Vinnies CEO Sleepout

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (14:57): My question is for the Minister for Correctional Services. Can the minister inform the council about the recent CEO sleepout and the importance of homelessness services in helping to reduce reoffending?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (14:58): Last Thursday evening, it might be a stretch to say that I enjoyed, but I was actively involved in Vinnies CEO Sleepout. It is a great event which is all designed to raise funds.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: How much did you raise?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS: I am advised it was $6,500; thanks for asking.

The Hon. T.J. Stephens interjecting:

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS: No; I am very pleased to report that I had over 90 individual donors—as the Hon. Mr Stephens walks out—to my fundraising effort for the CEO sleepout. However, the real purpose of me standing up is not to congratulate myself on my substantial efforts, rather to acknowledge the contribution across my portfolio area. The police commissioner himself raised an extraordinary amount of money towards the CEO sleepout, the CEO of Corrections was present at the CEO sleepout, along with most of his executive management team, raising funds. The MFS chief, Mr Greg Crossman, was there and the deputy MFS chief, Michael Morgan, was also in attendance. I am advised that across those agencies for which I have a substantial amount of involvement, more than $34,000 was raised from 390 different contributors.

It was fantastic to see emergency services and SAPOL well represented at the CEO sleepout. But really the CEO sleepout is more than just about raising money for services to do with the homeless. It is also about raising awareness of the challenge of homelessness and what it means to our community. Clearly, there is an immediate impact upon those people who find themselves homeless, and I have to say, when you sleep out at night at this time of the year it is hardly a pleasant experience.

There is also a broader community impact of homelessness, and the event is very much orientated around raising awareness amongst leaders within our community about how perverse the impact of homelessness can be, because, of course, there are many social consequences. We know from experience and research that when someone is homeless, they instantly go into a higher risk category with respect to being vulnerable to offending in our community. Those people who exit prison, who do not have access to rentable and safe accommodation and thus find themselves homeless, are at an even higher risk of reoffending.

There is very much a link between what we see in the criminal justice system and the corrections system more generally and the impact that homelessness can have in terms of putting those individuals into a higher risk category of offending, which means that our whole community is at risk of being a victim of someone who finds themselves becoming homeless and then doing desperate acts which sometimes can be criminal in nature.

As a community, we all have to invest all the effort and resources that we can to try to reduce the level of homelessness within the state of South Australia, in order to ensure that those individuals don't become at risk of doing other things which may put themselves in harm's way and also other members of the public more generally.

Vinnies do amazing work, along with a whole range of other organisations and not-for-profits in our state, in trying to take on and tackle homelessness. We have come a long way as a state, I think, in looking at the issue of homelessness, but more needs to be done. There are too many people who sleep rough in South Australian streets, week in, week out, and that is particularly hard at this time of the year. I think Vinnies do an amazing job of increasing awareness and also raising money to address this important cause. I just want to commend the efforts of the Department for Corrections, SAPOL and emergency services for their contribution towards addressing this important issue.