General News
17 April, 2025
Riordan invites faith leaders to special lunch
FAITH leaders from across the district were recently invited to Member for Polwarth Richard Riordan’s home for a special lunch to celebrate Easter.
Cobden-based Deacon Kaye Hanks, Parish of Camperdown and Holy Apostles priest Father Matthew Jones and Superior of the Benedictine Abbey Sister Raphael Stone were among those in attendance.
Mr Riordan said the lunch was an annual event to allow him to thank church groups for the “unsung work” they do throughout the year.
“Across the region, we have people visiting and helping the elderly and sick – we’ve got people at the Terang and Camperdown Anglican Church do quite a bit of fundraising for international aid causes, we also had a casserole bank that operates out of Cobden and other acts of kindness and care that often fly under the radar, but our communities rely very heavily on,” he said.
“It’s about acknowledging that good work that goes on without government support or fanfare and how important it is.
“We also discussed the future of the physical structures that make up the traditional church presence in communities such as churches and halls, and just talked about how sustainable that is into the future and whether there are things we can, as communities, do to preserve those community assets in the town and how we might better use them for community benefit and how we can resource share across the different faiths.
“It was a very broad ranging set of conversations, and ones I think the various groups enjoyed having - listening to how some of the other faiths and groups manage looking after their communities and looking after those very important community assets.”
Fr Jones said he was pleased to be able to attend this year’s lunch, after being unable to attend in previous years due to other commitments.
“When the invitation came this year, I cancelled out any of the services I had and said it was important to be able to go to these sorts of events where someone is wanting to know what the churches and faith communities think about issues in the community,” he said.
“The hospitality was amazing, the lunch was delicious, and it was just lovely that Richard Riordan opened up his home for us.
“For me, the highlight was that there were people there from so many different churches – the Catholic church was represented, the Uniting church, a couple of church groups from Colac that I didn’t know, the Anglicans were there, the Salvation Army and the Baptist church.
“Richard wanted to know about the sorts of issues we’re facing at different towns – we talked about things like homelessness and what the churches can do to help people who are finding themselves in that situation.”
Other topics discussed included access to food through initiatives such as food banks, the benefits of op shops, and lack of rental properties for people to access.
“There were a lot of issues discussed, and lots of different views put forward depending on where people were from,” Fr Jones said.
“The issues varied in different places, and one of the big issues that came up, which everyone seemed to agree with, was the lack of accommodation for people to rent.
“The other thing we talked about was social housing – I said to him the problem was a lot of churches have a lot of land, but we don’t have any money to do anything with it.
“Some of the church communities over the years have been built on very big blocks of land, and you look at it and think you can put some villas and low-cost housing there.”
Fr Jones said he came away from the lunch feeling reassured support was available at a government level for churches to continue the work they do within the community.
“For me, it was really great that someone like Richard genuinely wanted to know what the issues were and what we were engaged in, and then looking at ways people in his position can help support that’s being done by the churches – there’s an enormous amount of work being done,” he said
“He was genuinely wanting to know what sorts of support can be put in place, and said he was available if there were things he can do to help.
“Churches usually work on the basis of very dedicated volunteers – people who are very committed to helping and they do it as volunteers – and it’s good to know if you’ve got projects, the government can help support financially to get grants.”