Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Treasurer. Food Bank Australia's 2025 Hunger Report reveals that one in three Australian households have experienced food insecurity in the last 12 months. This means that three and a half million Australian families could be going without food tonight. Food Bank has a proposal that would make it cheaper for food producers to donate excess food to those in need, reduce food waste, and save taxpayers’ dollars. Will the Treasurer commit to legislating a national food donation tax incentive which would achieve these aims?

Call to the Treasurer.

Thank you, Speaker. I thank the Honourable Member for her question. I think this is the first opportunity that I’ve had to congratulate her on her comprehensive victory in Bradfield, and I thank her for her question about a very serious issue and a seriously terrific organisation, which is Food Bank.

I am aware of the report, the analysis, and the ideas in the Food Bank report that has been put out today. I take the opportunity to thank them for the tremendous work they do in communities right around Australia, helping people who are doing it tough. I’m aware of that specific idea about the tax incentive. I think from memory also there’s a Senate committee that looked into a similar idea. Obviously, we take those kinds of suggestions seriously.

We also know that a lot of businesses are already doing the right thing absent the implementation of a tax incentive like that, and I thank those businesses who are making donations to Food Bank and other like organisations as well for the work that they do.

Mr. Speaker, I want to shout out as well the Assistant Minister for Charities. We’ve already done some substantial reforms to support charitable giving, including a new DGR category to support community-focused giving. We also know there’s more than one way to help these wonderful organisations doing the right thing by people in our local communities.

It is a source of some pride to me, and I think to Minister Rishworth who did the work on this in the last term of Parliament, that this government is providing an additional $20 million each year to help food and emergency relief organisations. We took that decision in an earlier budget. Some of the organisations in the Member for Bradfield’s electorate are benefiting from that — the Salvos, Vinnies, and Lifeline, just to name three.

It means that our total investment in these services has gone up to $460 million over five years. Now, the Opposition Leader also asked about Food Bank, I think in her first question to the Prime Minister. But what was missing from the Opposition Leader’s question was that when those opposite were last in government, they cut $20 million a year from these programs. They actually cut these programs for Food Bank.

They also opposed our tax cuts, the Leader of the Opposition’s efforts to boost wages, and they opposed our cost-of-living help. The point that I’m making in considering the idea put forward by Food Bank is that we have restored the funding that those opposite cut. That’s because we know the important work that Food Bank and others do, and we’ve also found other ways to help people who are under pressure — energy bill relief, permanent increases to working-age payments, rent assistance, tax cuts, boosting real wages, and the like.

We’re a Labor government. We’re always looking for ways to help people with the cost of living, especially the most vulnerable. Food Bank is the same. Sounds like the Member for Bradfield shares our interest too.