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

The Hon. I. PNEVMATIKOS (16:00): My question is to the Minister for Human Services regarding homelessness. Given reported comments from the minister's chief executive that a food van was 'fostering dependence among a section of the Aboriginal community', does the minister share her chief executive's views, which tend to suggest that people should not depend on food to survive?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (16:01): I thank the honourable member for her question. I am not quite sure what the Labor Party had for lunch today. Their line of questioning—anyway, I probably shouldn't reflect on their line of questioning, but it certainly does beggar belief. I think it is important in this portfolio that we are always mindful of assisting people who are vulnerable and treating them with a strengths-based approach, and that is certainly something I emphasise with both the agencies I deal with, whether it is the Department of Human Services or the South Australian Housing Authority, in that we are all about people having the same opportunities as everybody else.

For those who might fall on hard times, we appreciate that they might want to get back to a place, whether they have experienced homelessness or the like, and get back to living full and independent lives. Those comments are entirely consistent with that, and I think I have heard many people in the homelessness sector say over time that if you provide someone with just a roof over their head for the night and food that is not necessarily fixing the problem.

We are all about reforming our services so that they are looking to people's strengths, not assuming that they don't have capacity to do anything for themselves, and that is what the homelessness reforms in particular are about in South Australia, what we have called a housing first approach, so that we get people into a property and they get the support they need.

We have the new service that is operating in the inner western suburbs, which is all about providing people with supports as they need them, that particular cohort often having either mental health issues or drug and alcohol problems. We are about assisting people in their situation to get on with leading full lives. There are some services that may want to provide that band-aid, and certainly into the future I think we need to respect people's capacity and independence and their wish to participate fully in the community.

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