Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So here we are in the year of a federal election with no housing minister and no affordable housing policy. We have heard nothing from the government on homelessness, except that somehow it is the responsibility of states. I have lost count of the number of ministers in the Abbott-Turnbull government who have had 'housing' tacked on to their portfolios, but throughout the term of this government there has not been one policy announcement on affordability housing. Nor has there been one idea or policy on how we as a nation can make housing affordable and support the homeless.

In fact, every year since the election of this government, the church and charitable sector has had to fight tooth and nail at the eleventh hour to ensure that funding, particularly for homelessness, is carried over for another year. We are approaching that drop-dead date once again and, once again, the silence on funding, particularly for homelessness, from the government is deafening.

Recently Labor announced our policy on negative gearing. Despite Mr Morrison's feeble attempts this morning to discredit it, the BIS Shrapnel report has itself been discredited, so it did not even live out a media cycle. Our policy has been applauded.

Ever since our policy announcement to ensure future negative gearing applies to new dwellings only whilst grandfathering existing arrangements, the government has been running a protection racket for its rich mates who well and truly benefit from negative gearing. Saul Eslake has said that those in the top tax bracket are three times more likely to negatively gear than those on incomes of less than $80,000. Fifty one per cent of all negative gearing sits with those in the top 20 per cent of earnings. This is who the Turnbull government are defending. For once, just once, I would like to hear them defending those who are homeless, those who are finding it impossible to get into the housing market, whether it is to purchase or to rent. They are the ones who need defending, and this is where the policy focus should be.

A number of Western Australian housing and homelessness agencies come together every two years to carry out a survey of people sleeping rough. It is called Perth Registry Week, and this year the survey was done between 8 and 19 February. This year, for the first time, the survey was conducted across seven local government areas: Perth CBD, Vincent, Victoria Park, Rockingham, Kwinana, Joondalup and Wanneroo. I am very pleased and proud that my council, the Town of Victoria Park, participated and was one of the funders of this year's Perth Registry Week.

But the story so far is a sad and sorry one. In Perth, we have families living rough. This year we had the youngest ever homelessness statistic: a two-week-old baby. What a disgrace. Imagine that for a moment: the birth of a child, a much-anticipated and celebrated occasion, a time of joy for families. For this young baby, it is a bleak future indeed. That baby is condemned to be homeless with her family on the streets of Perth. Shame on the Turnbull government for turning its back on those who are most in need.

There are many families living on the streets of Perth. Seven families, including one young family under 25, were surveyed. One family, who were identified as in high acute need and sleeping rough, were referred to a refuge. Another one was admitted to a refuge. Five families will require affordable housing and short-term support. All of those families were headed up by women. The average age of the head of the household is just over 34 years. As I said before, the youngest child was just two weeks old. The average time that homeless families remain homeless in Western Australia is over a year. That is over a year for families with children living rough on the streets. The majority of families interviewed were single-parent families. There were only two families that had two heads in the household. Three of the families surveyed had been victims of domestic violence and had also been victims of violence since becoming homeless.

Five of the families surveyed identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. Three families reported having insufficient income to cover all expenses. Twenty children, all but two, were with their parents. The largest household had four children sleeping rough on the streets. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were well and truly over-represented in the statistics that were collected in the Perth region. Whether as families or individuals, they were sleeping rough. Almost half surveyed were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Violence now stands out more starkly than ever before in other Perth Registry Week surveys, with over half of the respondents reporting instances of violence and brain injury. All had experienced violence since becoming homeless. Whether they were families or individuals, that issue of violence remains real. It is a threat for those sleeping rough.

Perth's homeless are young. The head of families are just 34 years of age, and the average age of those over the age of 25—the survey makes a distinction between those under 25 and those over 25—was just 40. Again, this dispels the myth that somehow those who are homelessness are largely older men. It is not true. I am sure that these statistics collected in Perth would be replicated across the country.

Whilst a more thorough analysis of the survey is being done, those who find themselves homeless are very clear in what they want. They want to feel safe, they want to be safe and they want to have a home. It is a basic need which, by anyone's standards, should be met, and yet the Turnbull government has done absolutely nothing. It has not had a housing minister. It has not developed any real policy. The sector has had to come here every year begging for funding to be continued. The government likes to slam the successful programs that Labor had in place, and yet it sits on its hands. The homeless of Australia cannot wait for the government. Those who need affordable housing, whether it is to rent or to purchase, cannot wait either. Yet all we hear from those opposite is that somehow we have to guard the negative gearing scheme, because the Turnbull government is only interested in those who are buying their seventh home, not those who are struggling to either rent or buy their first home.

Homelessness should not be a problem in a prosperous country such as Australia. The government needs to act, and it needs to act now.