Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

The coalition welcomes the government’s statement on homelessness as delivered by the minister this afternoon. I also place on record my commendation to the minister for her very sincere and dedicated personal commitment on this issue. As I move around those who work in this area I think there is one thing we can very much agree on, which is the minister’s very personal commitment to this issue.

The coalition has taken a very proactive and consistent bipartisan approach on the vast majority of measures that have been discussed today and that have been introduced by the government. We have supported some $3½ billion of initiatives that have been announced by the government in the area of homelessness and in the area of affordable housing and we continue to do so.

Homelessness is a significant challenge. There is no single cause. It is not simply a bricks and mortar issue. The various impacts of family breakdown, substance abuse, domestic violence and sexual abuse all take a very heavy toll. I am very pleased to know that, as was the case with the coalition government, these social issues are being addressed through the many programs that are out there and available.

Our task is to help each of these Australians gain some stability in their lives and give them the opportunity to get their lives back on track. That is the ultimate goal. This requires, I believe, case-by-case, individual-by-individual measures that will enable them to take the next step then the one after and the one after that. That is why in government the coalition focused its additional efforts on early intervention programs such as Reconnect, mentoring programs and other initiatives which the government have taken up and expanded on. We are also particularly pleased that they have had some impact. While there are around 105,000 people who are designated as homeless, in the period 2001-06 we did see the level of homelessness among 18- to 24-year-olds decline by 16 per cent. But I know the minister and I agree that one special and very disturbing concern is the increase in family homelessness that has occurred, particularly evidenced by the incidence of homelessness among young children.

Of course, we now have additional pressures placed on people and homelessness services by the economic downturn. In an earlier discussion I had with the homelessness bodies, I simply said that we do not want, as we move through this economic crisis, more clients for them to have to look after. We should do everything we can to keep people in the homes they have now, because those services are there presently to look after people who are already in that situation and who have been in that situation through periods of prosperity and downturn alike, and who will always need those services. I do not want to see one cent not there for those individuals whom I suspect, sadly, we will always have to assist.

We were quick to support the homelessness package on the occasion it was announced prior to Christmas. In particular the Place to Call Home initiative is very good, as is the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness. The reason we were supportive of those, particularly the latter one, was that they do have a very heavy focus on early intervention initiatives and we appreciate that. But at this point I suppose I have to depart from where our agreement rests because obviously we were disappointed—as I am sure the minister was as well—that, despite the fact that that agreement was supposed to have all the plans agreed by 31 March, they were not. That was still the case by July, with New South Wales in particular outstanding in accounting for one-quarter of homeless people in Australia. That is a problem.

I sympathise because the failure of states and territories to come to the table on this issue, to agree, to have plans and to put up the money is the problem the government has in making headway on this issue. It is the incompetence of state and territory administrations, particularly in the area of their public housing and other programs. Probably the best evidence of this, as we have seen writ large across our country but particularly in one part of the country, is the shameful failure to deliver on the central commitment of the Northern Territory intervention—the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program—let alone the commitments made in addition to that initiative.

There was a commitment to build 750 houses for Indigenous Australians. It has collapsed into an abyss, with not a single house built under that program. In September 2007, we should remind ourselves—almost two years ago—the then coalition government signed a memorandum of understanding with the Northern Territory government to deliver these houses and that program. On 12 April last year the new Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs affirmed the Rudd government would contribute $547 million over four years in partnership with $100 million from the Northern Territory government. Since then, virtually every deadline has been missed. In April 2008 the minister said work would begin on the 750 houses by October 2008. Then it was planned for early 2009. In February there were still no new houses in sight, and then silence fell around this program. It was not until work was pledged to start on the Tiwi Islands in May that we heard something. In June this year we heard one construction company say that they will have to build fewer houses ultimately with the available funds due to increased costs.

It was not as if there were not any warnings about this program. In April 2008 there was a warning given by none other than the parliamentary secretary assisting the minister, Senator Ursula Stephens. She delivered a warning to the minister and said that there were problems that needed to be fixed. What kind of problems were they? The problems were that the scheme was flawed, shoddy and open to potential corruption. The unfolding chaos in the program shows that these warnings were ignored. Yet recently the senator told the media that she believed her concerns had been completely addressed by the minister. If this is true, when it comes to closing the gap on Indigenous housing the Rudd government have demonstrated their willingness to simply settle for less. That is unacceptable. It has taken one of Labor’s own, the Northern Territory minister responsible for this program, Alison Anderson, to stand against this settle-for-less attitude. Former Minister Anderson describes the program as:

… the biggest scandal I have seen in my political career.

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SIHIP was designed as the great answer to the remote housing crisis that is crippling my people. It was the heart and core of the commonwealth’s “emergency response”, after the Little Children are Sacred report was made public. It was the one big chance to change the way things are on communities. We politicians said that we would build the houses that were needed: 750 houses.

Late last year I began to receive briefings about the program. I knew things were going wrong. I raised my concerns with my colleagues. I struggled to get action. I appealed to them. I could see the disaster in the making. I could see the money being swallowed up: on consultation, on training costs, on administration. At meeting after meeting I warned my ministerial colleagues. I did everything I could to resolve this matter inside the party.

I was unsuccessful. There was no urgency. They didn’t care. I came to understand then that they were quite content to just continue administering Aboriginal communities, taking the money from Canberra. It was just business as usual for them.

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… my Labor colleagues were quite prepared to sweep this disaster under the carpet.

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The record of waste and chaos is a shame on the government. Here the ministers sit, cool and comfortable, while Aboriginal people live crowded, 20 to a house. It is a disgrace.

Those comments were directed at the Northern Territory government, but it was Commonwealth money. You have to ask the question: where was the Commonwealth when this money was being used in such a shameful way?

Labor’s failure to deliver this program at all levels has trashed the trust of progressive Indigenous leaders in the Northern Territory intervention. Not content with undermining the intervention with their hollow commitments and their moves to restore the permit system and go soft on the availability of pornography, they have now shattered the confidence of those Indigenous leaders who have provided much needed support for this unique opportunity to make progress and to create a different future. I think it is summed up well by Arnhem Land leader Galarrwuy Yunupingu, who was a supporter of the intervention but no longer is. He has withdrawn his support and condemned the Rudd government’s inability to deliver on Aboriginal housing. He has in fact called for an intervention of his own into the incompetence of the housing bureaucracy that has delivered this shameful event.

Social housing, as the minister has also spoken on, was an issue that was chosen for inclusion in the government’s broader economic stimulus initiatives. Once again, the governemnt relied on the states and territories to make sure the delivery of this occurred. As the minister referred to, the government set aside under the partnership agreement some $160,000 per dwelling for repairs and maintenance. The reason that figure was so high is it was supposed to be for substantial repairs and maintenance. To quote the agreement, it was to:

… support the refurbishment of existing social housing dwellings that are not currently suitable for occupation so that they can add to the social housing stock in each jurisdiction.

Yet, before the ink was dry on this agreement, this became in effect a slush fund to redress the failure of states to undertake basic maintenance on their housing stock, with funds being dedicated to minor repairs with an average cost of just $7,500 as opposed to $160,000 for 38,000 homes, and the average cost for the major renovations, as understood, was around $10,600. This is, I have to say, one of the oldest cons in the book from state and territory governments: to cost-shift their failure to do their job back onto the federal government. In this case, they found a very willing partner, and as a result the mismanagement of state and territory housing agencies has been subsidised by the federal taxpayer not just with funds but with borrowed funds.

Then there is the program to build 20,000 new dwellings. Let us recall that it was state governments that managed to spend $4 billion in real terms between 2003 and 2008 on public housing construction. You would think that after spending $4 billion over five years you would have moved forward, but at the end of that period of time there were 10,146 fewer dwellings than when they had started. I do not consider that a great job application to spend another $6 billion of federal taxpayers’ borrowed money. These projects are already falling behind timetable, and the government has refused to agree to provide timely reports on the progress of the scheme, preferring, frankly, to do media opportunities rather than subject the program and delivery of this scheme to parliamentary scrutiny.

More broadly, social housing has been abused as a policy instrument by involvement in the stimulus program. Poor planning and zero consultation when overriding local planning laws betray an attitude of ‘get it done’ rather than ‘get it right’—and in the Northern Territory neither is done. This attitude means that as this program continues we will sow the seeds of social dislocation for decades to come. This is also evident in the government’s NRAS program, which has the temerity to approve projects that fail to comply with local planning laws, such as the Coombabah projects on Queensland’s Gold Coast, where local residents want to know why the federal government has ignored what they want for their community, as expressed and supported in their local planning codes. So much for the views of local residents! Under Labor, we are seeing with the delivery of this program that competitive federalism has indeed become the lowest common denominator of collusive federalism.

I conclude by talking about where the biggest job really is, and that is where 95 per cent of Australians live: the private housing market. The best way for people to keep their home is to keep their job, and we need policies that keep people in their jobs. The Reserve Bank governor last week confirmed that bottlenecks rather than bubbles were responsible for the key housing affordability challenge that we face in this country, and as a result we need to build more private sector homes. Our estimation and those provided by economists around the country are that we need to build in excess of 160,000 every year for the next 10 years. Building just 20,000 in 12 or 18 months is really not going to be the answer to the problem. We need to ensure that the private sector housing market is able to perform at a much higher level in order to address the shortfall, or frankly prices and rents are going to continue to go up. Throwing money around at the states is not going to be the answer. So we need real reform on this issue. I commend the government for their more specific programs on the issues of homelessness—they are worthy initiatives that are supported by the coalition—but I must call them to account on addressing the issues of their failings, particularly in Indigenous housing in the Northern Territory, and addressing the real issues in the private housing market.

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