Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to speak in the matters of public interest debate today about homelessness in Australia. If there is any issue in which politics can make a big difference, surely it is homelessness. If there is any issue in which politicians can make a serious contribution to addressing a social wrong, surely it is homelessness. This is a group of people in Australian society that remains powerless and unrepresented in government at the national level because this group of people has no voice in the national government of this country, as this government has steadfastly refused to accept any responsibility for, let alone worked to address, the needs of homeless people in this nation.

This matter should come before us on a day such as today because, firstly, it is National Homeless Persons Week. It is appropriate for us to take the opportunity to remind senators of some of the facts about homeless people in Australia. Secondly, in the wake of last week’s interest rate rise it is appropriate that, in an extremely tight rental market, we know that the desperation of homeless people will become more acute. We have seen a number of stories in the media over the last week about families losing their homes because they cannot afford to pay their rent or meet mortgage payments. Thirdly, this is census week, or rather yesterday was census day. The census is the only real source of statistics we have on homelessness in Australia, so our current statistics date back to 2001. We will have to wait until the middle of next year and perhaps even longer before the ABS comes forward with new statistics. I understand that the ABS has responded to criticism that the previous census underestimated the number of homeless in Australia, and I know that the ABS will be showing great diligence in trying to improve the way it counts Australia’s homeless during the current census.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the ABS on their special efforts to capture the true size and nature of the homeless population in this year’s census. Specially trained collectors have been combing the nation, trying to get the most accurate count possible over recent days. Collectors are first faced with the challenge of simply finding homeless people. Imagine for a moment not having a home or indeed any reliable place at which to be contacted. It does not take much to understand that functioning in society without a reliable address is almost impossible. Secondly, the collectors face deep-seated suspicion from many homeless people. Many are afraid of government authorities for very good reason.

Gathering this basic data is not a simple task, but it is a critical one and is particularly important for those of us in this national parliament who are concerned about developing public policy to address the needs of homeless people. Without reliable basic data on the numbers of people living without a home, making the right policy and providing enough properly targeted services for this most marginalised group is equally very difficult. The challenge facing the ABS reminds us of the basic brutal realities of homelessness.

Based on the 2001 census data, we know that there are 100,000 Australians without a secure roof over their heads every night. Tonight, 100,000 Australians will not have a secure roof over their heads. Some 14,000 of those people have no roof at all; they will be sleeping rough, taking advantage of the starlight hotel. They are the people who are most likely to be underestimated in any official statistics, because they are the hardest to count. Another 14,000 will stay in shelters and refuges tonight. Twenty-three thousand are living in insecure boarding houses and 49,000 are basically couch surfing—relying on the charity of friends and relatives.

That the homeless are not seen and seldom heard explains why many Australians, when asked by community organisations how many people are homeless in Australia, as Mission Australia did last year, respond with an answer of about 20,000—one-fifth of the official estimates. Most Australians are not aware of just how desperate the situation is. The homeless remain hidden in Australia.

Let us think about what it means. For instance, in my home city of Melbourne the hidden homeless are said to be around 14,000. If you go to the other capital cities, there are said to be 15,500 in Sydney, 7,500 in Brisbane, 4,800 in Adelaide, 5,600 in Perth, 1,100 in Hobart, 1,200 in Canberra and 2,700 in Darwin every night. Canberra is probably one of the more prosperous cities in the Commonwealth and, if we think about how cold it was here last night, people are trying to survive outdoors in temperatures of minus seven degrees. Last night there were 70 people on the streets of Canberra.

We know that the causes of homelessness are complex. We know that domestic violence, for example, is the leading cause of homelessness for women. Almost half the homeless population are children and young people, and 10 per cent are under 12 years old, so it is no good saying that it is their fault. It is no good trying to assert that this is a problem that does not concern the rest of this society. We cannot eradicate all the causes of homelessness—I do not suggest that we will—but we can provide far greater assistance, particularly for crisis accommodation, so that in our capital city, for instance, 300 people will be in shelters and refuges tonight. We should be able to provide far greater assistance to those people.

In my home state of Victoria, 5,000 people will be crowding into refuges and shelters tonight. The same number will be turned away; they will not actually get a place in a shelter tonight. I am told we have a turn-away rate in homelessness services of around 50 per cent. It is even higher for women and children escaping domestic violence, with up to two-thirds of children accompanying their mothers being turned away from shelters.

Funding for homelessness services is provided by the Commonwealth through the Commonwealth and state Supported Accommodation Assistance Program—the SAAP agreement. In 2004 an independent evaluation of the SAAP agreement found that there needed to be a 15 per cent real increase in funding just to maintain the viability of existing services. But the Howard government completely ignored this review when it came to the renegotiation of this agreement last year. The Minister for Community Services, John Cobb, has of course tried to claim that the Commonwealth has put in additional funding under the new SAAP agreement. This is a claim that has been previously made by other ministers, such as Senator Patterson, but it is just plain wrong. The Commonwealth provided no new funding. Both the current and former ministers have talked proudly about the fact that the new agreement puts extra money into innovation. But these are being funded at the expense of the base funding for this program. There will actually be a fall in the base funding for this program from $178.5 million in 2005-06 to $175.3 million in 2006-07 and $175.8 million in 2007-08.

I am sure there would be no-one here who would argue against innovation, but it strikes me that there needs to be provision of actual services and improvement in those services, and effective services that represent greater value for money. Changing the way services are provided usually requires an injection of additional funding, particularly in terms of capital works for new building and more appropriate facilities and perhaps for the trialling of new strategies for the provision of outreach support. So it makes no sense whatsoever to fund these improvements by taking money away from existing services, which are already struggling to meet the demands of some of our most vulnerable citizens.

What makes even less sense, though, is the fact that, despite all the bluff and bluster presented by this government, total funding under this agreement is not even keeping pace with inflation. It strikes me that when the Commonwealth funding over the life of the agreement does not even keep pace with inflation—let alone with the wage costs—you have a situation where the level of support is actually declining. If the amount of money provided by the Commonwealth in 2005-06 was indexed by CPI, it would be contributing another $8 million over the five years of the agreement. If in 2005-06 funding was indexed by the wage price index provided by Treasury in the most recent budget papers, the Commonwealth would be contributing an extra $33 million over the life of the agreement. These things are just not happening.

The Howard government might also point out that it has a program it calls the National Homelessness Strategy, although this has been one of the most misleadingly named programs in a litany of this government’s Orwellian, misleadingly named programs. Labor has looked at this program and I have asked a number of questions through the estimates process. Departmental officials, in their responses, can only indicate that the strategy is little more than a cost-shifting exercise by which the national government uses demonstration projects and then fails to fund them. These programs are then passed back to the states. Both the Commonwealth minister and officials have confirmed that the demonstration projects that the Commonwealth will be funding under the most recent round of the strategy will probably be left to the states and territories to support in the longer term. Of course, that funding will come out of the SAAP agreement. This is the same SAAP program which has already been demonstrated to be grossly underfunded, probably to the tune of about 15 per cent. It will now be required to fund the additional services that the Commonwealth has established but passed back to the states. I think we are entitled to ask, ‘How will this be done?’

It is worth noting that a large part of the problem facing homelessness services is that when homeless families get into crisis accommodation they are staying longer. They are required to compete with a growing number of people for fewer and fewer services. They are unable to move because there is simply no housing available. So the bricks and mortar issues of housing—as we sometimes put it—require urgent action. Australia needs another 138,000 affordable rental properties around the country to lift low-income earners into the private rental market and out of housing stress, and to reduce the risk of them falling into homelessness.

What you are seeing here is in the context of the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement, which has seen a 30 per cent reduction in the level of Commonwealth support over the life of this government. We have seen some 50,000 fewer housing units actually available in this country. The demands are growing, yet the service provision is falling. The government does not even have a minister for housing. It is an argument that the government needs to take up, and I think the Commonwealth needs to fulfil its responsibilities. If this government cannot do it then I would put the view that at the next election the Australian people will get a government that will do it, and will change the existing regime.