MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE

Senator BARBARA POCOCK (South Australia) (17:24): That's a hard speech to follow—a very powerful speech from our new senator. It was a very moving speech, too, to welcome her and hear more about her. I return now to the business of Senator Bragg's proposal, which draws our attention to the government's failure on housing, including in the budget, and his critique of where we're at in a housing crisis.

The motion says that the government has failed on housing. Certainly they've failed on affordability. At present we are in the worst affordability crisis in this country in living memory.

They have failed us on setting a target for building new homes. We are so far off their target that it is drifting off into the future—hundreds of thousands of houses short of the target that we know they aimed to reach. Most importantly, they have failed the third of Australians who are renters, many of them renting for way longer than they expected because of the doubling of the time it now takes to save a deposit for a home.

There was nothing in the last budget or in Labor's election platform for renters, and this is now a pervasive and extended experience for so many people, certainly for young people but also for many people who did not expect to be renting for decades of their life and in many cases became lifetime renters. People across our country are being hit with massive rent increases—a 23 per cent increase in the last five years, a period that has seen a fall in real wages every year, a fall of five per cent in real wages, facing that 23 per cent increase in rents.

It is an impossible squeeze for so many parents, for so many families, for so many young people. People are hurting across the country, and renters are being pushed to the wall. Today I have had in my office Anglicare from Western Australia as well as the Western Australian Council of Social Service.

These are services that, every day, provide support and assistance to people who are homeless, who are in dire rental stress. These two services brought with them the story that in Western Australia, in central Perth, at the moment there are 69 young homeless people for every vacant bed for a homeless person. This is in a rich country.

This country is at the top of the OECD in terms of wealth. And here we have one bed for 69 young homeless people in the centre of Perth. Shame on us and shame on the decades of policy failure by both sides of this parliament, both major parties, in failing to deal with a crisis—to build the public housing, to have the rental policies we need and to make sure every Australian has a roof over their head.

The primary funding vehicle that's come forward from the Labor government in recent years has been the Housing Australia Future Fund—the HAFF. It was never going to meet the demand of the 640,000 Australians who are in dire housing stress right now. It will build 40,000 homes.

That does not touch the sides of those hundreds of thousands of people looking for housing. And just in the last week the United Nations has slammed us as a country for the demolition of 44 public housing towers in Melbourne, saying it is likely to amplify Victoria's housing crisis and could be in violation of the international human right to housing. The Victorian Labor government has a plan—unbelievable in this housing crisis—to abolish 44 public housing towers.

I've visited those towers. I've sat with people, talking about their experience, their community, and the importance of their being able to stay with the people they have formed friendships with, have raised their families with, have built their after-school programs with and are established in their employment around. Those houses are going.

Those lives are disrupted. We are in the midst of a housing crisis that will change a whole generation of people in whole suburbs in a big city like Melbourne. It is a crisis and a response that is simply unbelievable.

The same thing is happening in the middle of Sydney. This motion from Senator Bragg only acknowledges Labor's contribution to this incredible housing crisis. But we must face the fact that both major parties have been very significant contributors to the crisis.

And we must find a way forward to help those renters, to cap that rent, to build the public housing we need and to make housing affordable again. (Time expired)