Labor’s housing and homelessness minister, Julie Collins, yesterday gave a speech at Day 1 of the National Homelessness Conference at the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI), whereby she accused the former Coalition government of a “decade of inaction” on the issue.
Collins noted that there were 116,000 homeless people recorded on census night 2016, up from 102,000 in 2011, and that Labor would address the issue via a $10 billion social housing fund, which will be used to build 30,000 social and affordable homes within five years.
This would include “20,000 social housing properties” and “10,000 affordable homes will also be allocated to frontline workers like police, nurses and cleaners”:
