ADJOURNMENT

Mrs McINTOSH (Lindsay) (11:45): The working homeless are one of our country's most worrying trends. When a working mother escapes violence only to trade fear inside her home for fear inside a parked car with her children, we should all be asking how Australia has come to this. Every woman sleeping in a car after finishing a day's work is a stain on our national conscience.

The new face of homelessness is increasingly not someone disconnected from the workplace. It is someone who gets up every morning, goes to work, pays tax, contributes to their community and does everything we tell Australians they should do to get ahead. The new face of homelessness is the working homeless, and nowhere is this crisis more visible than among women escaping violence both across the country and within my own electorate of Lindsay.

It cuts me to the core to hear the Penrith Women's Health Centre say that around 10 per cent of their clients are now working homeless. These are women fleeing violence, often with little more than the clothes on their back. Last year alone, the centre supported 750 women escaping violence in their homes.

They told me homelessness is increasingly a direct consequence of domestic and family violence. There are also seeing more older women seeking help—women with little superannuation, women experiencing elder abuse and women who are still working. The centre put it plainly: when and where are you going to find an extra $1,000 for a bond?

They told me they have women living in cars while waiting for transitional accommodation, women that are working jobs, women trying to keep their children safe and women doing everything right yet unable to secure a rental property because the market is simply too tight. Seven in 10 women escaping violence leave behind their home and assets, often stepping directly into homelessness.

Escaping a violent relationship typically costs $18,000 and takes 141 hours, an impossible barrier for many women. The housing crisis is making an already desperate situation worse. National rental vacancy rates remain at just 1.2 per cent.

In New South Wales, the number of people sleeping rough has climbed to 2,308 people, a 75 per cent increase since 2020. That should shame this government. In my own electorate of Lindsay, the number of people sleeping rough in the Penrith local government area has increased by over 30 per cent in just one year.

For every person counted sleeping rough, there are many more living in cars, couch surfing or remaining in unsafe situations because they simply have nowhere else to go. At the same time, cost-of-living pressures continue to crush household budgets. The latest Foodbank hunger report found that 3.5 million Australian households either ran out of food or were forced to reduce the quality of their meals over the past year, and, most disturbing of all, 64 per cent of those experiencing food insecurity are actually employed.

Let that sink in. The majority of Australians struggling to put food on the table are working. OzHarvest's latest frontline report reveals more than 350,000 people are seeking food relief every month, while more than 74,000 are being turned away because services cannot keep up with demand.

As OzHarvest founder Ronni Kahn so powerfully said, 'The cost-of-living crisis has become a cost of surviving crisis.' Despite seeing Australians pushed to the brink, this government's budget does nothing. It delivers nothing for food relief organisations that are struggling under unprecedented pressure. Families in Lindsay told me they're hanging on by their fingertips.

They worry about high rents, high bills and whether they can absorb one more unexpected expense. The warning lights are flashing across the economy. More than four million Australians live in poverty, rents have soared, childcare costs continue to rise, and homeownership is slipping further out of reach.

Mortgage arrears have risen by 6.8 per cent over the past year, while credit card arrears among Gen Z have surged by almost 29 per cent. Hard work should lead to security, yet more than one in every 100 Australians sought homelessness assistance last year. Compassion begins with seeing this reality clearly and choosing to act.

More than 20 years of work has gone into Christ Mission Possible's efforts for the local community. They've provided more than 60,000 nights of shelter across Greater Sydney, including in my community, and those beds represent more than accommodation; they represent safety, dignity and hope. In Australia, a job should be a pathway out of hardship, not a front row seat to it.

Hard work should deliver security, dignity and opportunity. That is the Australian promise. Everyone should afford a safe place to call home, and we cannot say that promise is being kept.