Wednesday, 30 August 2023

Bills

Human Rights and Housing Legislation Amendment (Ending Homelessness) Bill 2023

Statement of compatibility

Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (09:53): I lay on the table a statement of compatibility with the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006.

In accordance with section 28 of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (the Charter), I make this statement of compatibility with respect to the Human Rights and Housing Legislation Amendment (Ending Homelessness) Bill 2023.

In my opinion, the bill, as introduced to the Legislative Council, is compatible with, promotes, and strengthens, the human rights protected by the Charter.

I base my opinion on the reasons outlined in this statement.

Overview of bill

The purposes of this bill are to amend the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 to establish a right to adequate housing within the Charter; and to amend the Housing Act 1983 to set a target of ending homelessness in Victoria by 2030 and require planning and reporting on progress to meet the target.

Human rights issues

In my opinion, the human rights protected by the Charter that are relevant to the bill are:

• The right to recognition and equality before the law (section 8)

• The right to freedom of movement (section 12)

• Privacy and reputation (section 13)

• Protection of families and children (section 17)

• Cultural rights, including Aboriginal cultural rights (section 19)

• Property rights (section 20)

The right to recognition and equality before the law (section 8)

Section 8(2) of the Charter provides that every person has the right to enjoy their human rights without discrimination. This means that you cannot be treated unfavourably because of your personal characteristics protected by the law.

Introducing a right to adequate housing that sufficiently accommodates the person’s attributes, within the meaning of the Equal Opportunity Act 2010, strengthens this right by affirming that housing should be fully accessible to all free from discrimination.

The right to freedom of movement (section 12)

Section 12 of the Charter provides that every person lawfully within Victoria has the right to move freely within Victoria and to enter and leave it and has the freedom to choose where to live.

The bill creates a right to adequate housing that is located reasonably close to public services and employment opportunities for the person. In my view, this will enhance and not limit the operation of the right to freedom of movement. What is adequate for the person will differ from person to person. The bill ensures that people will not be forced to relocate to housing that is poorly located or removed from their work and communities, while still protecting the freedom of a person to choose where to live.

Privacy and reputation (section 13)

Section 13(a) of the Charter provides that a person has the right not to have their privacy, family, home or correspondence unlawfully or arbitrarily interfered with. The new Charter right to housing in the bill enhances this right by defining adequate housing as housing that provides for physical safety and sufficient space for a person without overcrowding.

Protection of families and children (section 17)

Section 17 of the Charter provides that every child has the right, without discrimination, to such protection as is in their best interests and is needed by the child by reason of being a child. For children who are homeless or who are living in insecure housing, the lack of a secure and permanent home can interrupt their schooling, and negatively impact their health and wellbeing. The bill’s target to end homelessness will promote this right by reducing and, by 2030, eliminating the harm done to children who are experiencing homelessness.

Cultural rights, including Aboriginal cultural rights (section 19)

Section 19 of the Charter provides that all persons with a particular cultural, religious, racial or linguistic background must not be denied the right, in community with other persons of that background, to enjoy their culture, to declare and practise their religion and to use their language.

Introducing a right to adequate housing that sufficiently accommodates the person’s attributes, within the meaning of the Equal Opportunity Act 2010, strengthens this right by affirming that housing should be fully accessible to all and free from discrimination, including taking into account a person’s cultural needs.

Property rights (section 20)

Section 20 of the Charter provides that a person must not be deprived of their property other than in accordance with law. Introducing a right to adequate housing that protects against unfair eviction improves the operation of this right. It prevents a person from being unfairly evicted from their home but does not limit the right of a property owner to manage a residential tenancy agreement, as it retains the ability for eviction in accordance with the law.

For these reasons I consider that the Bill is compatible with the Charter.

Second reading

Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (09:53): I move:

That the bill be now read a second time.

Almost 18 months ago, the Greens called on all members to support a bill to end homelessness in Victoria by 2030.

It represented an important moment to recognise that homelessness is inherently solvable and that, as lawmakers, we have the tools and the power to end it and prevent it.

We asked members to unite in acknowledging that housing is a human right and that nobody in Victoria should be without a home.

And the bill put forward a bold, but achievable, vision to end homelessness in Victoria by the end of the decade.

Today, on behalf of my Greens colleagues, I am reintroducing this plan to end homelessness, in this Human Rights and Housing Legislation Amendment (Ending Homelessness) Bill 2023, because in the 18 months since we first introduced these reforms, the situation in Victoria has only gotten worse. We’re now in one of the worst housing crises this state has ever seen.

There are a record 58,131 applications on the Victorian Housing Register – 130,000 adults and children waiting for a public home, many for years on end.

Rents have risen 13.3 per cent in Victoria in the last year alone. In Melbourne median rents are at record highs of $520 for houses and $500 for units.

And on census night in 2021 more than 30,000 Victorians were homeless – an increase of 23 per cent from 2016.

These figures are striking – and all the more so because they are entirely preventable.

We know we have the power to end homelessness in Victoria. We know that the simplest and most effective way to end homelessness is to provide enough secure, long-term, affordable housing for everyone who needs it.

Once upon a time, governments saw housing as a public service – something that they provided for the people, like public education or public health. It was a government responsibility to provide affordable housing for everyone.

In the postwar period in the middle of the 20th century, amid a housing crisis not unlike the one we’re in today, we did not hesitate. We directly built thousands of new public homes as a solution to a shortage of affordable homes.

But today, our governments have turned their back on their responsibility to provide housing. They have forgotten that housing is a human right. They have no plan to significantly increase the number of public and affordable homes in Victoria, because today, after decades dominated by neoliberal thinking in Australian politics, housing has become a vehicle for private investment instead of an essential service. It’s seen as a commodity, an asset to appreciate in financial value, not the value that its stability delivers to families and communities.

This means that instead of being the responsibility of governments, the provision of affordable housing has been left in the hands of private developers, who care more about their bottom line than about ensuring we have enough affordable homes for everyone.

And because our thinking is so warped, our priorities so wrong, we have totally failed to protect or invest in our public housing system or create the new affordable homes we need.

In 1956, 22 per cent of new housing built in Australia was public housing. In 2022, this was only 1.7 per cent.

Today we have fewer public homes in Victoria than we did 10 years ago.

And there are just 126 affordable properties for low-income families in the entire state and no affordable homes for single parents on youth allowance or Jobseeker.

Because we are not doing anywhere near enough to create more affordable housing, we have also given up on addressing homelessness. Without a massive increase in affordable and public housing, our governments are simply sitting back and letting homelessness increase year on year.

We know from its track record that, without being compelled to create new public and affordable homes and work towards ending homelessness, nothing will change under this government.

This bill aims to make that change by reinforcing that housing is a human right and by making the government – and all future governments – develop a plan to end homelessness in Victoria by the end of the decade.

To turn now to the details of the bill, the bill will introduce a new right to housing into the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities.

The right to housing is recognised in international law in article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which acknowledges the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food, clothing and housing.

But in Victoria there is no recognition of the right to housing in our human rights legislation. This means that there is no explicit obligation on the government to provide enough housing for everyone or to protect Victorians from being evicted into homelessness, and so our governments are free to continue making decisions that only increase housing unaffordability, contribute to the shortage of affordable housing and push more people into homelessness.

Introducing a right to adequate housing into our human rights charter will mean that a person’s right to housing would have to be considered in all future policy and legislative decisions.

It will make the provision of adequate housing and the eradication of homelessness a priority for current and future governments.

This is a reform that was also recommended by the Legal and Social Issues Committee’s inquiry into homelessness in Victoria.

Importantly, this bill goes further than just establishing a right to housing. We know that it’s not enough to simply build more houses; we need to be creating homes that people want to live in and can build a life around in the long term.

Our bill establishes a right to adequate housing and adopts a comprehensive understanding of what ‘adequate’ means based on guidance from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Adequate housing is affordable.

It is structurally sound and fit for habitation.

It is safe and protects a person from forced evictions, harassment and other threats to their safety.

It provides sufficient space for the person, without overcrowding and without a lack of privacy.

It is fully accessible to everyone, free from discrimination and takes into account people’s cultural needs.

It is well located, within reasonable range of employment opportunities, healthcare services, schools, childcare centres and other social facilities for those that need such access.

And it is secure, with long-term tenure and no risk of unfair eviction.

This comprehensive definition of what ‘adequate housing’ means is a first in Victoria. It recognises that our right to housing is more than a right to four walls and a roof; it’s a right to a livable home.

Part 3 of the bill amends the Housing Act 1983 to create a legislated target for ending homelessness in Victoria. The bill sets that target at zero by 2030 – that is, that nobody will be homeless in Victoria by the year 2030.

It’s an ambitious target – but one that is entirely achievable. And it is inconceivable that we may decide not even to try and attempt it.

For the purposes of the ending homelessness target, a person is homeless if, for at least 28 days, they have not been housed in housing that is adequate for them and have been unable to access housing that is adequate for them.

The 28-day time period acknowledges that our frontline services need a reasonable period of time to secure permanent housing for a person but also recognises that an extended period of homelessness is not acceptable if we are serious about ending homelessness in our state.

The bill requires the minister to develop a plan for achieving the ending homelessness target by 2030. The plan must have a focus on providing adequate and ongoing housing for people experiencing homelessness.

This is the Housing First approach, where homelessness is addressed by immediately providing a person with adequate long-term housing, without any housing readiness requirements.

We know that this approach works. We’ve seen this internationally, most notably in Finland, where their use of the Housing First principles has effectively ended street homelessness, and we saw it here in Melbourne during the pandemic. This government must continue to adopt this approach to address our housing crisis, which is why this bill makes sure it will be a key part of the ending homelessness plan.

The plan will also have to set out the details of how homelessness will be reduced over the decade, including how many new homes will be created in order to meet the target, what types of housing the new homes will be, how much funding will be given to housing support services and how many people will be permanently housed each year to 2030.

The government of the day will also have the ability to set other appropriate benchmarks such as tracking the number of people sleeping rough or living in marginal housing such as rooming houses.

To ensure proper scrutiny of the ending homelessness plan, the plan must be tabled in Parliament within 10 sitting days after it has been prepared. And each year the minister must prepare and table an annual report on progress towards the ending homelessness target, including reporting on progress made towards the target, the number of new homes created and how much additional funding has been allocated to frontline services.

I am pleased to reintroduce this bill today on behalf of the Greens and to put forward a plan to end homelessness in Victoria.

We are in a homelessness crisis because successive governments have lacked the ambition or the drive to think differently.

For decades, our governments have put homelessness in the too-hard basket. They have said that solving homelessness is too complex. It’s too expensive. It’s too difficult. It’s best left to the ‘invisible hand’ of the market, even if the market is increasingly building invisible homes for Victorians in need.

They have had no vision, no long-term planning, no clear strategy for ending homelessness in our state. Instead they’ve given us years of piecemeal funding, sporadic program streams and a reliance on the private sector to fill the gaps. And they have tried to lower our collective ambition and hope. They have hoped, by making it sound too complex to fix, that we – the community – would be passive bystanders to their complicity in making the housing crisis worse.

But these governments have had their priorities wrong, and this bill gives us the chance here to compel all future Victorian governments to act.

We know that homelessness is inherently solvable. All it takes is the political will to do it.

The vision outlined in this bill is bold. It’s ambitious. But it is possible.

And we simply must try.

I commend this bill to the house.

Lee TARLAMIS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (10:04): I move:

That debate on this bill be adjourned for two weeks.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned for two weeks.