Australians are almost twice as likely as people from other high income nations to be in this situation \u2013 a worrying result for a wealthy, food producing and exporting country, Lindberg told Victorian election webinar this week.<\/p>\n
Household comparisons are not exact, she said, but according to the United Nation\u2019s Food and Agriculture Organisation\u2019s 2023-25 hunger map<\/a>, Australia has 15 percent of houses experiencing food insecurity compared to an eight percent average of other high income countries.<\/p>\n Lindberg, who is a Senior Lecturer at Deakin\u2019s Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, said the volume of food now moving through the food relief sector in Australia has tripled since 2008<\/a>.<\/p>\n Such demand shows Australia has \u201cgot a really substantial challenge on our hands and what we have been doing so far is not working\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n Tackling food insecurity means addressing its root causes, including \u201cinstitutionalised racism, discrimination, poverty, social and cultural marginalisation, and dysfunctioning food systems,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Lindberg was speaking at the official launch of Vote for Food Victoria 2026<\/a>, a campaign by Sustain: The Australian Food Network<\/a>, which is calling for \u201cpolitical courage and action on the cost of living crisis and our broken food system\u201d in the lead up to the 28 November state election.<\/p>\n Nick Rose, Sustain\u2019s co-founder and executive director, told the webinar that the need for action on food security is \u201cgrounded in the reality that is confronting us right now, today, in Victoria, in Australia and globally, which is one of converging and escalating crisis from multiple directions\u201d.<\/p>\n He outlined the \u201caccelerating climate change context with the Super El Nino and the ongoing, and indeed worsening, conflict in the Middle East, which is causing major disruptions to crude oil, but also to finished products, in particular diesel fuel and fertiliser\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cAll this together is setting the scenario for a deepening crisis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Rose\u2019s warning was underscored by a Climate Council report this week that predicted<\/a> significant agricultural damage among $855 billion in economic losses projected Australia-wide by the end of the century.<\/p>\n Yet, Croakey notes that the same politicians \u2013 in particular, the Liberal National parties and One Nation \u2013 who talk constantly about cost of living concerns have repeatedly voted<\/a> against lifting income support payments and minimum wages.<\/p>\n One Nation also boasts<\/a> it is the \u201conly political party to question climate science\u201d, despite climate change having profound impacts on food production and costs in Australia and globally, as well as rising numbers of refugees in the Pacific and beyond.<\/p>\n Sustain\u2019s Victorian Election Scorecard<\/a> assesses the major parties\u2019 commitments across ten priority areas for a fairer, healthier and more resilient food system. These include food system governance, First Nations leadership, food security, sustainable agriculture, school food programs, local food production and workforce development.<\/p>\n In almost all priority areas, One Nation and the Liberal Party had made no commitments.<\/p>\n Sustain\u2019s\u00a0#VoteforFood campaign says\u00a0Australia produces enough food to feed 90 million people, yet prices are soaring, farmers are struggling, and food insecurity is rising.<\/p>\n \u201cCurrently, food policy is fragmented across government departments, causing contradictions, inefficiencies and missed opportunities,\u201d it says. \u201cOur food system faces many threats, including climate change, the supermarket duopoly, loss of fertile farmland due to urban sprawl and geopolitical instability threatening supply chains\u201d.<\/p>\n People attending the webinar shared local examples of the crisis, including that Waminda Community House in regional Benalla has reported a 92 percent increase in the number of local people who presented in person for food relief between September 2025 and June 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cWaminda provided food relief to 2,405 adults (~20% pop\u2019n) and uncounted children between July 2025 and June 2026, while attendance at its free Thursday lunches increased by 104 percent over the same period \u2014 for a region of 12,300,\u201d a webinar participant posted in the chat.<\/p>\n A representative of Bass Coast Shire Council, south east of Naarm\/Melbourne, reported similar concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have five food relief locations in Bass Coast and all of them have seen a striking increase in weekly numbers of people access their emergency food relief service and\/or community meals,\u201c the representative said.<\/p>\n Sustain says these hardships have to be seen as a failure of public policy rather than an \u2018unfortunate\u2019 consequence of economic hardship.<\/p>\n This week has delivered further such examples of harmful policies , including a warning from the Melbourne-based Asylum Seekers Resource Centre (ASRC) that it may have to raise up to $1 million a week \u201cjust to provide basic food in Victoria if thousands more people seeking asylum are stripped of their right to work\u201d.<\/p>\n A separate report<\/a> from the Australian Council of Social Service and UNSW found an alarming number of refugees already spend their first decade in Australia in poverty. The first year for those entering the country\u00a0 on a humanitarian visa \u2013 which means they have usually fled conflict or persecution \u2013 is particularly grim.<\/p>\n On average, around three in five (59 percent) live in households with $400 or less a week, while 73 percent live in households with $500 or less a week. Some still live with that meagre, insufficient household income ten years later, at huge risk to health and wellbeing, and longevity, the report said.<\/p>\n That\u2019s also the case for people living on other income support. An analysis<\/a> by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare of mortality outcomes between 2012 and 2022 shows \u2018the close relationship between socioeconomic disadvantage and health outcomes in Australia\u201d.<\/p>\n It found, for example, the average morality rate of people receiving unemployment payments was 270 deaths per 100,000 person-years \u2014 four times as high as the rate for people not receiving income support.<\/p>\n No fry zones<\/p>\n Sustain said a rights-based approach to food calls for a systemic, structural approach, asking: What conditions must government create so that everyone can access adequate, nutritious and culturally appropriate food with dignity?\u201d<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean having government supply everyone\u2019s food, it said, but \u201caccepting public responsibility for progressively creating the social, economic and physical conditions in which the right can be realised,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n That would mean governments have to consider food access when developing other policies, including housing and planning, agriculture and public food procurement (including potentially school meals) and to assess whether laws and budgets are improving or undermining access.<\/p>\n Similar issues were top of mind at last week\u2019s 11th Global Conference of the Alliance for Healthy Cities<\/a> (AFHC2026) in Sydney. In one political sesson, NSW Planning Minister Paul Scully was upbeat about a Performance and Wellbeing Framework<\/a> introduced by the State Government and plans for<\/a> a state planning framework for tackling climate risks.<\/p>\n But he drew the line<\/a> at specific efforts to address a concentration of fast food and takeaway outlets, particularly around town centres, schools, and disadvantaged areas, which health experts say are creating \u201cobesogenic environments<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n Many jurisdictions around the world have taken tougher action on fast food and food security, including areas in the UK and Ireland that have introduced \u2018no fry zones<\/a>\u2019 around schools.<\/p>\n New York\u2019s popular Mayor Zohran Mamdani is also leading the way with plans<\/a> to build five city-owned grocery stores, one in each borough and starting in Harlem and the Bronx.<\/p>\n Under his model, the City will own the land and cover overhead costs like rent and construction. A private operator, selected through a request for proposals, will manage daily operations and be required to pass savings directly to customers on a core basket of everyday staples.<\/p>\n The city stores will not offer cigarettes, alcohol, lottery tickets or hot foods.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen corporations control every part of the food supply chain, prices go up, basic necessities become luxuries and workers and customers both lose,\u201d Mamdani said in a statement.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cA public option allows us to intervene where the market has failed. We cannot accept a status quo where even the most fundamental needs \u2014 putting food on the table \u2014 feel out of reach.\u201d<\/p>\n Competing interests<\/p>\n But, unsurprisingly, Mamdani is facing significant kick-back to his plan<\/a>, including from small businesses.<\/p>\n Dr Dori Patay, a senior research fellow with Sydney\u2019s Leeder Centre for Health Policy, Economics and Data, has written<\/a> that food system governance \u201cis fraught with competing interests, policy incoherence and power asymmetries\u201d.<\/p>\n She told the Sustain webinar that getting healthy change is difficult when \u201ccertain actors are more powerful than others\u201d, and where some departments, communities and stakeholders are regularly excluded.<\/p>\n Sustain, which has warned that local planning regimes that are \u2018putting corporate hunger first<\/a>\u2019, is highlighting local actions in Victoria that are aiming to give local government greater powers.<\/p>\n A number of communities, including regional Castlemaine, Philip Island and Bendigo, are trying to use or strengthen state planning laws to stop the approval of fast food outlets and ensure supply and access to healthy foods at affordable prices.<\/p>\n The most high profile case is playing out now in Melbourne\u2019s inner north, where a new McDonald\u2019s is set to open in Northcote \u2014 just 50 metres from the local primary school.<\/p>\n Advocates are drawing hope from a question put to Parliament last month by the Northcote MP Kat Theophanous, a member of the Victorian Labor Government, who asked<\/a> how the state\u2019s new planning framework, which posits health and wellbeing as a core objective, might help \u201cmoderate the proliferation of fast-food outlets like the McDonald\u2019s slated for Northcote\u201d.<\/p>\n She said it\u2019s well known that \u201cmultinational fast-food outlets have a disproportionate influence on food environments and everyday nutritional choices\u201d.<\/p>\n National issues<\/p>\n While Sustain has its focus right now on Victoria, food security, quality, access and affordability are growing national issues.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Food-Rebecca-Lindberg-pic-900x513.png\")
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Slide presented by Dr Rebecca Lindberg
\nBroken food system<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Food-Nick-Rose-900x503.png\")
Nick Rose leads discussions at the webinar
\nLocal pain<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/healthy-cities-900x675.jpg\")
NSW Planning Minister Paul Scully, centre, at the global cities conference. Photo by Marie McInerney<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Food-Sustain-Vic-protests-900x530.png\")
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