Victorians’ rights under threat

Published in the Geelong Advertiser, 19 September 2024

Each week, teams of volunteer lawyers visit Victoria's soup kitchens, shelters and welfare agencies to meet with homeless clients, including at the Salvation Army in Norlane.  Over 20,500 people are homeless in Victoria each night; almost half are women, and half are under 25. Many of them need lawyers; legal problems can cause homelessness, and homelessness can cause legal issues.

Take Joseph, who had been sleeping rough for many years and was in temporary shelter in a rooming house.  We met Joseph at the Salvos, where he needed a lawyer to help him keep his temporary accommodation – his landlord was threatening to evict him because his disability made it difficult for him to contribute to the house and interact with his co-residents.  Our advocacy enabled Joseph to keep his housing.

Then there’s Ben, who was threatened with eviction after his partner died suddenly.  Because of Ben’s ill health, he had a mental breakdown after her death, and wasn’t able to meet his obligations to his social housing landlord. Our advocacy enabled Ben to remedy this misunderstanding, move to a more suitable house, and prevented him becoming homeless.

Both of these clients were assisted because Victoria has laws that protect human rights.

These laws provide that new laws and policies must consider people’s human rights; that agencies providing government services must act compatibly with human rights; and that courts can review the actions of those service providers to ensure that human rights are protected.

This week, the Victorian Parliament received a report from a committee inquiry into the operation of the Charter.  While all of the recommendations are highly qualified, the committee has suggested that the Charter should be weakened by reducing the obligations on public authorities, and removing accountability before courts and tribunals.

This would be a tragic mistake.

In our work with homeless Victorians, we see how the Charter has brought about gradual but noticeable improvements in the provision of services by public authorities.  Many of these improvements have been generated through education and negotiation and better, more transparent decision-making processes.

However, where this doesn’t happen, people can use the Charter to ensure accountability.  Through our advocacy, we have been able to use the Charter to negotiate and advocate to prevent 42 people, including 21 children, from being evicted from social housing into homelessness.  For people like Ben and Joseph; vulnerable, unlucky and in crisis, the Charter provided the framework for negotiating to protect their right to home. If we didn’t have the protection of the Charter, it’s very likely that these people would have become homeless.

The Charter also encourages public authorities to consider people’s rights in their decisions and actions; when they reviewed Ben and Joseph’s circumstances in light of their human rights, the landlords weighed Ben and Joseph’s human rights against their other responsibilities and made a more balanced and reasonable decision.

We also used the Charter to educate a local council that was proposing to criminalise people sleeping in cars, an increasing trend given our current housing crisis.  We alerted the Council to the implications of this proposed by-law for people who were homeless, and the effect this would have on their human rights.  An amended by-law was passed which addressed the problem of frolicking backpackers staying near a local lake, but didn’t criminalise homelessness, and new guidelines were developed that respect and promote the human rights of people who are homeless.

The Charter has improved laws and policies; it has improved government decision making; and it has improved accountability and protection of human rights. The human rights of people like Joseph and Ben, and you and me, must be protected.  

It’s only right.