This gut-wrenching figure occurs during a time when the Howard Government is pandering to the mining and uranium industries and subsidising the fossil fuel extraction industries to the tune of $10 billion every year, whilst an insignificant amount is being spent on providing affordable housing.
And for most of this year we have been subjected to an election campaign dripping in extravagance and replete with Coalition propaganda dressed up as government information, costing us up to $1million per day.
Both the Coalition and Labor have announced that they will cut tax in similar amounts around $33-34 billion, over the next three years. This brings the total cost of tax cuts announced in the last three years to $100 billion.
The gap between rich and poor in Australia is growing. One in ten Australians struggle to make ends meet. The Greens have been calling for an increase in the aged pension of $60 per fortnight which has been costed at $3 billion per year. The Greens want to scrap the tax cuts to incomes over $100,000, and divert this money to pension increases.
Despite the fact that this is less than half the cost of next year's tax cuts, the Government and Labor have dismissed such a call as unaffordable.
The Greens believe that older people have the right to live with dignity, and that the skills and life experience of older people benefit the whole community.
So while income earners above $200,000 will get more than $6,650 in their pockets each year, pensioners and people on benefits will receive virtually nothing extra, pittance, because the CPI is so low, being independently calculated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The recent intervention in the Northern Territory and the removal of the Community Development Employment Project (CDEP) – the main or only source of earned income for indigenous people in most of those areas.
The loss of CDEP jobs and income will force those people to move to larger towns to find work, exacerbating the housing shortage in those areas and leading to still more homelessness. The quarantining of all benefits, including returned service and defence pensions, by 50% for all those in the targeted areas of the NT is another astounding removal of civil rights.
As the Anti-Discrimination Act was suspended in order to pass these new laws and legislation amendments, questions must remain as to the rights of the First People of this land, and especially those in the NT.
This may sound as if it is an aside, but it still sets a precedent, and could be adapted to states through legal expertise. Business managers appointed from the private sector, will be paid to run the new systems at $160,000. This could be better spent anywhere in Australia providing better conditions and support for Indigenous people, to promote self-determination, education and early intervention support.
There are strong indications that the removal of the CDEP from regions across all states and territories from 1st July, 2007, and 18th August, 2007 for the federal intervention, will have a ‘homeless’ effect on all those so affected, as they are forced away from family and support systems. This will also reduce the opportunities for artists, involved in production and sale, and will also reduce participation in customary wildlife harvesting, with CDEP creating 400 full-time rangers in the NT.
The Supported Accommodation Assistance Program is underfunded, having had a reduction of $2.3 billion over the last ten years. It needs 30% more of their current funding to provide adequate accommodation assistance to those in need.
So far there has not been one housing policy put forward by either of the older parties, which would even assist in dealing with the average of 100,000 homeless people seeking shelter each night. They can’t even begin to imagine being able to build a house on surplus Commonwealth and defence or state-held land.
Homeless families have increased by 30% over the last five years, according to the St Vincent de Paul Society. Recently the Society’s Dr. John Falzon has reported that families are living in cars, trying to hold down jobs and keep children in school, after mortgage foreclosures or being unable to find affordable rentable housing.
Dr. Falzon said, “It is absolutely unacceptable that Australian families are denied this fundamental human right- to have a roof over their heads” and he quoted that 345,000 families are paying more than $74 a week in rent more than they can afford. Australia has a national debt of $41 billion, including mortgages and credit card debt. This can’t be sustained.
Foreclosures and repossessions over the last couple of years, being greatest in the Western Suburbs of Sydney, are escalating, and legislation and adequate checks against no-doc loan companies and other high risk lenders are long overdue.
With a possible impending interest rise in November, there will be an expected increase in families losing their homes.
In a Commonwealth report prepared by the Department of Health and Ageing, and released in 2006, homelessness is described as “more than houseless”, and
“includes concepts such as isolation, the inadequacy of facilities and marginalisation. The face of the homeless person has changed overtime…..no longer only the face of the older man,….a loner”
Increasingly, “young people, women, families and indigenous people are among the homeless.” The Report goes on to say that “drug abuse (including alcohol), social isolation and mental disorders are plausible consequences as well as causes of homelessness…..that constant fear, danger and victimisation may contribute to people becoming emotionally distressed…….Research evidence also indicates that effective treatment for people with psychosis early in their illness can prevent homelessness.”
There are a variety of reasons for homelessness in older people, including death of a partner, relationship breakdown, alcohol dependence, gambling disorders, psychological and physical disorders, problems with the housing, and rising rents as concentric development takes place in cities and large regional centres. Gambling and depression can follow the loss of a secure place to live.
Women and children are being forced, as a result of domestic violence, to seek safety in refuges, once the mother feels able to initiate the move away from the compromised situation.
In another study (Martijn and Sharpe, 2005, Pathways to youth homelessness), on homeless youth, it has been found that trauma, either experienced or witnessed, and family breakup, are causal for many, and once homeless, there is an increase in psychological diagnoses, including drug and alcohol disorders. Crime is virtually absent prior to homelessness, but is adapted as part of their survival strategy and to fund drug and alcohol habits.
The removal of homeless people during such events as APEC and the 2000 Olympics, both willingly and against their will, and once again including Indigenous people, is another replication of our continuation of displacement of people from their ‘homes’, be they boxes in railway access tunnels, or the steps of the Art Gallery.
A number of factors contribute to this ever-increasing problem:
- A lack of early intervention and recognition of risk factors predisposing people to homelessness. For example, school counsellors may be adequately skilled to drug and alcohol problems, early trauma and abuse histories and psychological disorders. Might I add, School Chaplains would not necessarily have the skills required to make this assessment.
- One or more of any pre-disposing factors such as drug or alcohol-dependency, gambling addiction, loss of a loved one, domestic violence, physical or mental disability, including dementia, relationship breakdown or death of a relative. Obviously, a combination of these factors adds to the probability of predisposing factors for people to become homeless.
- The lack of low-cost housing, because of continuing gentrification, such as in Kings Cross and other previously depressed suburbs, and the growing number of people renting rather than buying, accompanied by lack of affordability, discrimination, lack of legislative protection against unfair rent increases, lack of legislation to ensure minimum housing standards, and the operation of unregulated tenancy databases. This applies across the board for youth, families and older people.
- A lack of transparency, accountability and monitoring of all areas associated with homelessness, with both State and Federal governments passing the buck and allowing people to fall through the gaps, while there is doubling-up of bureaucracy and ineffective planning and funding, once again, across the board.
- A lack of access to mainstream welfare systems, or a feeling that these services are unwelcoming and inappropriate.
- The casualisation of the labour force, and the general reduction of wages for low income earners since the introduction of WorkChoices by the Howard Coalition government.
- The Richmond Report and the Burdekin Report, along with Breaking the Silence and many other similar reports, recently The Little Children are Sacred Report in the NT, being placed on the shelf, with recommendations being ignored.
Factors predisposing people to becoming a part of the increasing number of homeless and poor:
- 1 in 15 children in NSW are reported to DOCS. These are the ‘at risk’ children who are most liable to become homeless in the future.
- The rise of heroin on the streets with the huge crop from Afghanistan and Burma. The most innovative thinking of any government recently was that the US are thinking of purchasing the Afghanistan crop to supply their pharmaceutical opiate needs.
- The drought
- The reduced contribution of government funding to universities and State TAFE system which is much less costly to run than the proposed an unnecessary federally-funded system.
GREENS POLICY SOLUTIONS
A Homelessness strategy to co-ordinate an effective government response to homelessness.
- The housing needs of low income Australians should be met through the provision of a mix of affordable options, including community housing, public housing, shared equity with social housing providers and private low rental housing.
- Public participation in the development of public and community housing, including planning and assessment of development proposals, is a right, the exercise of which should be encouraged by planning authorities.
- The housing needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders needs to be attended urgently.
- A minimum of 20% low-cost and public housing in all new developments would be mandatory.
- Governments should be providing sufficient public and community housing to meet current and projected need, by continuing to fill the gaps through which vulnerable people are falling, and by providing housing assistance where necessary.
- Waiting lists for public housing would be minimised.
- Coordination and collaboration must be provided through existing social service system.
- Fund homeless services such as SAAP adequately from the budget surplus increasing funds by 30% from the budget surplus.
- Invest in public and social housing for low income families.
- Increase public and private investment in affordable housing through equitable incentives via Tax incentives and government subsidies.
- Ensure the provision of adequate support services to help people to stay in affordable housing.
The Greens believe that there must be participation of tenants and homeless persons in decisions regarding their housing services.
Thank God for the Salvos, St. Vincent de Paul, Mission Australia, Anglicare, The Brotherhood of St. Laurence, the Uniting Church and the many other charity organisations, and their associated subsidiaries. Where would the state of our nation be without them? A recent study on poverty conducted in collaboration by some of these groups, shows that some parents living below the poverty line are going without food, in order that they feed their children. Fifty percent have no access to dental treatment, essential to good health and well-being.
Where is the trickle-down that is continually being promised? We are fast becoming a third world economy, where our income depends on extractive industry and services. This is why we have a low unemployment rate, but where will this lead Australia when the resource boom stops and third world nations set mandatory targets, develop alternative truly renewable forms of energy production and decrease their current rapid growth?
In the mean time, without a concerted effort to look after our own residents, we will continue down the path of demise for a growing proportion of our children, giving them little hope for the future.
The gap between rich and poor in Australia is growing. One in ten Australians struggle to make ends meet. I think, that the fact that we have such a large number of people who are homeless, along with our treatment of our Indigenous people, is disgraceful and shameful, and it’s high time that we dealt with the needs of the residents of our country who are battling to survive. We need funding for public hospitals, schools and affordable housing not election sweeteners aimed at marginal seats.
My heart is breaking and tears fall silently while any of my fellow Australians suffer through rejection and neglect. We should all be ashamed.
Speech to the Supported Accomodation Assistance Program, Penrith, 23 October
