Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

When I was a young adult, there were no people sleeping rough on the streets of our capital cities. My wife and I were able to buy a home in inner city Melbourne on 1½ average incomes. It could be like this still. The huge change in the last 30 years is because of government policies: housing policies that favour the wealthy and leave the less well-off to struggle big time. They treat housing as a get-rich-quick scheme rather than a human right.

Australia is in a housing crisis. We need to make housing more affordable and to build more houses to provide more public and social housing. The Greens' policy is to build a million public, social and community homes. All of this is possible, but this government doesn't want to act. I want to particularly highlight the situation facing the LGBTIQ-plus community. Just today, the LGBTIQ-plus Health Alliance presented data to parliamentarians on health issues facing LGBTIQ-plus people. Homelessness was recognised as a big factor in poor health, because it is hard to be healthy when you are homeless. Almost a quarter of LGBTIQ-plus people have experienced homelessness in their lifetimes, while 11½ per cent have experienced homelessness in the last year. Trans men and trans women were most likely to have reported experience in homelessness, with almost one-in-five trans people experiencing some form of homelessness in the last year. With discrimination and violence being much more likely against trans and non-binary people, homelessness brings even greater risks for them than other people on the streets.

The government has sat on its hands for too long. They refuse to act to change the policies that make their mates and themselves richer. We must do more. The government should stop sitting on their hands and take urgent action or, much more likely, the community should turf them out.

Question agreed to.