective structures through implementation of the recommendations of the final report of an independent review of FCVic networks, working groups and communities of practice. This includes working with groups and their convenors to consider where they sit in the new structure, and to make adjustments as needed.
These collective structures are a crucial opportunity for education, peer support, and issues identification for members, and are well positioned to inform, contribute to, and work towards sector advocacy issues and outcomes. FCVic is committed to ensuring that our collective structures are fit-for-purpose, functional, appropriately supported, and continue to thrive in delivering systemic and strategic advocacy on key issues.
On a final point, we are working on delivering an engaging, informative and ideas-rich annual conference to support our members’ professional development and look forward to seeing everyone there in October!