Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A report released today by the Queensland Council of Social Service confirms what anyone who's been paying attention already knows: Queensland is in a housing and homelessness crisis. The report found that homelessness in Queensland has increased by 22 per cent in the past five years. This is almost triple the increase seen across the rest of the country. In regional Queensland the housing crisis is even more stark, with homelessness increasing by 29 per cent in four years. These shameful and skyrocketing homelessness rates align with the astronomical rent increases that we're seeing in every city and every state. Over the past 12 months, rents have increased by 21½ per cent nationally and by 24 per cent in Brisbane.

With no affordable rentals, people are being forced to couch surf, and families are living in their tents or out of their cars. The crisis is felt even more acutely by women and children experiencing family and domestic violence and by older renters. Women are being forced to choose between abuse or homelessness because there's simply nowhere to go. QCOSS predicts that, within 20 years, more than 220,000 households in Queensland will be without social housing. The only way to fix it is to start building. In Queensland we need 11,000 affordable and social homes each year for the next 20 years, but Labor's plan to build 6,000 public homes a year for five years, nationally, won't even match the current increase in Queensland, let alone tackle the crisis around the country. Direct investment in housing is what responsible governments do to address a housing crisis, but Labor's plan is not a massive investment in social and affordable housing, like we need; it's an investment in the stock market in the hope that the market will deliver funding and housing. Funding for crisis accommodation and short-term and long-term affordable housing will benefit all Australians. We must prioritise giving every single person in this country a roof over their heads instead of prioritising tax cuts for the rich and nuclear submarines.