If you become homeless in the ACT, you’re more likely to stay homeless than in any other state or territory. You’re even more likely to remain homeless if you’re Indigenous. Photo: File.
It’s time for an honest conversation about disadvantage in Canberra.
This city is an incredible place to live. I honestly believe there’s no place better. If you can afford it. If you can’t, you’re in trouble.
In many ways, facing economic, social or cultural disadvantage is worse for you in the ACT than in any other jurisdiction.
The inequity starts in childhood.
More than one in 10 Canberran kids live below the poverty line: 9000 children in our city don’t have access to the basic necessities of life.
While the ACT has the best NAPLAN results in the country, socioeconomic status has a larger impact on a child’s education here than anywhere else in Australia, except the NT.
Disadvantaged Canberran students are four years behind their advantaged classmates when they reach Year 9.
Tonight, in our national capital, there are children who will go to bed hungry: 12,500 Canberrans ran out of food last year.
Over 2,000 people don’t have a bed to go to at all.
If you become homeless in the ACT, you’re more likely to stay homeless than in any other state or territory. You’re even more likely to remain homeless if you’re Indigenous. Far from being closed, that gap widened last year.
People are sleeping in cars parked around the lake and at your local shopping centre. The places with bathrooms that open until late are especially popular. Some of these people are vulnerable women fleeing violence. Some of them have children in the back seat.
Most of the Canberrans I’ve met on the campaign trail have a strong social conscience. They believe we should feed the hungry and house the homeless. They want to live in a fair society, but our public housing stock has decreased by almost 9 per cent since 2011. During the same period, our population has grown by 30 per cent.
Has our government made a conscious decision to let disadvantaged people fall behind in Canberra? Or is it just too slow-moving to respond to those who need our help? Our proportion of public housing dwellings in ‘acceptable’ condition is the second lowest in the country. It’s worse if you have a disability. In fact, being a person with disability has a greater negative impact on the condition of your home in our public housing system than anywhere else in Australia.
But don’t we have the most progressive government in the country? Apparently not for many Canberrans on the margins.
If you’re Indigenous, you’re almost 25 times more likely to be incarcerated here than your non-Indigenous neighbours – the largest gap in Australia.
Despite spending more per inmate than any other state or territory, we’re failing to create pathways to a better future for repeat offenders. Once you enter our criminal justice system as an Indigenous person, you’re more likely to re-offend here than in any other jurisdiction.
We tend to assume that services are in place to address these and other systemic disadvantages. In some cases, they are, but Canberra’s community services sector is at breaking point.
Only 4 per cent of community sector organisations say they are able to meet current levels of demand. Less than 10 per cent believe their funding actually covers the full cost of service delivery.
We have the highest median income in the country. Surely, the ACT, of all places, can afford to support the organisations that are relied upon by the most vulnerable members of our community.
Over 60 per cent of Canberrans voted Yes last year in the Voice referendum. This is a place that believes in positive change for those who most need it.
In an egalitarian society, the hungriest mouths should get fed first. That’s the kind of society I want my kids growing up in.
Instead, critical service providers are being left with no choice but to cut back on services due to insufficient funding.
Organisations from across the community sector shouldn’t be forced to band together, as they did recently, to launch a public campaign pleading for funding sufficient to meet the demand they see for critical services in our community.
A crossbench of Independents for Canberra MLAs in the Legislative Assembly will ensure those pleas aren’t ignored any longer.
Thomas Emerson is a former adviser to Senator David Pocock, founder of Praksis Movement Studio, leader of Independents for Canberra and a candidate for Kurrajong contesting the 2024 ACT Election.
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