Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak today to this motion raised by member for Richmond and I thank her for her tremendous advocacy of these front-line support services for homeless people and for bringing this important issue to the attention of the House. As outlined in the terms of the motion, over 105,000 Australians are currently homeless, meaning that on any given night one in 200 Australians are homeless or sleeping rough. In their latest report on homelessness, the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated that in my electorate of Newcastle and the surrounding Lake Macquarie region 97 people are living in improvised dwellings, tents or sleep-outs, 253 people are in supported accommodation for the homeless, 270 are staying temporarily with other households, 271 people are staying in boarding houses or in other temporary lodging and 182 people are living in severely crowded dwellings, making a total of 1,073 in and around my electorate being identified as homeless.

Unfortunately, as outlined in the Salvation Army's annual Economic and social impact survey released just last month, rather than improving, homelessness is in fact getting worse. The Salvation Army's research found that, in the past two years, rates of homelessness and couch surfing were increasing, with the number of Australians accessing homelessness services in 2013-14 increasing by four per cent and the rate of couch surfing increasing by an astonishing 26 per cent, compared to the 2012 figures.

The Salvation Army has defined the situation for individuals and families experiencing housing stress and homelessness as dire. I recently visited one of the frontline service providers in my electorate, Wesley Mission Services, and met with the operations manager, Paul Procter. Their support services have been under particular stress recently in the aftermath of the devastating storms in Newcastle. Their regular breakfast service, staffed entirely by volunteers now, often sees more than 40 people gathering for a meal. Fridays are especially busy as many people know this could well be their last meal before Monday, with all of the community-kitchen services in my region now no longer able to operate over the weekend. Mr Procter told me that they had a steady increase of people accessing their services, but unfortunately they have been compelled to let go of staff and cut programs. Organisations like the Salvation Army, Wesley Mission, Homelessness Australia and countless other small and large community based groups are doing everything in their power to address this dire circumstance, but the Abbott-Liberal government are not making their job any easier. In fact, you could argue they are making life a lot more difficult for the support-service organisations and, consequently, those people in need.

I do of course welcome the government's back-track on the cuts to direct homelessness funding and the two-year extension of funding announced in March, but it must be asked if the government really understand the issue at hand, with their cuts to other programs that go to addressing and supporting those at risk of homelessness and the lack of any new funding in this year's budget. The government has made significant cuts to frontline youth services, putting more young people at risk of homelessness. This is in addition to their ongoing plans to leave young jobseekers with no support for four weeks. They have made major cuts to domestic violence services, putting more women and children at risk of homelessness. A partially funded awareness campaign was the only domestic violence measure announced in the federal budget, leaving frontline workers aghast at critical funding gaps. The government's lack of commitment was questioned by independent community organisation Fair Agenda, who consulted experts prior to the budget to determine what funding was required to address family violence. Not one of the nine crucial funding areas that they identified were addressed in this year's budget.

In my own electorate, the Hunter Community Legal Centre have raised serious concerns at their capacity to meet the growing needs of the most vulnerable in our community in the face of ongoing funding uncertainty. Likewise, this budget contained no funds for the Newcastle Domestic Violence Resource Centre, which fills a service delivery gap to meet the needs of people experiencing domestic violence. This service is run entirely by volunteers, receives no government funding whatsoever and exists solely as an initiative of Jenny's Place—a women's refuge service in my community. It is time this government stepped up to the mark and addressed the root causes of homelessness, and the existing needs, and committed to funding these vital services in our community.

See this speech in context