Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Meaghan has lived in the same apartment in Carrum Downs for 14 years. She gets by on a disability support pension. Meaghan can't afford to buy a house, and just this week she received a rent increase notice of $55 a week. That leaves her with a grand total of $160 a month to live on. Just think about that for a moment: $160 a month to live on.

Dominic is an NDIS participant who lives in Frankston South with his father, who is on the age pension. Dom has a motorised bed and chair. He relies on a four-wheeled walker just to get around, and he's having surgery this week, so times are pretty tough. Dom and his father have just been served an eviction notice because the property they are renting is being demolished. They're on the critical waitlist for public housing, but they can't find anything in Frankston. There is nothing on offer for them.

In Australia today, it is harder to buy a home and harder to rent, and there are more Australians—more people like Meaghan, Dom and Dom's father—who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness than ever before. There is no single solution to this housing crisis, but Labor has a plan to start to tackle it. Labor's Housing Australia Future Fund will create jobs and change lives, with 20,000 new social housing properties and 10,000 affordable homes in the first five years and $100 million in crisis and transitional housing for women fleeing DV and women at risk of homelessness. (Time expired)