Lesa Scholl
28 March 2025
Faith and community leaders have welcomed investments in safe places of worship and foreign aid funding in the 2025 federal budget.
More than $170 million was set aside for social cohesion over five years, including to restore Melbourne’s Adass Israel Synagogue which was firebombed in late 2024.
It comes amid growing faith and secular community concerns about hate crimes and violence against Jewish, Islamic, Palestinian and Arab communities, and racism.
Melbourne Bishop Philip Huggins said the rebuilding funding was a kind act and a matter of appreciating the importance of having a safe place of worship.
National Council of Churches in Australia general secretary Elizabeth Stone welcomed the move to address social cohesion.
“A multi-cultural Australia is a multi-faith Australia,” she said. “We are pleased to see government funding for people to feel safe and supported to practice their faith.”
Additional funding in the attorney-general’s portfolio included $1 million for community-based projects addressing modern slavery and $0.3 million for a national database for hate crimes.
Read more: Religious, cultural fears amid rising hate crimes
More than $5 billion in foreign aid will help Australian associations provide food, clean water, healthcare, education and protection for children in our region.
World Vision chief executive Daniel Wordsworth said this investment was a generous show of compassion to people living in extreme hardship, such as the one million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
“Most people want to be helped where they are,” he said. “They don’t want to have to make long journeys to get out, to find a situation where their children can have enough to eat.”
He said the government was threading a challenging needle, balancing national, regional and humanitarian needs in the face of our own cost of living issues.
But social housing advocates were concerned about the almost $8 billion cuts in this sector.
Australian Council of Social Services chief executive Dr Cassandra Goldie welcomed important investment in essential services but said the budget did not do enough to help those who need it most.
“In the face of a serious cost-of-living crisis…to give $7 billion in tax cuts and do nothing to lift people out of poverty is simply shocking,” she said.
Read more: Fears homelessness will be criminalised
Mission Australia chief executive Sharon Callister said the budget was a missed opportunity to address the ongoing housing emergency.
“The need for homelessness and housing services has surged,” she said.
Ms Callister said Mission Australia’s homelessness services had seen a 19 per cent increase in demand in the last year.
“Many people are a rent increase, missed mortgage payment or eviction notice away from homelessness,” she said.
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