Labor and Liberal might compete for power, and have their political disagreements, but those differences are buried when it comes to a good cause. Federal Labor and local Liberal politicians will take part in the Vinnies CEO Sleepout in June.

David Smith MP

Poverty in the ACT has a number of different faces, says Labor politician David Smith MP, Member for Bean, who has taken part in the sleepout – “an extraordinary event” – six or seven times.

“A lot of Canberrans don’t realise that per capita, we are often about close to the highest or second highest in the country in terms of homelessness.

“The statistics never really capture it properly, though, because on census night and the like, people, even if they’re couch surfing, aren’t necessarily going to identify as homeless. But there are challenges in terms of cost of living, paying rent and utility bills. People are juggling multiple jobs to try to get by.”

Federal Labor has committed to a proper National Housing strategy, for the first time in a decade, with a plan to construct 30,000 social and affordable homes across the country in the first five years, and invest $10 billion over the decade. 10,000 of those homes would support low-income critical occupations such as aged care and nursing.

“So many people doing really important jobs in our community are being priced out of living in our community,” Mr Smith said. “We see that as a critical area to address.”

Labor will also support fair and reasonable increases to pay, most obviously in the aged care sector.

“We need to see some real wages growth so that you don’t have the situation where people who may be working feel that they don’t have a secure roof over their head.”

A Labor election, he hopes, would mean two tiers of government, at federal and local levels, would be able to partner together.

“At times, we feel like we haven’t got our fair share of investment here locally in Canberra from the federal level. So hopefully there’s an opportunity to address those substantial gaps.”

Mr Smith hopes to raise a few thousand dollars at the Sleepout.

“The focus of my fundraising efforts will probably be after May 21,” he said. “A few of my colleagues are participating elsewhere in the country, and so we have a bit of healthy competition between ourselves in terms of how much we try to raise.”

Mark Parton MLA

Canberra Liberals MLA Mark Parton, Shadow Minister for Housing, has taken part in the CEO Sleepout for five or six years.

“I deal personally with a hell of a lot of people on the margins who are really struggling to get a roof over their head, and Vinnies are just bloody awesome.

“They get very little government support … and this is the biggest fundraiser for them.

“People outside of Canberra certainly have this perception that Canberra is a city of rich people that wear suits who work in big buildings. And obviously there’s a lot of that. But the housing affordability crisis has hit here more than anywhere else in the country.

“There’s this massive divide between the Haves and the Have-Nots. It means that we’ve got this hidden poor. Many of them are working. This place is becoming like Washington DC has become, where the nurses, the retail workers, the police officers are forced to live over the river, because there’s no way that they can afford to live in DC.

“That’s where we’ve come here. There’s a myriad of causes. I don’t want to get too political because I would talk about land supply, but I’d also talk about residential tenancies laws and the continuing shift there. 

“But additionally, even in that public and social housing space, I think that this current government has dropped the ball, and that they are going about things the wrong way,” he said.

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“Certainly, if we were elected in 2020, we would have relied much more heavily upon community housing providers, because you get more bang for buck. You can deliver many more dwellings for the same or less cost, and at this stage of this crisis, that’s the outcome you’ve got to be looking for.”

Mr Parton said he was pleased to hear Liberal Senator for the ACT Zed Seselja’s announcement this week that CSIRO land on the Barton Highway would be sold for housing should the coalition be re-elected.

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“That number of blocks is going to make a significant difference,” Mr Parton said. “Very, very clearly, land supply for detached housing in the ACT, there is a massive undersupply. Those ballots are oversubscribed 100 to one; for every one person that wins the ballot, 99 miss out – and that’s rubbish.”

Mr Parton said he did not have a fundraising target for the Sleepout.

“I’ll have a crack and we’ll see what we get. I’ll go to my supporters and ask, and we’ll see. I don’t have an expectation of what people will give; I’m sure they’ll give however much they can.”