Last week I invited the Minister for Community Services, the Hon. Karen Struthers MP, to visit my electorate of Pine Rivers to announce a Bligh government commitment of $2.8 million to fund the construction of the new Pine Rivers Neighbourhood Centre. The wonderful people who run the neighbourhood centre have lobbied in the past few years for a new centre, and this need was taken up by Linda Lavarch, Fiona McNamara and me. Its current facilities are too small for all of the services that it provides to the community, so the Bligh government has listened and delivered.

The Pine Rivers Neighbourhood Centre provides services for the community such as a free legal advice service, assistance to families experiencing increased stress or disruption to family life, free counselling and the Homelessness Early Intervention Service. It also provides access to a wide variety of information about government departments, social clubs, educational courses, welfare agencies, legal and health services. The staff and volunteers of the Pine Rivers Neighbourhood Centre, especially centre manager Melinda Fleming, coordinator Sandy Dore and president William Shardt, should be commended for the help and services that they provide to the Pine Rivers community.

The minister also had a fantastic opportunity to speak with volunteers and staff of the neighbourhood centre and to personally thank them for their hard work. The minister and I also discussed with staff their plans and vision for the new neighbourhood centre, and it is going to be an amazing facility when it is built. The Bligh government will continue to help support the centre and its important programs by allocating funding of over $1 million over the next three years.

The minister also took time to visit Youth Care Pine Rivers and had a wonderful opportunity to discuss with the president, David Horstman, Youth Care’s plans for the future and issues it has about homelessness in the area. Youth Care Pine Rivers conducts vital work in helping young homeless people in crisis. It gives young people a safe place to go and a roof over their head, as well as providing case management and medium- to long-term accommodation and support for homeless young people. I also thank David Horstman and his team at Youth Care for their commitment to youth in need. The Bligh government, in recognition of the hard work that Youth Care Pine Rivers does, has committed $179,000 a year to the organisation for the next three years. Once again, we thank Youth Care and the Pine Rivers Neighbourhood Centre for the excellent work they do in servicing the Pine Rivers community.