Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last March, I stood in this place, and I said that I felt we were facing a tsunami with respect to housing insecurity and housing affordability. A year ago, during Homelessness Week 2021, I called on all governments—state, federal and local—to work together to ensure we have the resources for affordable housing to help address homelessness through increasing the rental allowance, a national housing strategy and more federal support for social housing. I therefore welcome the government's commitment to develop a new national housing and homelessness plan to the tune of $10 billion, known as the Housing Australia Future Fund, for social and affordable housing. I really want to know what this will mean for our regions.

Yesterday, I met with Homelessness Australia, the Community Housing Industry Association and National Shelter to discuss their theme for Homelessness Week 2022, which is 'To end homelessness we need a plan'. Together, we reflected on this theme and the need for any plan to tackle homelessness to recognise the special challenges that the provision of social and affordable housing means for non-metropolitan areas. Mayo, like many electorates, is suffering from a lack of affordable housing. This is leaving many of my constituents couch surfing and rough sleeping, and, sadly, I have even seen tents behind one of our local churches. This lack of affordable housing is preventing areas like the Fleurieu Peninsula and Kangaroo Island from attracting new workers because there's simply nowhere for people to live if they get a job.

Yesterday, I discussed with Homelessness Australia, CHIA and National Shelter how we need to work together on all levels. This is a problem that affects all three levels of government, and a solution can only be found if we all work together. I believe that we need to do more to incentivise investor involvement, and the Future Fund could be further boosted if we somehow come up with a plan that can also allow mum-and-dad investors to be part of this solution. Smart measures can be implemented to mitigate the loss of affordable housing due to the ageing out of the NRAS system. Perhaps we could even stretch those last NRAS properties. I know many in my community have come off the NRAS system, the rents have gone up and people can no longer afford to stay in there. We need to keep every possible housing stock we can. I'm glad that there is now a commitment by the federal government to invest in social and affordable housing. I think we can all work through this together, because everybody deserves a place to call home.