Page 515 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 18 February 2015
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Helping the homeless and helping people to avoid falling into homelessness should be a priority for every government. But this is not the case. The Liberal Party has cut the national rental affordability scheme. This was a scheme that was successfully boosting the construction of affordable housing here in Canberra and indeed around the nation.
I would like to take a moment at this point to recognise Ms Lawder for stepping across the party divide to vote with the Labor Party in calling for the Liberal Party to reconsider funding of the scheme—and to congratulate this Labor government on our commitment to reducing and preventing homelessness.
I acknowledge that Minister Berry has written to the federal Minister for Social Services, the Hon Scott Morrison MP—a minister renowned for his compassion to vulnerable people—to seek a commitment from the federal government for ongoing funding of the national partnership agreement on homelessness, which expires on 30 June this year.
Homelessness service providers in the ACT rely on this funding. Successfully combating homelessness is a long-term project, and you cannot deliver long-term projects if every single year the Liberal Party threatens to cut your funding. That sort of uncertainty does not just affect the viability of projects; it damages the ongoing viability of the entire sector and its workforce. Uncertainty is seeing experienced staff leave the sector in search of work with more security.
Preventing homelessness is about making sure that our social safety net is strong when people need it. Sadly, again, the Liberal Party are no fan of safety nets. They are fans of cuts, though. They are certainly fans of taking away the supports that vulnerable people rely on. For example, we know that domestic violence is a leading cause of homelessness in Australia. A government that was in the business of caring for the vulnerable might think about that and pause before cutting $300 million out of domestic violence services in this country. But no, not this Liberal Party. Even as the Prime Minister was awarding Rosie Batty Australian of the Year for her work helping women avoid and leave unhealthy relationships, his Liberal government was cutting away the services that help them to do so.
At every turn the Liberal Party have chosen vulnerable people to be the ones who should bear the burden of their obsession with cuts. I refer to a GP tax on the sick, a federal budget that would see higher income families only $71 a year worse off but lower income households $842 worse off, and, perhaps the cruellest of all, cuts to support for those unfortunate enough to find themselves unemployed, and who are left with no assistance whatsoever for six months—I repeat: six months. I do not know who the Liberals spend their time with, but I do not know many working people or low income households who have six months’ rent in the bank. And it is pretty hard to pay rent if you do not have a job. It is especially hard if the Liberal Party has ripped away your support and effectively said that you have to fend for yourself.
My government has worked hard to make access to the housing market more affordable for Canberrans. That is why we have campaigned so strongly for tax reform to abolish stamp duty. Again, you would think that every political party truly concerned about housing affordability could get behind such an initiative. But no,
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