Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to be able to speak at the start of Homelessness Week on this theme, 'To end homelessness we need a plan.' We certainly do need a plan, but the state governments also need a plan. I know, in my own electorate, that homelessness is a real issue throughout Moreton Bay at the moment. People have contacted my office, particularly down at Woody Point, where people are rough-sleeping on the beach in tents and just setting up all over the place. The state government doesn't have the will to police it, because they don't have a plan to solve the problem. That's the reality.

And it's not just through Moreton Bay; it's in parts of Aspley and other areas as well. If you talk to those organisations that support homelessness services, like the Breakfast Club, SANDBAG, the Paddy's Van or Encircle, they'll tell you it's a big issue. But in Queensland alone there are 50,000 people on the public housing waiting list. That's 50,000, and it's getting worse. The state government—the Labor state government; the Palaszczuk government—do not know how to address it at all. There are big issues of them not managing their public housing stock. Their maintenance costs are out of control. The contractors that they put forward to homelessness organisations are charging hundreds and, sometimes, thousands of dollars and above for maintenance. These are state government contractors that are being put forward. The Palaszczuk government are not managing their public housing stock well. They're not recycling their assets. They're not getting rid of some of the old assets and putting in new housing, which is lower-cost. And they certainly are not managing the tenants well, when you've got couples in three-bedroom homes.

Moving back to this motion, the Labor government want to build 30,000 social and affordable houses in their first five years. Well, I commend them for that. They should know, though, that the Morrison government built 20,000 houses through NHFIC, through the community housing sector—which in Queensland, by the way, the Palaszczuk government barely supports; it's all public housing and private sector housing up there. We built 20,000. Even if the government builds those 30,000 houses, they all get handed back to the state governments, and the state governments have maintenance issues. They're not managing the stock and they're not recycling the stock. So I hope that the 30,000 that they do build are very low maintenance and that they think that through, because the states can't manage it.

The member for Macnamara said he wants to make public housing a federal responsibility. If the Albanese government want to be responsible for public housing maintenance, good luck to them. We already spend $1.6 billion a year through the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement, $320 million of which goes to Queensland. In your state, Mr Deputy Speaker Wilkie, we cancelled the debt. We put more money into social housing down there, through the state government, than in any other state. But there are still issues in your state as well.

The other thing is that the government wants to put $200 million into the repair, maintenance and improvement of housing in remote Indigenous communities. Do you know what happened the last time we gave Western Australia money for that? They spent the lot of it on roads. I know that because, when I was assistant minister for homelessness, I spoke to the Labor minister over there. So I'd encourage the new minister and the government to talk to the Hon. John Carey in Western Australia, their new minister, and say, 'When we dish out $200 million, can you make sure that this time it's not spent on roads and it actually gets spent on housing?'

When it comes to homelessness, the biggest group is persons living in severely crowded dwellings: 51,088 in the 2016 census. That's the growing group. The second-biggest group, for the benefit of those opposite, is persons in supported accommodation for the homeless. The crazy thing around this is that, when we spend new money getting women and children out of domestic violence situations and into brand-new homes, every single one of them is counted as homeless in the census, all because the government doesn't give some sort of period like a three-month contract.

I would say that building more houses is important. I would also say that we're currently spending $5.5 billion a year on Commonwealth rent assistance. What are the Albanese government going to do there—put it up or down? What are they going to do with the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement? What are they going to do with NHFIC? Are they going to continue to support it? A lot of the Labor states don't support community housing providers. In New South Wales they do, and we got 20,000 built. There are a whole lot of issues that need answering. We've got 220,000 apprentices in training. We've got the first home deposit scheme. We put forward super for housing, to get more stock. Those opposite opposed.

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