Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight I rise to talk about an issue that is close to my heart, and it is an issue that is very important to many in my electorate. Homelessness is a huge and complex issue that has been talked about in this place for a long time but, as of late, we are not making much progress. In my electorate of Macnamara we have a proud public housing community, from all walks of life and all corners of our globe, many with stories of hardship or heartbreak. I was pleased to spend a lot of time with them, listening and talking with them over the last year or so.

Hearing their stories, I was blown away at the resilience and hurdles that many of them have had to overcome. Many of them faced and overcame persecution and mental illness, and, too frequently, their stories feature domestic violence. But it was my experience that those living in public housing in Macnamara have a sincerity and warmth, and I'm proud to represent them in this place. It was also clear to me that each and every person that I spoke to who lives in public housing knew just how important it was to have a safe place and a roof over their head at the end of the day.

Recently, after a cold Melburnian day, I was about to get into bed, and it started pouring down. It was a typical cold, wet, July Melbourne night. And I put myself in the perspective of those who were doing it tough that night. It's a pretty confronting thought, but what made it worse was that we recently had the assistant minister for homelessness doing the opposite: instead of thinking of his responsibilities for those who are homeless, in that infamous ABC interview he told us to focus on those who weren't. The minister wanted us to focus on the fact that the more than 116,000 homeless Australians are just a fraction of our population, but that is the highest it has ever been in this country. There are more homeless Australians than ever before. There has been much commentary about his awful turn of phrase about wanting to put a 'positive spin' on homelessness. I hope, if he had his time again, the assistant minister would answer that interview differently, but it does highlight that those opposite don't appreciate what is going on in local communities.

Last week I was very pleased to welcome the member for Blaxland to my electorate. We met in South Melbourne to visit the Macnamara icon and legend Father Bob Maguire. Many know Bob for his larrikin performances on Triple J and from him causing mischief with his former sidekick and fellow Macnamara local John Safran, but the truth is that Bob spent his entire life helping people in crisis and is still working as hard as ever at 84 years of age.

Bob and his team serve thousands of meals every year at different locations and in his community pantry location in South Melbourne, where I was so pleased to join the member for Blaxland, and where I volunteered in 2014 for a number of months, giving food when they were starting up that facility. While the member for Blaxland and I were there, we saw Bob and his team give out a bit of food, a cup of tea and any other essentials that were out of reach. Our Prime Minister likes to talk about the quiet Australians, but the real quiet Australians are the ones who need their government to do more. They're the ones lacking a roof over their heads, they're the ones who take each night as it comes, and they are the ones who need a home and not positive spin.

There are many policy options the government could take, but one key improvement that really should be done is raising Newstart. In recent months, we've had a debate about the rate of Newstart, which has not increased in real terms for 25 years. Newstart is clearly too low, and I want to be on the record tonight for my support in saying that it needs to be higher. Allowing people to languish in poverty will only make homelessness worse in this country, and there's no positive spin on that.