Five million dollars. That’s what Griffith’s Neighbourhood House requires to build a much-needed new community centre.
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There’s just one problem. It’s seemingly doing too much for its own good.
The service lends a helping hand to everything from ‘alcoholics anonymous’ to providing food for the hungry, but in the eyes of the Minister for Disability Services, this is a detriment.
Minister John Ajaka met with the centre co-ordinator Barbara Penninga on Friday to discuss funding for the new community centre of which the plans have already been made.
He agreed with Ms Penninga that the building’s quality “should be much better”.
“I've got no hesitation in saying this, the amount of work that's going through here is extraordinary,” the minister said. “It doesn’t take a genius to work out, when you look around, that it (the building) could be a lot better and should be a lot better.”
While these words would have been music to Ms Penninga’s ears, it wasn’t all good news.
“You (Neighbourhood House) tick so many boxes in so many other portfolios, state and federal, it's not a situation where as Minister for Disabilities, I can’t simply say I'm going to fund everything, it just doesn't come within my funding,” he said.
Despite this, Mrs Penninga was upbeat coming out of the meeting.
“I think the minister was proactive,” she said.
“I didn’t need to say much, because he saw the place for himself and said it’s not good enough. I feel he’s going to do something about it and I’m going to keep him at it.”
The minister said he wanted to “take control” of the issue and would do his best to find the money.
Local member Adrian Piccoli was close to getting the funding two years ago and sounded determined to make sure it happened this time around.
“I'd like to think we wouldn't have a school facility or a health facility at this standard, that looks like this,” he said. “I don't think you can appreciate how bad this building is until you actually see it.”