Dr Mike Freelander has been representing Macarthur in Canberra since 2016. He’s seen a lot of problems challenge our community, but nothing like the current cost of living crisis, which forcing even working families to seek help from charities to get by.
Dr Freelander says it’s heart breaking to see working families living in tents and getting by on food handouts in a country as wealthy as Australia.
In an interview with the South West Voice recently, the Member for Macarthur agreed that we have a real problem on our hands.
“I do think the cost of living challenge is as bad as people think,’’ he says.
“There is a real cost of living crisis, and it revolves around the things we already know about – housing is a big part of the problem.
“Campbelltown used to be a relatively good place to rent, but rents in Campbelltown have gone through the roof, as have housing prices,’’ says Dr Freelander.
“There are lots of million dollar suburbs around here now, something that I’d never thought I’d see.
“Renting houses for $800 to $1,000 a week, that’s a lot of money,’’ he says.
Dr Freelander says that people here doing it tough cop a double whammy because of the lack of infrastructure and local jobs.
“We also have special issues in the outer south western suburbs: most people travel to work and transport costs a lot of money, tolls, etc, petrol costs, etc,’’ he says.
“There’s high housing costs, expensive transport, plus the basics, fresh food is quite expensive,
“So if you have a young family, you’ve got all those things on top of each other, which makes it hard to make ends meet.
“There’s food pantries where families can get food for free, some very well known ones around Campbelltown, and they’re really seeing a lot of people coming in who are working families.
“It’s a red flag to me that welfare agencies are having to support people who are working, it’s a real problem.’’
Dr Freelander said there are also a lot of people struggling with housing to the point where they’re homeless.
“They’re couch surfing or they’re living out the back of some department stores or shopping centres, living in cars behind my office in [Queen Street] Campbelltown,’’ he says.
“That’s a tragedy for a country as wealthy as Australia and it breaks your heart, particularly for the kids, who don’t have a stable place to stay.
He says that federal government is trying to help, but there’s more that can be done to turn things around.
“I would like to see us concentrate a little bit more on social housing, to make sure people who are most vulnerable, and their kids, can have a place where they can stay, so they don’t have to move all the time, they’re not getting rental assistance in private accommodation that may end sooner rather than later,’’ he says.
“The kids can go to the same school, get that stability of education, which is really, really important at the beginning of their lives.’’
Dr Freelander says people differ on what they think has caused such a terrible situation in our country.
“What I would say is that we have not concentrated as much as we should have on social housing, as our population has increased.
“Also, we have pretty restrictive planning laws; it’s one of the reasons I wanted a royal commission into Planning NSW to look at what mistakes we’ve done in the past, and how we can improve our planning processes to make it easier to build housing for the people that really need it,’’ he says.
As for solutions, he doesn’t think there’s a magic bullet.
“In federal politics there’s no magic wand for anything,’’ he says.
“I think federally we’ve done a lot in the first homebuyers’ space, things like the rent to buy scheme, the 5 percent deposit
“That’s important, but above all we need to concentrate on social housing – that’s the biggest need that I’m seeing.
“To me a lot of issues with people come back to housing, even older people,’’ he says.
“I see a number of older women struggling to get housing, and that’s very sad, they’ve worked all their lives, and in a country like Australia we can’t provide a roof over their heads.
“It’s hard for us, federally, to work in social housing, it’s the domain of the state governments.
“We are working with governments like NSW to improve the social housing space.
“I think we can do more social and affordable housing in Campbelltown itself, and I don’t have a problem with high rises around train stations being part of the solution.’’
