Steve Gibbons (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the progress relating to the Council of Australian Governments?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. The Council of Australian Governments languished under our predecessors. It has been in the past a core vehicle for national microeconomic reform. For the last 12 years it languished and in effect did very little. Our intention as a government, reflected in the pre-election commitments we made to fix the federation, is to put COAG—the Council of Australian Governments—back onto the centre stage when it comes to delivering effective long-term microeconomic reform. If you look at the overall challenges of productivity growth, what we invest in terms of human capital, what we invest in infrastructure and what we do on the deregulation front, so much of that is bound up with the actual state of our federation. The federation has become somewhat sick in recent years with functional duplication and overlap, and a plethora of regulatory regimes which affect businesses trying to earn a living, as well as the impact on working families as they seek to deal with various levels of government to consume basic health, education and other services.

At the end of last year, within six weeks or so of the government taking office, we convened the first meeting of the Council of Australian Governments since the new government had assumed office. We outlined a comprehensive program of action for the year 2008 covering education, health, business deregulation, climate change, water and the rest. That is important because, if you are going to achieve real outcomes for the nation, you need to work in cooperation with the states and territories. If you simply want someone to blame on the way through then you play a political tactic, as our predecessors did for 12 years, because COAG is either a vehicle for change or it is an alibi for inaction. Our predecessors demonstrated a strong predilection for the latter approach. When it comes to the upcoming COAG, to be held in Adelaide at the end of next week, we have a substantial agenda of work on our plate. We intend to work methodically, carefully and with diligence through the agenda of microeconomic reform which we have put to the Australian people.

One of the areas where the Commonwealth and the states can work better together is in dealing with the challenge which was the subject of a question in this place yesterday—and again I go to the whole challenge of homelessness. This is an important matter. All families across the country are concerned about housing affordability. Many families across the country are concerned about homelessness. After 16 years of economic growth, it is unacceptable that any given night we have 100,000 Australians who are homeless and, on average, between 10,000 and 14,000 who are sleeping rough. Before the election we committed to halve the number of people turned away from crisis accommodation within five years. That is a very big commitment. We committed to a policy called A Place To Call Home, which is a $150 million investment to build or purchase 600 new homes for people in crisis accommodation.

Today in the parliament I am pleased to confirm that we have reached agreement with the state and territory governments on the implementation of this election commitment. For the first time, the new accommodation will be delivered in those areas where homelessness problems are most acute and the funding will now start to flow. This scheme will provide a permanent home so that families will no longer have to uproot and move from crisis accommodation to crisis accommodation.

One of the great feedbacks we got from the community sector on this, reflected in the discussion we had as a parliamentary party yesterday, is that, when someone goes into crisis accommodation, within a short period of time they are often relocated to crisis accommodation or transitional accommodation elsewhere, which means that kids have to be ripped out of school, which means their school performance goes through the floor—and that, in turn, creates a whole series of other problems as well.

What we are seeking to move towards is a situation and a set of policies and programs across the country where we deal with the homelessness challenge in situ, so that when we relocate someone to a crisis accommodation centre, a crisis accommodation home or a rented apartment, it has a reasonable prospect of being their long-term place to live. This is a first step—and I emphasise it is a first step—in this government’s new approach to homelessness, which also includes our commitment to deliver the first white paper of this government, which will set out a comprehensive plan of action for the decade ahead. On this side of the parliament we believe in putting an end to the blame game. Homelessness is about decency—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I find it remarkable that those opposite laugh about homelessness. I would have thought a mark of decency is a program of action to deal with homelessness. It may be of surprise to many of those opposite that there are homelessness crises and problems in each of their electorates. It may be invisible to them but it is not invisible to the government. We intend to prosecute a program of action to deal with this challenge. Rather than just blame the state and territory governments, we have a cooperative program of action with the states and territories to enable people who find themselves in these desperate circumstances to at least have that level of basic human decency and support.