Homelessness

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL (16:59): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the new Minister for Human Services about homelessness.

Leave granted.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: As we all should know, homelessness is a significant issue in South Australia. Homelessness is not a choice and it has many dimensions. It can be caused by a number of factors, including a shortage of affordable housing, domestic violence, family breakdown, unemployment, mental illness and drug and alcohol abuse. Homelessness, as we know, is one of the most important markers of social exclusion.

According to the findings of the 2016 Australian Bureau of Statistics census, the rate of homeless persons in South Australia was 37.1 per 10,000 people in the population. The figure five years earlier was very similar at 36.4 per 10,000 people and 10 years earlier it was 37 persons per 10,000 of population. From this data, we can see that over the last decade there has been no improvement in the rate of homelessness in South Australia.

The Governor was pleased to open the parliament recently with a speech—and I take this not from Hansard, which I have not seen yet, but from my own notes—and my recollection is that he said, 'Support for the most vulnerable in our community should be given the highest priority.' My question of the minister is: what are the Marshall government's plans to tackle homelessness?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (17:01): I thank the honourable member for the question. I agree that homelessness is an area that we do need to tackle and unfortunately there are a large number of people who find themselves in this situation. In some ways, it is a little bit like mental health: it does not discriminate. Many people can find themselves in homeless situations completely unexpectedly.

One of the issues that has been raised with me, particularly when I took over this portfolio from the opposition in the period from January until the present time, is that cost-of-living issues can be particularly significant. Foodbank SA has reported that they get a large number of people who need their services, particularly when they get their quarterly electricity bills, so that is part of the tranche clearly and that has been one of the key priorities as far as our policy directions are concerned.

There is a range of programs that operate in the homelessness space. There is some $64 million that is provided under the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness and the NAHA, which is the National Affordable Housing Agreement. Some of those agreements are still under negotiation. The quantum is not under any doubt, but there is some need for each state to develop a housing plan because it is not just about the crisis service. Clearly, there are crisis end services in relation to the CBD.

I met with all of those stakeholders recently. We want to have some ongoing discussions because, from what I understand, they actually don't meet regularly. We think there is probably a lot of collaboration that can take place going forward so they are working together in a much greater partnership.

I am sure there was somebody from the Greens who attended the town hall to sign up to the Don Dunstan Foundation's Adelaide Zero Project. The Hon. Tammy Franks is waving at me, so I apologise and acknowledge that she, as well as a number of other members representing other parties, attended that.

They have a project where they are looking at a functional zero project for the CBD. I think that has had some very good learnings and there is going to be a Connections Week from 14 to 17 May. Honourable members may wish to participate in that. What that is about is that a range of volunteers will be going out to meet people who are sleeping rough in Adelaide's CBD and make sure that we are collecting their stories, their names and so forth, and working towards that aim.

I think there is a lot that can be done in the collaboration between existing service providers. I have committed from opposition, and obviously will take this into government, that the homelessness gateways that operate—there is a generic homelessness gateway, a specific DV gateway and a youth gateway—will be retained because we think that the specialisation is very useful to target those particular populations.

There are also some areas of reform in the broader housing sphere, and another part of our 100-day plan was to establish a new housing authority. We are looking at the shift between people from the crisis services into the public and social housing system, which is what the service providers have told me is a problem. They have intake into their crisis end services, but they often have difficulty transitioning people.

I think there is a range of reforms that we have already initiated in the housing space that I look forward to being able to advise the house on into the future when we have fully designed the reforms for what the housing system is going to look like into the future. Those are system changes, but I think they are very significant and I am very optimistic about the sorts of improvements that we will be able to make in the system.