National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (14:59): My question is to the Minister for Social Housing. Now that the federal government has announced they will be funding the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness for the next two years, will the minister commit to the state government's half of the funding for the next two years?

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay—Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (14:59): I announced yesterday that we will and I would really like to take the opportunity to thank the people in the homelessness sector who I have actually worked very closely with since I became the minister for this area. The member for Adelaide and I have discussed this. I wrote to the previous federal minister and then, of course, the Premier also wrote to the Prime Minister. We were very concerned that this national partnership agreement was not going to go ahead. My concern here, as we have seen with other national partnerships, is that the federal government may not have rolled this out and we have been lobbying them for some time—myself, as the minister, as has the sector.

We have one of the lowest returns to homelessness in Australia. We have worked very hard as a government over the last decade. We have a case management system and we have a gateway system between youth, generic and domestic violence. We take this very seriously. What we want to support people to do is not return to homelessness, so when they enter the system we work collaboratively with places like Common Ground, UNO Apartments and we have had some great work through the Hutt Street Centre and Catherine House.

We know that if we don't support people who are about to become homeless—we try to prevent homelessness—that people don't thrive and they don't flourish, and often they will end up in our hospital system if their health requirements are not sorted and supported.

I thank Scott Morrison for committing to the most vulnerable people in our society. I would like to support Ian Cox from Hutt Street and say that it would have been great if this national partnership was rolled out for five years as that would have given stability and certainty to the sector. That is what we were lobbying for. We were lobbying for long term, but I was pleased yesterday to announce that we would be matching that funding.