Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] by leave—Housing is a human right. We don't always describe it as such in this country because we don't have a national charter of human rights, but it would be the rare person who would put up an argument to say that housing, decent secure shelter, is anything other than a human right, is anything other than necessary to be able to have an engaged, a decent and a happy life. Sadly homelessness can happen to anyone and it's important, as we consider the recommendations of this report, that those of us in this parliament and more widely remember that we're not just talking about one cohort of society. We're not just talking, perhaps, about damaged and difficult people who have spent their lives on the edges. Importantly, that's who we are talking about, and it's our duty to work to make their lives better, but we are also talking about anyone and everyone who can become homeless at any time. Here are two examples from my electorate. Jane, who lives in Frankston and has a son with a disability, this year in May received a notice to vacate her rental property. She can't get any assistance. The state MPs have called all of the caravan parks in my electorate, which are all at capacity and had no availability. A local charity was advising her to stay in her rental unit an order of possession was issued, to try to buy some more time just to find accommodation. Samantha from Seaford in July this year contacted my office because she can't find affordable housing in the area. She said: 'I'm trying my absolute best to create a stable, loving home environment for my daughter, but with the income I receive and the daily cost of living, it's quite simply unmanageable. After I pay our rent and bills, buy food and pay for petrol and child care, I have nothing left.'

That's why the work that the committee—which I'm very proud to be on—has done is important. That's why the minister at the table's response to the recommendations in this report are so important. It's for people like Jane and Samantha. It's for the 44,152 Victorian households waiting for social housing. It's for the people in the south-east and the east of Melbourne, where 32 per cent of Victorians are experiencing homelessness. Forty per cent of people on the social housing waiting list live in these regions, one of which is mine. The Victorian state government's Big Build of $5.6 billion will make a big difference, but we need to have the federal government adopt all but one of the recommendations of this report and work collaboratively with states across the country to do the heavy lifting to address homelessness and housing affordability.

I proudly stand here endorsing the Youth2 Alliance campaign in my electorate, which is advocating for a youth educational foyer and Frankston and Rosebud crisis accommodation for young people, which fits squarely into the housing first model that the chair of the committee spoke about in his contribution, and which all us on the committee enthusiastically endorse. In my electorate and the Mornington Peninsula, there's been a 50 per cent increase in the rate of young people requesting assistance with housing during COVID—some 390 requests in 2019-2020. That's 390 requests from people aged between 15 and 25 for housing, with no crisis accommodation locally and insufficient coordination of assistance. The Youth2 Alliance asked for $15.5 million over four years, which, in the scheme of the money that's been spent recently by the federal government, is nothing. But to people in my community, to young people in my community experiencing homelessness, it is so much. That is for a youth foyer and for crisis accommodation. As I said, it fits squarely into the recommendations of this report, which I endorse wholeheartedly and ask the minister not just to pay lip service to them but to accept them.

On the recommendations of this report, I couldn't put my opposition to recommendation 34 any more eloquently than the member for Macarthur did. We are here to help everyone in their time of need and there are often no people more damaged and more in need than those who are in social housing. I just want to add this plea to the government, to the minister at the table, to the Prime Minister and to the government members of this committee who did endorse that so-called 'three strikes' recommendation: please don't let this recommendation overshadow the positive recommendations in this report. Please do not allow partisan politics to cast Liberal against Labor over our fierce disagreement about this recommendation and to overshadow the positive recommendations in this report. Go out and talk to the media and talk to your communities about why the federal government should adopt a national housing strategy; about why the federal government should invest in social and public and affordable housing; about why young people, like the young people in my electorate of Dunkley, deserve their human right of secure housing now, and to secure their futures so that they can access education and health care and have stability. Talk about those things. Talk about the recommendations and the work put in by all the submitters. Do not turn this report into a partisan wedge attack on one recommendation.

Finally, I want to join with all of the other members of the committee who have spoken today, to thank the chair and deputy chair, who are incredibly hardworking and dedicated members of this parliament, for all of the work they put into this enormous and really important inquiry, and to thank the secretariat, without whom none of us could do the work we do and who make everyone look very good every day.

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