Tuesday, 2 May 2023

 David SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (19:00): (131) My adjournment today is to the Minister for Housing, and the action I seek is for the minister to explain why the government has not responded to or acted on a raft of recommendations by the Legislative Council’s inquiry into homelessness delivered by the government in March 2021.

Everybody deserves a roof over their head. Last week I had the opportunity of attending a film night of Some Happy Day with my daughter Paige and got the opportunity to meet Catherine, Moira and Cecilia and talk about a film of someone sleeping rough shot in the area around St Kilda close to my electorate. This is a scourge on our community. It is something we must do more about as a community and as a Parliament to ensure we get some of the support that is absolutely needed for our homeless and our vulnerable. We have in Victoria homelessness reaching unprecedented levels. 36,000 Victorians are homeless; this is up over 365 per cent since Labor came to power nine years ago.

We also had a situation only last week where I got the opportunity to visit again Uniting St Kilda’s community kitchen. This group does a great amount of work. What really alarmed me is that only a few years back, before the pandemic, when I was helping serve food out of that kitchen, we saw the same people there without a roof over their head. Thankfully they are getting support from the Uniting community kitchen, but they need more. They need a roof over their head. They need a home. So there is a lot of work to be done.

To add insult to injury, Charitable Recycling Australia have raised the issue around the government withdrawing the waste levy projections. What this means is that there are a whole lot of additional funds that charity shops need to find just to keep their doors open. Last month Hang Vo, CEO of Sacred Heart Mission, wrote to me and said they will need to find $1.5 million because of these additional levies. What that means is that 428,000 meals cannot be provided to Victorians who will go hungry, along with 38,000 crisis and suicide calls and $1.5 million in electricity or gas bills. This is real help that is needed for our most vulnerable. So I call on the government to respond to the report that was done in the upper house, a very important report that had 51 recommendations from the inquiry about how we can do more for our most vulnerable: our homeless. Everybody deserves a roof over their head, and we must as a Parliament do more.