Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Deputy Speaker, I rise tonight to celebrate the 50th anniversary of a great Tasmanian advocacy organisation, Shelter Tasmania. Two weeks ago, at the conclusion of parliament, I dashed out to join a room where formal celebrations were well underway. Attending was a raft of people with a connection to Shelter past or present, staff, departmental and provider employees, consultants, parliamentarians and advocates. The event was a genuine celebration of a much-loved and respected institution and its people.
On this, let me start by acknowledging the current CEO, Pattie Chugg. I do this upfront because of those 50 years, Pattie has been with Shelter for more than half, a remarkable contribution. A Shelter celebration is near impossible without a Pattie celebration. Pattie started with Shelter in 1998. Since, she has helped put housing and homelessness on the agenda year after year and work to deliver outcomes for thousands of Tasmanians. Indefatigable, Pattie continues to work across the sector to develop united positions and advocate to decision makers to do more to meet the needs of vulnerable Tasmanians.
With the housing wait list now sitting at over 5200 applications and applicants waiting longer and longer, getting Tasmania to deliver on its obligation to meet the human rights of its residents is hard and getting harder. On any given night, over 2000 Tasmanians experience homelessness. In a dual cost-of-living and housing crisis, with rents rising, inadequate protections for renters, a lack of minimum standards and whole homes being lost to short-stay hotels like Airbnb. The need for people like Pattie working in organisations like Shelter is more desperate than ever and the work they do is as critical as always.
Like many of our great NGOs, Shelter began in the mid-1970s as an unfunded, volunteer-based organisation focused on housing for vulnerable Tasmanians, specifically those on low incomes. It joined with other similar state organisations, forming a nationwide network of Shelter organisations as a founding member of National Shelter.
Remarkably, this culture of volunteerism continued for years, with Shelter receiving its first direct funding, a sum total of $1,000 for administration costs in 1990. In 1994, after 19 years of volunteer-run operations, Shelter received one year’s funding for a part-time project officer. In 2018, Shelter first received five-year funding, allowing it to properly plan for future programs, employ people with some sense of certainty and security, and deliver programs with some degree of durability. Today, Shelter is part of a broad community services industry collectively advocating to the Tasmanian government for certainty of funding, five-year contracts, indexation to keep up with CPI and timely negotiations conducted in a way that allows for continuity of staffing and program delivery.
In 1978, Shelter foresaw the challenge of servicing estate housing debt and still getting ahead on public housing construction and it began the work of advocating for the removal of the state’s public housing debt. Always an albatross around states’ necks, the housing debt was again in the sites of Shelter in the mid-2000s. After a 15-year campaign of advocacy, the $157 million debt was finally waived by the federal government in 2019, seen as a major achievement of Shelter and others.
Not limiting itself to advocacy, in 1979 Shelter stepped into the referral and crisis accommodation space, providing housing information and referral services and offering emergency accommodation in five Hobart houses as an initiative that was later renamed the Housing Assistance Service in 1986.
In 1981, Shelter was incorporated as Tasmania’s peak body for housing and homelessness, representing the interests of others in a burgeoning sector looking out for the needs of everyday Tasmanians. Shelter has consistently done this collaboratively. Whether it’s across the sector or across the parliament, Shelter works with allcomers to develop and implement plans and solutions.
In 1995, Shelter partnered with the Tasmanian government to hold Tasmania’s first Community Housing Conference, and in 2006 it was a leading player in the Affordable Housing Crisis Coalition, an initiative with others to raise the profile of the housing crisis.
Coordinating policy development across the sector has long been a core function of Shelter, working up joint policy to allow a collaborative effort in lobbying and advocacy, increasing effectiveness and ideally outcome delivery.
Today, Shelter continues to stand up for renters’ rights, addressing the loss of whole‑home rentals in short stay hotels and proper government strategies and investment in housing and homelessness services. It delivers training and education and has helped build the social housing workforce capacity. In 2013, it delivered a Certificate IV in Social Housing Program.
On behalf of the Tasmanian Greens, past and present, I offer my utmost congratulations to Pattie, her colleagues and all involved in Shelter Tasmania’s remarkable 50-year history in this state.
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