Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today I will concentrate my remarks on the Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation (2006 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2006 on schedule 3, which relates to the crisis payment. I take this opportunity to congratulate the government on expanding the eligibility for the crisis payment. By way of explanation, the legislation before us extends the eligibility for the crisis payment to victims of domestic violence who are on income support, are in severe financial hardship and remain in their own home after the perpetrator of the violence has left that home or has been removed from it. The crisis payment is an amount of around $230 and it can be paid up to four times in any 12-month period in extreme circumstances.

At present, the crisis payment is available only to victims of domestic violence in severe financial hardship who are forced to leave their own home and establish a new home. This legislation extends eligibility to victims of domestic violence who choose to stay in their own home after the perpetrator of the violence has left or has been removed. It recognises that domestic violence can trigger a financial crisis for people on low incomes, even when the victim does not leave his or her own home. This is clearly a good measure and one that is warmly welcomed by me, as the member for Rankin, and other members of the opposition—proving yet again that, where the government produces good and worthy legislation, Labor will support it.

This debate gives me the opportunity to ask what is going on in our communities, particularly in our disadvantaged communities. There is so much domestic violence, sexual violence and child abuse and there are so many families in crisis—not only in disadvantaged communities, but there is a concentration of these problems in disadvantaged communities. After more than a decade—in fact, 15 years—of continuous economic growth and unprecedented prosperity, we should as parliamentarians ask what is going on in our communities. Why is it that so many people are being made more vulnerable? Unemployment has fallen to its lowest levels in 30 years and there has been substantial growth in average income levels; yet a worryingly large proportion of people are missing out.

In preparation for this legislation, I took the opportunity to contact, with my office, a number of the voluntary organisations that operate in Logan City. My electorate of Rankin covers a very substantial part of Logan City. A significant part of the area of Logan City that is covered by the boundaries of Rankin is very disadvantaged, while other parts are much more affluent. I can report to the parliament that, as a result of those inquiries, St Vincent de Paul has advised us of a definite increase in requests, and it has identified those aged more than 60 years as coming in for assistance—and this is an unusual development.

Loaves and Fishes, another charitable organisation, has reported almost a 100 per cent increase in requests in recent times. Interestingly, like some of the others that I will report, Loaves and Fishes is saying that it is not necessarily the battlers but others, who perhaps you would think would be doing okay, who are coming to it for assistance. The organisation is now finding that it has coming to it grandparents who have grandchildren to care for because something very bad has happened in those families and the children are now in the care of the grandparents rather than the parents. It is those grandparents who are now going to Loaves and Fishes looking for crisis assistance.

The Crestmead Community Centre has reported a major increase—almost 100 per cent—in requests for crisis assistance. The Logan East community centre—located on the other side of the Pacific Highway, in the somewhat more affluent part of the electorate—has also reported a definite increase. It is saying that it is mainly younger people coming to the centre and that they are requesting assistance for just about everything. The Gospel Lighthouse is a food bank that has recently opened. A big demand is being reported there. The Tribe of Judah has reported big increases—from around 50 requests per day to a staggering 200 to 300 requests per day. There are $20 food parcels given away. The Tribe of Judah has reported that it is mostly younger families requesting assistance. St Mark’s Anglican Church has reported a big increase in young families requesting assistance but also reported that there has been no real increase in relation to pensioners. Mission Australia has reported a big increase in demand across the board in all age groups. Boystown has reported a big increase in requests, mostly from young people and especially from single mothers.

An astonishing conclusion from our survey is that, despite Australia’s rising affluence, more and more families are finding themselves in crisis. We need to understand what is going on in our communities. One of the contributors—and there are many of them—to the increased incidence of people in crisis in my electorate is a very large increase in rents in Logan City. I also note that the increases in rent in south-east Queensland overall are amongst the biggest increases anywhere in Australia. This is a result of, frankly, the mismanagement of the housing industry by the Howard government. It knew that its policies in relation to taxation and other measures would lead to a housing boom. That boom occurred but now seems to be over, other than perhaps in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The most recent figures show that the boom is tapering off somewhat in Western Australia and the Northern Territory and has subsided in the other states, but rents have gone through the roof.

I will give an indication of the rents in Logan City. In 2004, houses in the suburb of Woodridge, in which I live, rented for about $175 a week; in 2006 they rent for at least $230 a week. Apartments in Woodridge in 2004 rented for about $120 a week, and now they rent for about $170 a week. For people on low incomes, rent assistance is available, but it nowhere near covers the full cost of rent. I am not arguing that it necessarily should, but rent assistance has not kept up with the soaring rents in some of the most disadvantaged parts of Queensland. As a result of that, if families are confronted with a $50 per week hole in their budget—in the case of people renting units, and there is a similar rent increase in relation to houses—you certainly can understand why the problem of the rental crisis in south-east Queensland and other parts of Queensland is contributing to the overall increase in demand for emergency relief and crisis relief.

It is those sorts of increases in rent that have prompted me to argue for some support for families who are so vulnerable and perhaps, in a small minority of cases, understandably have got behind in their rental payments in the past. The problem for families on low incomes, in particular, who get behind in their rent payments is that they are then registered on a database called TICA. That database is then made available to landlords right around Australia, and recorded on it, without the full knowledge of the renter, is a history. If that history involves significant defaults on rent payments, then the family will have enormous difficulty in getting rental accommodation in the future. These databases are a fact of life. They are not against the law, although Queensland is leading the nation in developing safeguards that will ensure that the databases are not abused and that hopefully there will be some access for renters so that they can know exactly what is being registered on those databases.

Once you are on the database, life becomes quite difficult, and that is why I have suggested that, for those vulnerable families, rent assistance might be paid direct from Centrelink to the landlord. I accept that this is controversial. I accept that there has been quite a bit of criticism of my proposal—people suggesting that I am hard-hearted. It is quite the opposite. I would like to see these vulnerable families getting back into the rental market, because what is the alternative if they cannot? The alternative is that they move in with family, if possible, or friends, into very overcrowded housing accommodation, which is often a recipe for great anxiety, stress and perhaps even domestic violence. Even if there is not domestic violence, young people who are trying to do well at school have no space at all in overcrowded accommodation to be able to study and do their homework for school. That is a really appalling situation and we can understand why there is this intergenerational dependency on welfare if people cannot get decent rental accommodation.

But I am not suggesting for a moment that the making of payments of rent assistance direct to landlords from Centrelink is some sort of overall solution. It would need to be considered only as part of a solution to ease the rental accommodation crisis in Australia. This government has no philosophical commitment to public housing. It seems to believe that everything can be done through the private sector, but the figures that I have cited demonstrate that that is not the case and that there is an argument for innovative financing methods for public housing in Australia to deal with the housing affordability crisis. My proposal would be only one part of that.

It is true that under current arrangements with Centrelink voluntary arrangements can be entered into, under the banner of Centrepay. Through Centrepay, if the Centrelink client agrees to it, Centrelink makes payments direct to service providers, whether they be electricity payments, telephone payments, rates or whatever. That can be done voluntarily. That is a good scheme, but in some circumstances maybe it does make sense to make those rent assistance payments direct to the landlord. But there is absolutely no doubt that rent assistance itself has failed to keep up with the very big increases in rents in Logan City and other parts of Queensland and indeed Australia.

The sorts of figures that I have cited in terms of the huge increases in demand for crisis accommodation and crisis financial assistance tell us that there are huge problems in disadvantaged areas in particular. I was honoured to be asked to participate in the launching of Sexual Violence Awareness Month in Logan City. A number of speakers participated in a candle-lighting ceremony, including the member for Woodridge, Desley Scott, and victims themselves. As it was last year, it was a very emotional and moving experience. Each year, they have a rally or a march called ‘Reclaiming the night’. I argued that we should reclaim not only the night but the day, the month and the year, because there is no place for sexual violence and domestic violence in our great country. I believe that we should be shining a light on it. I acknowledge that the government has run an advertising campaign on domestic violence, indicating to victims of domestic violence that they do have rights to be protected from the scourge of domestic violence. It is not acceptable. As a community, we should all share and join in that sentiment and do whatever we possibly can to minimise sexual violence in our communities.

Sexual violence is not the only form of violence or abuse. Child abuse is rampant not only in Queensland but also throughout Australia. Barely a week goes by without the media reporting shocking cases of child abuse in our country. I have been following this as one of the founders of Parliamentarians Against Child Abuse and the latest statistics are that there were 46,000 substantiated cases of child abuse in 2005. That is a massive increase on earlier years. There has been an even larger increase in the number of notifications of child abuse, which is now a quarter of a million a year.

There has been quite a bit of thinking about the notifications and whether the using of state-run systems to handle them is a positive development. It was certainly very confronting to hear from NAPCAN that this great increase in notifications is not by any means all good news. I would have thought that increased notifications meant that more defenceless kids at least have a chance because these allegations of domestic violence against them are at least coming to light, which allows the authorities to deal with it. But in all jurisdictions the authorities simply cannot cope.

There have been more notifications, but it is like advising an overcrowded hospital with rampant infections that there are more problems. When there are infections in the hospital and it cannot cope, we are not necessarily better off. Anything that we as parliamentarians can do to raise awareness of issues such as sexual violence and child abuse can only be for the common good. These matters must always transcend political debate and rivalries. Every parliamentarian, of whatever political persuasion, should do everything that they possibly can to help and defend the defenceless: children who otherwise have no rights and who are bashed in their own homes, sexually abused or neglected.

We know some of the consequences of this abuse. In the order of 70 per cent of women prisoners were abused in one way or another by the age of 16. We can see the consequences of abuse and, tragically, it tends to become a cycle of abuse. The abused know no other way of reacting under stress in their own families than the way that they experienced it—that is, through abuse. You tend to get a perpetuation of abuse by the victims of abuse and this is a great tragedy for our country. We say we are a very wealthy country—and, we assert, a very fair and egalitarian society—but the reality is that the authorities and voluntary organisations advise us that, in this period of unprecedented prosperity, there is unprecedented sadness, tragedy and crisis in families. We all have a responsibility to deal with it.

This government, in a very small but highly commendable way, is playing a part. But surely with the wealth and prosperity that we have—and hopefully with the good will of all sides of parliament—we can do far better. We must work together—not against the states, but with them—to develop early childhood development programs, early intervention programs and even prenatal programs to support families who are vulnerable. A lot is now known about the factors that contribute to vulnerability. We can identify these early; there is an enormous amount of literature on this. Let us as parliamentarians do everything we possibly can to make sure our society is far more just, tolerant and compassionate.

See this speech in context