COST OF LIVING —
FEES AND CHARGES
168. Dr D.J. HONEY to the Minister for Community Services:
I refer to comments by the head of
Anglicare that his organisation has experienced a threefold increase in people
needing help. Can the minister outline to the house what impact her government's
recently announced increase to the cost of living, including power prices, will
have on those struggling Western Australians?
Ms S.F.
McGURK replied:
I thank the member for the question.
In fact, we have been monitoring very closely the impact of changes in 2021. In
particular, through the COVID year in 2020 we saw huge disruptions to income
and tenancy stability through the moratorium on evictions and other protections
that were put in place by the McGowan government. We saw a very unusual
situation here in 2020, as we did around the country and the world. Some of
those protections or supports have been wound back in 2021. We have been
following very closely impacts on tenancies and support for emergency relief and the like, and there is also our work on some of
the feeders of that disruption such as domestic violence, for example.
The government has put record investment into responding to domestic violence.
In 2020 alone we put an additional $28 million into emergency response to
domestic violence across a range of different services.
That included new outreach workers in refuges, putting additional community
services people in the co-located response teams in police stations,
making sure that there were additional dollars available for training and
services available, if women needed them, in refuges. Additional support was
available. The member would have been listening last week when I reported to
the house on the additional work that had been done by the federal government
in making sure there were dollars available for a range of different services
for domestic violence around the state. That is important work done by our
government in partnership with the federal government.
I turn to calls to Entrypoint Perth,
which is the phone number people call for crisis accommodation. The figures for
March and early indications for April are that there has not been an increase
in the numbers going to Entrypoint compared with this time last year, but we
recognise it is early days after the moratorium. I hear the community sector saying that there is an increase in phone
calls to it seeking assistance, but so far we have not seen that replicated
with direct demand on Entrypoint and crisis accommodation. I have also heard
from a number of the women's refuges that they are concerned that with
the pressure on both private and public housing it is difficult for them to
move people on, so women and children are staying in refuges longer than they
would have otherwise. We are monitoring the situation very closely. For
instance, we might at times utilise the available avenue of people being able to access hotel or motel accommodation if
need be. We are monitoring that closely around the state, and making
sure we are working very closely with our community sector partners to ensure
people are not at risk of staying in dangerous situations, in the case of
domestic violence. If they are in need of emergency accommodation, we work
creatively and, importantly, in partnership with our community sector to
provide that support.