Page 574 - Week 04 - Thursday, 29 June 1989
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR WOOD (3.41): Mr Speaker, I want to make a few remarks on this. The Burdekin report drew the attention of Australians generally to the problem of youth homelessness. That problem is operative in the ACT as much as anywhere else, but we did not need to wait for the report of the Burdekin committee to tell us about the problems that exist.
Before that report had come out, we had also a report by our local people in the ACT Housing Trust entitled A Report to the ACT Housing Trust on the Development of a Youth Accommodation Program. I am grateful to Mrs Grassby for releasing this, which she did just a little while ago. It makes a number of very important points. They are written down, so you can all see them. You do not need me to go through them, but I want to mention one or two that I believe are of particular significance.
The key conclusion, this report states, is that the number of young people who do not have safe and secure housing is unacceptable in the ACT's comparatively affluent society. It is unacceptable. I was very pleased to hear the Leader of the Opposition indicate that the Liberal Party recognised that there was a problem. The number is too great. The report indicates that at any one time some 500 people move through the accommodation that is available. It cannot indicate how many people do not take advantage of that opportunity - they may not know about it or may be excluded for particular reasons.
Mr Kaine mentioned that we need to know more. One of the recommendations of this report, indeed, is that it is urgent that we acquire more data. It is of great importance that we do so. We can always monitor the numbers that move through these places, but we do not really know the number of people who do not do so. We certainly need to know that.
I have, in an earlier debate, strongly asserted that there is a problem. There is in the community some element that says that these people, ranging in age from as young as 10 or 11 to their late teenage and young adult years, ought to be in their own homes. This cannot always happen. There are very good reasons - sad ones obviously - why they cannot always be in their own homes. So we have to take important steps to protect these young people. There are simply too many of them.
They can go into these short-term crisis places - we have quite a number of beds there - but the greater problem is the mid- to long-term accommodation for young people. We are talking about young people who ought to be, and who mostly are, still at school. They are too young to be employed, have no income, are too young also for social security benefits and have no means of putting money into their pockets, so they need the support of the community in order to survive.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .