New Emergency Volunteer Funds
14 August 2006 at 1:08 pm
The Federal Government is to spend $13 million to tackle emergencies and to train more volunteers.
The Government has announced details of 365 projects, valued at $13.1 million to be funded in 2006/07 through the Local Grants Scheme (LGS) and National
Emergency Volunteer Support Fund (NEVSF).
The two programs were developed in September 2004 as part of the “Working Together to Manage Emergencies” initiative, which recognised the need to develop strategies to improve community safety and handle the recruitment, retention and training of volunteers.
The projects range in value from under $1,000 for the purchase of Tabards for use in an Emergency Operations Centre to $360,000 for the development of the Australian Disaster Information Network (AusDIN) web portal – a national project that provides access to a wealth of emergency management information.
Each state and territory convened a selection committee to prioritise funding applications from local government areas, indigenous communities and volunteer organisations.
The funding breakdown by individual jurisdictions as announced by Mr Ruddock was:
NSW……………….$3.2 million
Victoria……………$2.1 million
Queensland ………$2.7 million
SA…………………..$1.2 million
WA…………………$2.2 million
Tasmania………….. $0.5 million
NT…………………… $0.5 million
ACT ………………… $0.2 million
National Projects.. $0.5 million*
Applications for funding under the two programs in financial year 2007/08 will be called for in mid-December 2006, with a closing date of 2 March 2007. It is expected that guidelines and application forms will be available on the Emergency Management Australia website at www.ema.gov.au/communitydevelopment from mid-December.
