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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-08-24 Daily Xml
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Homelessness

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (15:44): My question is to the Minister for Human Services regarding homelessness. Minister, given the comments from your chief executive that the task force—the one that your chief executive chairs—was set up to, and I quote, 'reduce antisocial and sometimes violent behaviour associated with visitors to Adelaide from remote Aboriginal communities'.

My first question is: who exactly is responsible for the delivery of the Return to Country program in the Adelaide CBD? My second question, related to that, is: how is the ongoing confusion about responsibility for helping visitors to the CBD, who come from remote communities and then wish to return home, contributing to the problems of homelessness services in the Adelaide CBD?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (15:45): I thank the honourable member for his question. From memory, there are four of them—and I get them mixed up all the time—I think there is at least a Return to Country service provided by Uniting Communities SA, or one of the Unitings. My understanding is that that is an ongoing program that they are funded to do.

Regarding the issue of remote visitors, there is a range of cohorts so we do have some families who have been here. There are some from APY and various communities in the Northern Territory. There are people, of course, who often come to Adelaide for health treatment as well. So there is a range of different cohorts who may be in Adelaide for various reasons. That is why we have made sure that this cross-agency task force is looking closely at consulting with elders to try to ensure that we are providing the best possible services for people when they are here.

In terms of homelessness, there is some contribution to homelessness, particularly within the city but I think there are issues even in parts of regional South Australia—for instance, in Port Augusta I think the visitor numbers swell at times and that puts pressure on some of those systems. We are working through as many of those ways of assisting people and providing support and trying to ensure they are safe, particularly with health risks when there has been a COVID outbreak, and working through the range of issues with as many agencies across government and in the non-government sector as possible.

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