Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Assistant Minister for Social Services (Senator Fifield) to a question without notice asked by Senator Ludlam today relating to homelessness initiatives.

Mr Morrison has taken over responsibility for some of the most vulnerable people in our community: people at risk of homelessness or who are actually suffering homelessness. Perhaps Senator Fifield recognised that I was being somewhat tongue in cheek in the final question that I put to him, about whether Mr Morrison was going to bring the same spirit of compassion and humanity that he brought to the treatment of people seeking sanctuary and refuge in Australia to people who are suffering homelessness.

Homelessness kills people. Presumably none of us, on any side of politics, have ever been homeless or potentially at risk of homelessness, but I bet we all know somebody who has, because it is so widespread in a housing market as warped and overheated as that of Australia. It is a Commonwealth government responsibility to do something about it, whether it simply be through guaranteed funding through four-year budget cycles or whether it be more hands-on forms of assistance to homeless people. There is nothing in the Constitution that says it is solely a state responsibility or that we should simply throw some of the most vulnerable people in our community into the teeth of the market. The market has failed, and it continues to fail people who are falling through the cracks.

Senator Fifield, understanding that you are in a representative capacity when you come in here and that you are not responsible for the portfolio, it is kind of dismal to simply hear back a recitation of what the Labor Party had done. Under the former government, we had a Minister for Homelessness that we could take these questions to. Under the former government, we had direct assistance like the National Rental Affordability Scheme. The Rental Affordability Scheme was not perfect, but it was something that was brought in by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd after being developed extensively over a period of years by housing peak bodies and people with experience in financial markets to try and work out how to get something happening on the supply side, and you have trashed it. You pulled it apart. It is hard to believe that you could simply come in here and blame the former government. You have been here for 16 months.

Maybe this is a part of the commitment that good government starts today. Maybe good government on behalf of homeless people could start today, because sweet stuff-all has happened up until this point, apart from abolishing things that had previously existed. You have cut $235 million from the National Rental Affordability Scheme. I imagine that senators from the crossbench and from the opposition would have worked with this government to improve that scheme, which was flawed and which we had been critiquing for months and years. I would imagine that those on the crossbenches and the opposition benches would have worked with the government to improve that scheme, and instead you have just thrown it out the door. The First Home Saver Accounts scheme has been abolished—$130 million. Homelessness research strategy funding—