Homelessness

Senator DAVID POCOCK (Australian Capital Territory—Independent ACT Whip) (13:40): Parliamentarians back in the nation's capital may have noticed a couple of things over the last two weeks which they may have found a bit disturbing: not just how cold it's been, with a couple of apparent minus nines here in the nation's capital, but also the growing number of people sleeping rough in Canberra—the growing homelessness in the national capital. Homelessness Australia says the number of people accessing homelessness services has increased by 10 per cent since 2022. Meanwhile, the number of social housing homes as a percentage of all housing has decreased here in the ACT. There are more than 3,100 people waiting for access to safe and affordable housing. Average wait times for those on the priority list exceed seven months. For others, it's more than five years wait.

As a wealthy country, we need to be doing so much better than this. Labor's investments over the last term are welcome but aren't rolling out fast enough. The latest update from Housing Australia shows that more than 5,500 dwellings from the first round of HAFF, announced in September last year, still don't have funding agreements. What is going on here? Why is it to slow? Round 2 closed in January, but successful projects are yet to be announced, and round 3 still hasn't opened. And there's no sign of the promised National Housing and Homelessness Plan. It's not good enough. We need to see far more urgency. Even take the CSIRO Ginninderra site, a sale between two Labor governments. They can't even do that in three years. Australians expect better, and I think they deserve better when it comes to housing in this country. I would urge the Albanese government to actually start delivering on this.