Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to draw the House's attention to some very serious conversations that are happening in my community of Newcastle and, indeed, to congratulate those who were involved in organising last night's meeting around people being pushed to the margins in my community and having a focus on the impacts of poverty and inequality for the people in the Newcastle and Hunter region. Some of the issues that are coming out as very strong issues in the community are: the impacts of the gendered pay gap; the casualisation of the workforce; the disparity between men and women's superannuation payments, and access they have to superannuation and the implications that has for women who now, later in life, are leaving violent relationships.

One of the very pressing issues now for a number of women's services in my electorate of Newcastle is the change in demographics in women who are presenting at those services in order to seek help. I have met on a number of occasions now with NOVA women's services in my electorate of Newcastle. NOVA is a service for women and children. They specialise in trying to provide safe accommodation for women post-separation. They have been bringing to my attention this phenomenon of older women becoming homeless. Last financial year Nova for Women & Children supported 32 women aged between 55 and 85 in crisis accommodation.

Some of the stories about women who have left violent relationships are especially tragic. The fortunate ones get away with the car, which subsequently becomes their primary source of accommodation post separation. Can you imagine a community where 55- to 85-year-old women who have left violent relationships are forced to sleep and live in their car? Less than one per cent of private rental market properties are affordable to women who are reduced to living on Newstart, unemployment benefits, having left their relationships. They do not have savings. They do not have a superannuation account to fall back on. This is the situation they are faced with.

There are community services in my region which are now running secured car park areas. This is a phenomenon we see in the United States, where women who have been rendered homeless and are in extreme financial hardship as a result of the violent relationships they have left have to live in their car, which is their only affordable accommodation option. These women, who have been forced into living on the streets, are at the mercy of church groups who lease out the car parks in their church grounds so that these women can sleep overnight, have access to some toileting and showering facilities and have some sense of security. That is no way to treat older women in our society. It is no way to treat anybody in our society. But the notion that women and their children are reduced to this is especially disturbing.

More than 70 women have died as a result of gender violence in Australia so far this year. On every occasion I have stood in this parliament I have said that this is utterly unacceptable. If we do not want those women to have died in vain, then we really have to take very seriously our commitment to and measures for preventing and putting an end to all forms of gender violence in Australia.