Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to focus on a tragedy that is happening on the streets of Perth: recently, there have been a number of deaths of First Nations women experiencing homelessness on Perth's streets. In the heart of Perth's CBD, four Aboriginal women died on the streets in less than four weeks, over the coldest months of winter. On 18 June, a young Noongar mother who dreamt of being the next Cathy Freeman, Alana Garlett—and I have permission to use her name—died in Royal Perth Hospital after being found unresponsive outside the Wesley Uniting Church on Hay Street in the CBD. In the two weeks after her death, three more Noongar women died within a couple of hundred metres of that same spot. On the same freezing night a vigil was held for Alana at state parliament, on 4 August, another young woman was found in Yagan Square. The following week, another woman died outside the Perth train station, and then another young woman was found unresponsive in the CBD the following night. That's four deaths in less than a month.

At least one woman has died on Perth streets every week this winter, after 56 people died while homeless in Perth in 2020. These women are dead due to WA's housing crisis, which governments have overseen. Noongar elder Vanessa Culbong is an aunt to one of the women who died and is herself homeless. She is a respected activist within the Noongar community, and she recently said: 'This is all a product of a system that's failed us and continues to fail us. We can't see a light at the end of the tunnel when women and birth-givers are dying in front of us. We bring these people into the world and we have to watch them die, with no-one being held accountable and no justice being given to us. We feel like we are digging our own graves, and the homelessness sector has to be held accountable too. We present ourselves at services, and we face an obstacle course with no end in sight. People are getting desperate and talking about doing things that shouldn't be spoken about in one of the richest countries in the world. How can we deal with any of our social issues if we don't have the foundation first—housing?'

Dr Betsy Buchanan OAM is a legendary advocate for Aboriginal people who has worked for years with Aboriginal families in Perth to help them advocate for housing and generate political pressure for policy solutions to end homelessness. She has described these deaths as 'Perth's own pandemic, claiming the lives of at least one of our people every week this winter'. She recently said: 'We are completely overwhelmed with families calling all day, from early in the morning. So many of these destitute families are calling for help burying their children, which costs thousands of dollars they don't have. Others are demanding accommodation before they become the next death, desperately ill people discharged from ICUs and hospital straight back to the street. They are angry and embittered because there are so many deaths. People are terrified that they will be next. Their loved ones keep dying. This is a total crisis.'

While everyone has been focusing on COVID, and rightly so, more lives have been lost in Western Australia from homelessness than from the pandemic. We need to look at this as well as the current pandemic. The colossal failure by all levels of government, both nationally and the state government of WA, to focus on vulnerable First Nations women is shameful. I cannot believe that we're seeing young Noongar women literally dying on the streets of the richest, safest state in the world. It is unacceptable. My heart goes out to the families of these women and to those of the 56 who died on WA's streets last year.

The solution is urgent investment in more social and affordable housing and specialist homeless services, things the government have all but abandoned both here and in Western Australia. We need to see a significant input into this issue in the upcoming state budget. How many more women do we need to lose in Perth before governments, both state and federal, recognise the dire situation that we and First Nations women are facing in this country?