Dai Le (Fowler, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I move the amendment circulated in my name:

(1) Clause 22, page 13 (lines 26 to 29), omit subclause (3), substitute:

(3) In appointing members, the Minister must ensure that:

(a) the appointed members collectively have an appropriate balance of qualifications, skills or experience in the fields mentioned in subsection (2); and

(b) at least 1 appointed member is a representative of the Community Housing Provider sector; and

(c) consideration is given to appointing members who have personal experience of social and affordable housing; and

(d) there is gender and cultural diversity within the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council.

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the minister's efforts in ensuring that there is a diversity of experience across the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council. I agree with the minister that we should have a board with diverse skills and experience, but it must obviously have people with firsthand experience of community and social housing. It is therefore incredibly disappointing that the government won't be mandating a community housing provider representative. Without the government's mandate, the idea that it will happen—it just won't. To some extent I agree with the member for Griffith about the representation on the council, but co-investment from property developers and CHPs is crucial to the social housing sector.

I was raised in housing commission housing and lived in it from the time I arrived in Australia in 1979 until the time I got married in 1992. My sisters and I worked hard to try and break the intergenerational cycles that are all too common within the social and public housing sector, especially for single-parent households. In the last few decades, having worked as a local journalist for the Fairfield Champion and the Liverpool Champion, then becoming a Fairfield councillor and now a representative of the Fowler electorate, it has been very challenging to see an increase in the number of people, men and women, in my electorate of Fowler pleading for help to get support to have a home. It's really shocking to hear stories of people who have waited 20 years plus just to get into social and affordable housing. From people with disabilities to women fleeing from domestic violence, it has been truly difficult to witness and hear from them and feel helpless that, as an elected representative, I can't do more. As my colleague the member for North Sydney said yesterday, it's not just a house; it's a home.

I know all too well the importance of a safety net to help the vulnerable and needy, so I commend the work the minister is doing in having an ambitious aim to create 30,000 homes in five years. However, the council which is supposed to advise the minister on the housing needs of the country needs to also be representative of the people that it is serving. I've previously outlined the important work that community housing providers do. They not only provide a roof over people's heads, but many, such as those in my electorate of Fowler from Hume housing and St George housing, also offer individuals and families programs to help them rehabilitate from drug addiction, to upskill in their work and to gain long-term employment to break the poverty cycle. That's why I strongly urge the government to have people on the board who have had firsthand experience of social and affordable housing and to mandate a community housing provider representative who has on-the-ground experience of what it's like to run such services and programs.

We don't want men in suits from highly affluent suburbs who are networked and connected to the establishment to be the only ones shaping and informing the minister's ideas and thinking. These so-called experts will only be experts at knowing what to say and how to present themselves, and will be too detached from what's happening on the ground to be making decisions that affect the vulnerable. I have seen these professional boards filled with well-intentioned goals, yet many of these boards and body councils often do not have diversity of talent and lived experiences from the community.

I hope the government, in reforming this space, does not stack the board with union delegates and other associates, just like the previous government stacked the NHFIC board with some of their closest mates. We want to encourage consistent and collaborative delivery approaches across Australia and learn lessons from people who have had lived experience of the sector.

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