Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I'll ask the minister for homelessness, housing and other matters to add to my answer. The member will probably be aware of the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement—and this goes back to a time, actually, when I was the Minister for Social Services. For many, many years—it's an initiative that began under the member for Sydney, which established a National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness—this was an agreement which was done on an annual basis. It wasn't permanent funding; it was just one-year-only funding that got rolled over one year after one year. As minister, I made that a permanent arrangement, and that meant that the many thousands of organisations across the country that are involved in supporting homelessness in this country have been given funding on an ongoing and permanent basis. This is principally the responsibility of state governments, but, through the national partnership agreement, we have continued to provide federal support on a permanent basis—and that includes to many of the areas, including the ones that you've identified in your question. I'll ask the minister to add further to my answer but simply note that the Commonwealth continues to provide $1.6 billion a year through that agreement to states and territories to support the provision of housing and homelessness services. That support is provided to the states so the states can do their job of supporting people who find themselves in these positions of homelessness. We provide support to that arrangement, but state governments are, principally, responsible for that, and we encourage them, through our significant funding support for them, to do that job.

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