The federal government has conceded it will need another two months to sort through thousands of funding applications, throwing a Thomastown indigenous early learning centre into further uncertainly over its future.
Bubup Wilam for Early Learning has been operating in the hope it will be thrown a lifeline from the federal or state government ever since its federal funding from the National Partnership Agreement on Indigenous Early Childhood ceased on June 30.
Neither the federal nor state 2014-15 budgets covered the operational costs of the childcare and parenting service, forcing the centre to rely on quickly diminishing cash reserves.
Chief executive Lisa Thorpe said the Thomastown centre recently submitted a funding application for a share of the $4.8 billion Indigenous Advancement Strategy and expected to learn before January 1 whether it was successful. But the controversial new scheme’s 5000 applicants were told last week they would not find out until March.
The Prime Minister’s Department told them it had been forced to extend the period for funding applications because of the poor quality of many it had received.
“We’ve been sitting in a holding bay,” Ms Thorpe said. “We’re fortunate we had cash up our sleeve, but that well is running dry.”
A spokesman for federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion said the state was given the property and had primary responsibility to operate it.
