Financial counsellors face funding hurdle

www.abc.net.au
Posted Thu Aug 7, 2008 9:26am AEST

Financial counsellors say they are turning people in financial strife away because counsellors are underfunded by the Victorian Government.

The Federal Government doubled its funding to financial counsellors in this year’s Budget.

However, Garry Rothman from Broadmeadows Uniting Care says most of the funding for Victorian financial counsellors comes from the State Government.

He says high food, petrol and rent prices mean demand for financial counsellors is growing but there are not enough financial counsellors to keep up.

Mr Rothman says people in country Victoria are doing it particularly tough.

"There’s no two ways about it, we need more financial counsellors on the ground and we need more financial counsellors being trained," he said.

"At the moment financial counselling courses have been cancelled because there’s no job prospects."