Page 2663 - Week 09 - Thursday, 9 August 1990
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MRS GRASSBY (10.59): This debate is about one of the most serious issues facing Australia at the moment - youth homelessness and its consequences for social problems. In his opening address at the final hearing of the Burdekin inquiry, the Chairman of the inquiry, Brian Burdekin, said:
The fact is that there are homeless children and young people dying in Australia; some from suicide, others simply from neglect. That is not something our nation can ignore.
The Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, said in his now famous policy speech in June 1987 that children were our greatest resource. Let me quote him in full:
The greatest resource in Australia is not something we can grow or dig up from the soil. It is the capacity of its people, our great human resources: and above all, the resource of the future - the children of Australia. For our next term, we are setting achievable, new goals for Australia's future in the world. At the head of those goals the future of all our children.
Unfortunately, the Prime Minister then went on to promise that no child would be living in poverty by 1990; a promise which has been ridiculed by his enemies, perhaps justifiably. Perhaps the addition of a couple of words to say, "No child need live in poverty", would have been appropriate. Are you happy with that, Mr Humphries?
Mr Humphries: Yes. He did not say that.
MRS GRASSBY: Nevertheless, child poverty and child homelessness are no laughing matters. Nobody can doubt the importance of the message behind the Prime Minister's words. We must tackle these problems. Since 1987 the Federal Government has made an excellent attempt to show that it fully supports the sentiments expressed by the Prime Minister. It is now up to the States and the Territories to do likewise.
Mr Acting Speaker, when the Burdekin report was first released the Prime Minister called for a bipartisan approach to the implementation of his recommendations. I am sure that the Minister for Housing and Community Services, Mr Collaery, would support such a proposition. Let me say that I, too, support such an approach, insofar as we all agree that the goal was the elimination of youth homelessness. Issues such as this and solving the social tragedy that go hand in hand with youth homelessness and poverty go to the heart of Labor ideology.
Let me warn the Minister that a bipartisan approach to the goals we set in this area does not mean that he will not be scrutinised and criticised when his actions, or lack thereof, attack the goals on which we are agreed. We must
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