CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS
Mr GORMAN (Perth—Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Assistant Minister for the Public Service and Assistant Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) (10:00): During Homelessness Week, I got to stand with the residents and staff of St Bart's in my electorate as we turned the sod on a new social housing and aged-care project. Our government is helping deliver some 56 new homes for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness and a new 80-bed aged-care facility for older Australians, because our government believes that housing is not just a place to call home; it is the path to improved health, improved financial outcomes and, for so many, education, and that's a life that every Australian deserves.
I met one such Australian when I visited Bennett Street Lodge in East Perth in my electorate, celebrating 10 years of operation, and I got to sit in the home of Robert. Robert had struggled for almost 20 years with homelessness and addiction, but, because of the work of the hardworking Australian citizens at Foundation Housing, he has a safe place to call home.
He's been there since it opened 10 years ago, and it hasn't just given him a place to call home; it's given him that opportunity. He is doing his Master of Mathematics degree. As he told me about that, it went way over my head, but it made me incredibly proud of the work that Australia is doing to find more homes for our fellow citizens.
At Bennett Street Lodge alone, some 328 people have had their lives changed for the better because we've invested in social and affordable housing, and these investments are happening across the country. As I walk through my electorate or ride my bike around the beautiful bike paths of Perth, which I'm also proud to have championed and helped deliver, I see real change happening in our suburbs and on our streets.
In Pier Street in Perth, where I got the chance to go with the Prime Minister and the Premier of Western Australia, we've got 219 more apartments being built in the heart of our city for key workers and for those who need affordable housing. On Smith Street in Highgate, for years and years I heard people saying, 'What is happening with that?' It was this public housing project that had been closed by the former Liberal government but now is being rebuilt—109 new social, affordable and specialist disability homes.
On Roe Street, above METRONET—above the Perth City Link that Prime Minister Albanese championed as infrastructure minister—we have 170 new build-to-rent homes underway. I've been to Milligan Street, where we've got 37 affordable homes, part of the Housing Australia Future Fund, which some opposed. But I've stood in the home of someone who's benefited from that fund, and some 2,256 constituents in Perth are benefiting because of Labor's home deposit scheme.