Thursday, 18 June 2026

 Anthony MARSH (Nepean) (17:20): (1725) My adjournment is for the Minister for Housing and Building. In just 18 months seven people experiencing homelessness have died across the Mornington Peninsula, six of them in my electorate and one in Hastings just last week. A recent death in Rosebud was especially cruel. A man in his 50s died while sleeping rough only days before he was due to move into secure housing. He had survived the cold, the danger and the indignity of homelessness, but he had not survived Labor’s long-delayed waiting list. These are not just stats, they are people with families, friends and futures. The tragedy is not that these deaths were unforeseeable, it is that they were foreseeable.

The Mornington Peninsula now has the highest recorded number of rough sleepers in any functional regional zone in the state. More than 100 people are officially on the rough sleeping list. More than a third of those are women. Yet despite having the highest level of need, the Mornington Peninsula remains the only region in that functional zero program without government-funded outreach services. That is simply indefensible. Local organisations such as the Southern Peninsula Community Support centre are doing extraordinary work, supporting some of the most vulnerable people in my electorate. They are operating outreach programs, providing food relief, laundry and shower services and helping people navigate pathways into housing, but they are being forced to do that largely through donations, fundraising and community goodwill.

The Labor government was warned. On 18 December last year, when I was mayor, I wrote directly to the then minister seeking urgent action and additional support for rough sleepers on the Mornington Peninsula given the heightened risk over the summer period. While that letter sat unanswered, a man experiencing homelessness died only weeks later on 8 January. The then minister’s response did not arrive until early February this year. Homelessness does not take a holiday, and despite that tragedy and the shocking statistics, no additional funding has been provided. Local services warned the Labor government. The Mornington Peninsula shire warned the government. I warned the Labor government. Yet no funding has since been provided.

After seven deaths in 18 months, this Labor government is missing in action and now has blood on its hands. It knew the vulnerable people were sleeping rough. It knew the local services were overwhelmed, and it knew the Mornington Peninsula had the highest level of need and there were no government-funded outreach services, yet the Labor government chose not to act. Seven people have already lost their lives, and the Labor government has been warned repeatedly. It is time to act before another vulnerable person dies waiting for help. I therefore ask the Minister for Housing and Building to fund assertive outreach workers and case managers based in Nepean to support front-line organisations already delivering homelessness, outreach and support services on the southern Mornington Peninsula, and to provide advice on when that funding will be delivered.