Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

because when it comes to the very important issue of veteran homelessness, which I wouldn't have thought I'd be receiving any interjections about, we know that every year there are around 6,000 veterans that are at risk of homelessness. On the 2021 census night, there were some 1,500 Australian veterans that found themselves homeless. Veterans are three times more likely to experience homelessness over their lifetimes than the general Australian population.

That's why, in the lead-up to the 2022 election, as part of our election commitment for a $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, we included setting aside $30 million to assist veterans who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness. This was not just to provide the buildings but to make sure that they were provided with the necessary and important wraparound support services to get them back on their feet as well. You would think that support for such a program would have been entirely bipartisan and that it would have been rushed through the parliament to make sure that we could provide that housing support to veterans who found themselves at risk of homelessness. But what we actually found was that the Liberal Party, the National Party and the Greens party decided to work together in a 'no-alition', blocking that legislation in the Senate and holding up the rolling out of that essential funding to support our veterans. What was the impact? Well, it meant that $24 million for capital works and $6 million for specialist services to support our veterans was held up.

But in June last year we were finally able to roll that funding out to support our veterans. It meant that eight organisations around Australia have been funded for capital works programs to build more homes to support veterans who are experiencing homelessness. Importantly, five organisations around Australia have been funded to provide those intense wraparound support services to better support veterans who are experiencing homelessness so they can get back on their feet, which is what I would have thought all party members in this parliament would want to see happen. Instead, what we saw was those services being held up by those opposite. Veterans who are experiencing homelessness were not able to get access to the services that they need in a timely way because that funding was being held up by the Liberal Party, the National Party and the Greens.

We are a government that is committed to supporting people getting into a home, whether that's through buying a home, being able to access a rental or being able to access that emergency and transitional housing when people need it. That includes our veterans, who, quite frankly, we would have thought would be the people most likely to receive the support from those opposite when they find themselves on those hard times, but that's not what we saw.

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