Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Homelessness is something that we cannot continue to ignore. On any given night, almost 100,000 Australians are homeless—that is, do not have access to safe, secure and adequate housing. The homeless line our streets and fill our country’s shelters. The prospect of these individuals being able to enter into Australia’s private rental or home ownership market is becoming increasingly unlikely as the prices for homes and private rental properties continue to skyrocket. In the electorate of Hindmarsh, the number of households suffering from mortgage stress doubled between 2001 and 2006. There are now 22.8 per cent of houses with mortgages within the electorate of Hindmarsh that are in mortgage stress—that is, households where mortgage repayments exceed 30 per cent of their total income. With the recent rise in interest rates and the already-climbing mortgage stress throughout Australia, there is cause for alarm. The rising interest rates only add further stress to increasing grocery bills and petrol prices. The average Australian family is doing it tough, even though the Prime Minister claims that Australian families have never been better off.

A report released in July by the St Vincent de Paul Society outlined the pressures facing many Australians in finding accommodation. It claims that many thousands of families are on the edge of homelessness. This pressure on many Australian families has forced them to live in accommodation that is run down, crowded and void of the necessities that most families need in their daily lives. Some families are paying up to 90 per cent of their weekly family income on rent. The situation is hindered even further by the actions of this federal government, which have led to $3.1 billion being taken out of public housing over the last 10 years. Despite this, the government refuses to take responsibility for the decline in public housing, preferring to blame the states. Rather than taking any action to assist with the housing affordability crisis in Australia, the minister prefers to play the blame game. At the same time, the federal minister is putting in jeopardy the 334,000 existing public housing tenants, who may lose their homes as a result of state and territory governments potentially losing all Commonwealth money they have relied on since 1945 when the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement was initiated. States and territories have struggled with declining Commonwealth funding under the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement just to do maintenance on public homes, most of which are more than 30 years old. If state and territory governments lose half their income stream they will simply not be able to afford to do maintenance on existing public housing and will have to look at other options.

This irresponsible announcement by the federal minister does not contain one cent of new funding. The reality is that new public housing cannot be built with no money—no matter who is building it. As Labor’s ‘New Directions for Affordable Housing’ discussion paper pointed out weeks ago, insufficient investment by the Commonwealth has meant that the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement has failed to keep pace with community need. While all states and territories have made substantial efforts to maintain or increase their housing stock, federal funding has declined. Labor is not opposed to the involvement of the private sector in the provision of public housing. This is not new, and it happens in many states already.

The Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement was formed for the provision of housing assistance to people requiring access to affordable and appropriate housing. It was designed for the Commonwealth and states to work together. The agreement explicitly states that it is essential to reduce poverty and its effects on individuals, and on the community as a whole. The agreement was initially set up to provide for those in greatest need and at risk of falling into either homelessness or severe financial stress. With the recent interest rate hike, the average home loan of $250,000 will increase by $53 per month. This means many Australian families will have to revisit their budgets and make further cuts to their spending.

Housing affordability is now at critical levels, as is the strain on family budgets. The case studies in the St Vincent de Paul report describe families forced to live in cars, caravans and homeless shelters because they cannot afford rising rents. Young people aged 12 to 18 make up a quarter of the almost 100,000 homeless Australians who live on our streets every night. Young children living in homeless shelters or caravans are often deprived of the basic things in life such as education, good nutrition and a stable home life. The St Vincent de Paul report confirms what Labor has been saying: that the housing affordability crisis has spread to the rental market. Labor has called on the federal government to end the blame game and start showing some national leadership on this issue of housing affordability. (Time expired)