Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

When tackling the domestic violence crisis, one of the crucial elements is tackling the housing crisis. One of the problems right now in Australia is that far too many women are having to choose between violent homes and homelessness. We know that, in the last year alone, 36,000 people experiencing family and domestic violence requested long-term housing and that all of them were denied because, at both a federal and a state level, there is chronic underfunding of public housing and homelessness services. We know the top three reasons cited by women seeking support from homelessness services are family and domestic violence, 45 per cent; financial insecurity, 39 per cent; and rental increases or eviction, 36 per cent. That basically means that, far too often, serious housing and income insecurity falls on women who are in dangerous relationships or relationships they know they need to leave, but often they have to choose between homelessness for them and their kids and staying in that relationship.

There is actually a relatively easy fix for that: a vast and enormous investment in public housing. That should not be the case in a country as wealthy as Australia, where we've just seen a federal budget from which property investors will get $175 billion in tax handouts over the next four years. In a wealthy country like this there are literally tens of thousands of women going to homelessness services, saying, 'I would like a long-term home,' and being turned away. Not only that, the entire system is overwhelmed because of the skyrocketing rental increases we are seeing, and women are often on the front line of those increases. What happens is that even women who aren't in violent relationships cop massive rent increases and are then pushed into homelessness, and we know that when you are homeless you are 13 times more likely to experience violence.

To give you one example of the tough choices that our housing system forces people to make, I have a story from Rachel, and I will quote her at length. She has been homeless three times since leaving a violent relationship. She was forced to make a tough choice of homelessness for herself and her kids when she was fleeing that violent relationship. She says:

'Everyone has a story. I have been homeless three times—facing homelessness again in four weeks; always facing a housing crisis—due to escaping domestic violence 13 years ago. I have lived in the northern beaches community since I was 19 years old. That was 27 years ago. In my 27 years of renting, starting at $100 per week, then $330, then $550 to $750 to $830 to $930 per week, now, in four weeks time, I am facing homelessness for the fourth time in my life. Rents have now doubled since COVID, and in my area a one-bedroom is $500 a night. It's $880 a week for a granny flat and $1,700 for a home that's not been renovated since the 1960s.

'I lie awake every night, sometimes at 5 am, stressing about putting a roof over my children's heads. Every politician talks about the housing crisis and the housing situation, but four years later nothing has been done. I've been fighting homelessness for 13 years and there have been no changes to the renting situation. I'll be homeless in 25 days and no-one cares. I'm tired of moving. I just want a home.'

The most awful part of it is that there are solutions here. Finland effectively eliminated homelessness by pursuing a very simple model. It's called the Housing First model. The notion is that if we build enough public housing—which they did—and then move everyone into a good home and then give them access to mental health support, social care and an income that's above the poverty line, we'll be able to eliminate homelessness. And they did. But the crucial element of it is that women who are in violent relationships or relationships they need to leave know that on day one they can move into a good-quality home with the rent capped at a proportion of their income, they can have access to a social worker, they can have access to a good school for their kids and they can have access to the mental health support they need.

Are we really suggesting that Australia, a country far wealthier than most of the Scandinavian countries that already do this, is not capable of pulling off something like this? Ultimately, this comes down to choices. And I think it's high time now that this government starts making choices in favour of those people ahead of the property investors that will get the most money out of this budget when it comes to housing

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