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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 168 asked in the Legislative Assembly on 1 June 2021 by Dr D.J. Honey

Parliament: 41 Session: 1

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.