Systemic advocacy

Shelter undertakes various activities to promote a fairer housing system: research, consultations, policy development, representation on advisory committees, lobbying, coordinating community-based responses, and liaison with the mass media, politicians, government agencies and other community organizations.

Shelter does not do advocacy for, or give advice to, individuals. If you need housing assistance, here are some agencies who can help you.

Campaign to increase social housing funding

We invite you to join us in campaigning for an increase in funding for social housing.

The Australian Labor Party, when in opposition, was highly critical of the Howard government for having withdrawn funds from social housing. Now it has an opportunity to right that wrong. The federal and state governments are currently negotiating a National Affordable Housing Agreement to replace the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement. You can download a brief that gives background to the new agreement here (pdf, 50 kb).

This is a critical opportunity to urge the federal government to commit to increased funding for social housing and new support for community housing.

We encourage you to write to your local federal member of parliament as soon as possible, and you can download a form letter which you can use or adapt to suit yourself here (rtf, 3kb). You can find the contact details for federal MPs at the Commonwealth Parliament website. To find what federal electorate you are in, you can search the Australian Electoral Commission website.

In order to sustain and grow our social housing system it is crucial that additional funds are allocated to it. In order to achieve this Cabinet must be convinced, so you may also wish to send letters to the following members of Cabinet: the Hon. Kevin Rudd, MP, Prime Minister; the Hon. Wayne Swan, MP, Treasurer; the Hon. Jenny Macklin, MP, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs; and the Hon. Lindsay Tanner, MP, Minister for Finance and Deregulation.

We would like to know how many letters have been sent, so please keep us informed by emailing Mary Perkins at: mary[at]shelternsw.org.au.

Other products

We lodged a submission on the Commonwealth Government's green paper on homelessness. Download (pdf - 44 kb).

We lodged a submission on state taxation, supporting a draft recommendation of the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal for a broadening of land tax. Download (pdf - 50 kb).

Updated 19-Aug-2008