Speaker 1: You're listening to the Weekend collective podcast from News talks'd be.
Speaker 2: But where have they gone? What's happened and how what's
Speaker 2: what's the way forward on improving these numbers even further?
Speaker 2: And the Associate Housing Minister, Look, he's minister for lots
Speaker 2: of things, but he's here in his capacity as Minister
Speaker 2: Associate Minister for Housing. Timer Portucker joins me today, thanks.
Speaker 3: Job someone thanks for having me on the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for joining us. Really appreciate your time. Hey,
Speaker 2: look my first reaction thirty two percent in just six months.
Speaker 2: Where have they gone? Have you just turfed them out
Speaker 2: or something?
Speaker 3: No? No, Look, I think we're really focused on making
Speaker 3: sure we get emergency housing and holding generally back on
Speaker 3: strap and as a result, we've had a pretty deliberate
Speaker 3: hand to ensure that those people going into emergency housing
Speaker 3: have got a genuine need for a short term state.
Speaker 3: Those that are in house emergency and I'm not supported
Speaker 3: to get out, and of course the supply issues and
Speaker 3: there has been a little bit more like come on drink.
Speaker 3: So it's a plan is really focused and we really
Speaker 3: want to make come at a gig of funer and
Speaker 3: emergency housing come out as well.
Speaker 2: So basically have those thirty two percent just moved on
Speaker 2: to a more permanent and more acceptable form of housing.
Speaker 3: Yes, basically that is a Storians have gone through social
Speaker 3: housing with buying order, community housing providers or transitional housing,
Speaker 3: and about thirty percent have gone into private housing. Essentially
Speaker 3: of a surprise to many people, that are a lot
Speaker 3: of people that moved out or migrate out of emergency
Speaker 3: of the private market.
Speaker 2: So how do we get it so wrong in the
Speaker 2: last few years.
Speaker 3: Well, I think well, it has been a social, physical,
Speaker 3: and moral catastrophe and I think most of us are
Speaker 3: aware of that, especially in places like Hamilton and Hamilton
Speaker 3: West around the MP and drawn a couple of other
Speaker 3: places where you know there's been a real instancification of BARNO,
Speaker 3: particularly single mums and single fits and households have moved
Speaker 3: into emergency and will let it supplide. So we're really
Speaker 3: focused on making sure that the people are supported are
Speaker 3: supported where they have genuine need to be an emergency
Speaker 3: for a short spent stay, but we don't want it
Speaker 3: to continue as a catastrophe or claimasy. Is what we've
Speaker 3: seen in the last fule of years. We've got a
Speaker 3: target that's to reduce it by seventy percent by twenty
Speaker 3: thirty and blue suits we're down thirty two percent in
Speaker 3: the last eight months.
Speaker 2: So what assurances are those There'll be people who are
Speaker 2: suspicious of these headlines. What assurances can you provide that
Speaker 2: these families haven't been shifted into other precarious housing situations.
Speaker 3: Well, that's certainly not the basic space that we're seeing
Speaker 3: these FINO movements, who most as I've said, either gone
Speaker 3: into social or transitional housing or into private healthing. There
Speaker 3: are some people that we don't have data for because
Speaker 3: there there's no obligation for people to tell us where
Speaker 3: they are going. But the one thing we do know
Speaker 3: they go into place warm, dry, secure homes.
Speaker 2: So you've also got some tough new rules coming in
Speaker 2: which will include tougher eligibility and also a standdown week
Speaker 2: for stand down for thirteen weeks if somebody breaks the rules.
Speaker 2: To Mutter pH the MARI Housing advocacy group, Basically they've said,
Speaker 2: please explain. They think that this is a threatened threatening
Speaker 2: to deepen the housing crisis for vulnerable populations. What do
Speaker 2: you say, Well, I.
Speaker 3: Think it's very reasonable for as as the government to
Speaker 3: establish some transparency and some certainty around the responsibilities that
Speaker 3: go with staying in emergency housing. Potentially have been funded
Speaker 3: by taxpayers and of the government who stay in emergency
Speaker 3: housing that are social housing. And for whilst it's important
Speaker 3: for us who support and staff are those people with
Speaker 3: genuine needs, it's also important for us to allow out
Speaker 3: the expectations of responsibilities that those people have to ensure
Speaker 3: that that doing their best to find or to see
Speaker 3: where they can secure us more stable housing. And we
Speaker 3: will provide that type of wraparound support through housing brokers
Speaker 3: and through some programs to enable those people to be
Speaker 3: in that space. And you know, whilst I know that
Speaker 3: there will be some people that are genuinely concerned that
Speaker 3: will deepen the housing crisis, I think there is a
Speaker 3: little bit of resprosibution that's mpoined in that.
Speaker 2: I guess the question is, because when you're dealing with
Speaker 2: emergency housing, we're sort of last resort. How black and
Speaker 2: white are you going to be following those rules or
Speaker 2: is there is there something in just saying, look, we're
Speaker 2: introducing these panetles penalties as a signal on what we
Speaker 2: expect people to how that we expect people to behave
Speaker 2: with their own obligations.
Speaker 3: Well, I think we know what the characteristics of Fino
Speaker 3: and somebody Ki and others and emergency housing happen to
Speaker 3: be and suddenly rather than us in the seminology around penalty,
Speaker 3: we're sort des privator responsible the step by step sequencing
Speaker 3: of making sure that the government can do it very
Speaker 3: big to support people to migrate to a space that
Speaker 3: can't take on private healthing or move into spatial healthing.
Speaker 3: So again I don't think it's in a space where
Speaker 3: you do something wrong straight away there's a penalty, but
Speaker 3: certainly it is a gradation, and then it's a warning
Speaker 3: system that takes place importantly for us making sure that
Speaker 3: those people that are in genuine need for thoughts and states,
Speaker 3: and there are many people in that space are supported
Speaker 3: but are also supported to go out. And what might
Speaker 3: know is that average day and emergency housing was about
Speaker 3: half a year. That's a long time at two thousand
Speaker 3: dollars a week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that drop of thirty two six months is
Speaker 2: pretty dramatic. Can we expect a slightly slower progress on that,
Speaker 2: I guess from now on or what's your prediction?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I think it's blue shed. I think it's
Speaker 3: filly days. I don't think that maintaining that because as
Speaker 3: pmitive or a certainty, and it may bounce around a
Speaker 3: little bit. What we're trying to do is make sure
Speaker 3: that instead of a million dollars a day possible emergency housing,
Speaker 3: we can reduce it considerably. And where it started when
Speaker 3: we arrived, there was a million dollars a day, and
Speaker 3: now it's come down to around half a million a day,
Speaker 3: half a million a day less as a result of
Speaker 3: the changes so far.
Speaker 2: And are you confident you've got the support of communities
Speaker 2: and within the housing advocacy groups and other community groups
Speaker 2: on this stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think my observation is that in a community,
Speaker 3: housing providers and community groups are absolutely focused on supporting
Speaker 3: those in genuine need. And that's the same alignment of
Speaker 3: objectives that we have as a government. Importantly, with some
Speaker 3: undertaking some steps recently to encourage more housing provision by
Speaker 3: community housing providers, you would record a fifteen hundred places
Speaker 3: that we're going to support their books by community housing
Speaker 3: providers to enable those that are on the social housing
Speaker 3: They just felt an emergency to migrate from from that
Speaker 3: to extra stage to secure warm home. We've also got
Speaker 3: the changes for the regulatory frameworks that we believe will
Speaker 3: encourage landlords and senates to take up more private accommodations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think.
Speaker 3: I don't think. I'd say is that we don't think
Speaker 3: we have all the answers, and we know that we don't.
Speaker 3: So there are some innovations or some different ideas that
Speaker 3: we've got around maybe incentivizing prant landlords or social outcomes
Speaker 3: contracting that we think need a bit more work, but
Speaker 3: we would like to investigate there and maybe come back
Speaker 3: to you later on in the year. Different ways to
Speaker 3: activate community EWI and other providers to wrap around and
Speaker 3: get people out of emergency.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good stuff. Hey, just one last question. Olympics is over.
Speaker 2: What's been your highlight? Well it's just about over, not
Speaker 2: quite over, but we've got maybe some more golds to come,
Speaker 2: but so far.
Speaker 3: Look, I've absolutely been inspired, as we all are over
Speaker 3: four years by the Olympics, but particularly by our highting
Speaker 3: etpor our superwoman have won many metal across the disciplines.
Speaker 3: I think it really is hypament, not ancident, but also
Speaker 3: the men who are just participating, but also their paro
Speaker 3: for years. Maybe decades for some people have supported them
Speaker 3: to get to that clinical of supporting achievements. So I
Speaker 3: want to shout out not only to their athletes but
Speaker 3: to they're paro and coaches.
Speaker 2: Yeah good on you, No fantastic, Thanks for your time
Speaker 2: and staff. Noone really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thanks.
Speaker 2: I'm Kaki down Yeah bye bye. That is tam of Portaka,
Speaker 2: the Associate Minister for Housing.
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