Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Housing and the Minister for the Status of Women. Is the minister aware of figures released today on homelessness from the 2006 census? What action is the government taking in this area?

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kingston for her question today. The member for Kingston held a very successful forum on homelessness in her electorate with a lot of local organisations represented. Her report to me was a very insightful and compassionate report. So I thank her for her question today. Today the Australian Bureau of Statistics released a report Counting the homeless. It counted the people who were homeless on census night in 2006. One of the frustrations of working in the area of homelessness is that figures are really only taken twice every decade and then we wait two years to see what those figures are. Nevertheless, the Counting the homeless report, which looks at census night 2006, shows us some very important and disturbing information. The number of people who were sleeping rough each night increased 16 per cent between 2001 and 2006, from 14,000 people to 16,000 people. On census night 2006, there were 2,192 more children homeless compared with census night 2001. That reflects, unfortunately, a 22 per cent increase in the number of homeless children under the age of 12 in that five-year period. It also reflects a much broader shift in the type of people who are becoming homeless. We are seeing a lot more families and couples becoming homeless—a lot more families with children.

I am pleased to report that there is some good news in the data as well. There has been a fall in the number of homeless young people between the ages of 12 and 24. That group of homeless people fell from around 23,000 in 2001 to just under 18,000 in 2006. That shows that targeted interventions in a particular population group can be successful in reducing homelessness.

This data also confirms that homelessness services have been doing an amazingly great job with the resources that they have. Over 20,000 people were staying in shelters and refuges on census night 2006. That is 5,600 more people than were in the same type of accommodation in 2001. That was done without, at the time, any real increase in funding from the Commonwealth.

Of course, the Rudd Labor government has already taken action in the area of homelessness. In the May budget we contributed $2.8 million to RecLink, the organisation behind the Choir of Hard Knocks, and 30 other similar programs. We put $150 million of new money into building homes for homeless Australians. These funds have been allocated to states and territories, and states and territories are building, buying and planning those homes right now. A Place to Call Home will meet its target of delivering 600 new homes for homeless Australians, an important though modest contribution.

Last month I launched the National Homelessness Information Clearinghouse. With government funding of $500,000 over three years, it is a crucial tool for informing and connecting the homelessness sector. Our homelessness white paper will be out in a few weeks time. Over 1,200 Australians attended consultations and over 600 written submissions were received. Today I also released a short summary of those submissions.

Homelessness is being tackled by the COAG Housing Working Group because obviously Commonwealth, state, territory and local governments need to work together. Of course, the problem of homelessness goes beyond government intervention. It requires all the support and help of the not-for-profit, non-government, benevolent and charity sector, which has been so successful for so many years. But it goes beyond that also. Our response needs to engage the business community and the whole of the Australian community. We know that with targeted action we can turn around the figures that we have seen today.