Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

A couple of weeks ago I and the member for Blaxland, who is the shadow housing minister, visited Laurie and Sandra Fraser in Malabar in my electorate. Laurie and Sandra have lived in public housing for over four decades, and they take great pride in their home and have raised their three children there. But Laurie and Sandra have a major issue with rampant mould, which is a concern for their health and their family's health. And it's not just them; others in the housing estate that they live in have the same issue. Laurie and Sandra have been onto the department of housing in New South Wales for four years to try and get this issue fixed, and no maintenance work has been undertaken. Unfortunately, their situation is not unique. This is happening across the whole of Australia. There is a massive backlog of maintenance associated with public housing in this country.

With the coronavirus recession, we now have a unique opportunity for the Morrison government to come up with a program that would work with the states to ensure we're investing in upgrades and fixing the maintenance problems that exist in social housing across Australia today. If we were to do this, it would provide much-needed jobs for tradies in the construction industry throughout the country, an industry that is facing its biggest downturn. It would also fix up important public assets and provide an improvement in the lifestyles and welfare of Australians who live in those public assets.

But the Morrison government have failed to recognise the need for the upgrade of social housing within our community and have missed the mark again. Their HomeBuilder scheme is poorly targeted, and the uptake rates across the country are woefully inadequate. The program won't provide the stimulus that the government said it would. It won't provide the jobs for tradies that this government said it would. Homelessness is on the rise in Australia, and Australians desperately need more and better social housing. This was true before the COVID crisis but it's all the more important now, given what's occurring.

It's time the federal government took responsibility to help the more than 140,000 Australians who are on the waiting list for social housing throughout this country. In New South Wales alone, there were 50,000 applicants on the New South Wales housing register at 30 June last year. But, given the widespread damage that the pandemic has wrought, we know this number will increase. We know that homelessness is going to increase in Australia as a result of this recession. Now is the time for the federal government to be working with the states to improve and upgrade public housing throughout the country. There is a five-year waiting list to get into public housing in the community that I represent.

We know that good access to secure housing is important in improving people's mental health. The Productivity Commission's draft report into mental health, released last October, highlighted the importance of non-health services, including housing, in preventing mental illness and in improving recovery. And we know that domestic violence and family violence is a leading cause of homelessness for women and their children. Older women are the fastest growing group of homeless people in Australia. A report released by Housing for the Aged Action Group and Social Ventures Australia reveals that around 400,000 women over the age of 45 are at risk of homelessness in this country.

We know that there is a growing demand. We know that there is a need for more social housing in this country. We know that there is a need to fix the litany of maintenance issues that exist in social housing throughout this country. Yet the Morrison government continues to ignore the pleas of Australians who are saying it should come up with a program to fix the problems in social housing, to provide important jobs for tradies during this downturn and, more importantly, to improve the lives, health and safety of Australians throughout the country. The Morrison government must listen to the Australian people and come up with a program that improves social housing for the benefit of all.

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