Our next L4R meeting will be held on Wednesday 24 June at 6.30pm
Anyone who supports our L4R goals is welcome to attend.
Minutes of our last meeting on the 27 May 2026 follow L4RNSW-ACTMinMtg27May26
NSW Labor Conference – L4R campaign on homelessness – latest development After first meeting on the 31 March 2026 with NSW Minister for Water, Housing, Homelessness, Mental Health and Youth Rose Jackson, L4R and the Minister, negotiated a form of wording for a motion, that would be acceptable to both L4R and the NSW Government. On the 18 May, the Minister’s Adviser confirmed to L4R’s Secretary, Nizza Siano, that they were happy with the final wording of the motion. This motion was to be included on the agenda at the NSW ALP Conference under the Chapter “Social Justice and Legal Affairs”. We assumed this was a done deal and that our motion would sail through, unopposed at the Conference on the 4/5 July. Our motion was the outcome of a campaign conducted by L4R since early 2026. It was supported by the Refugee Council of Australia and Asylum Seekers Centre and endorsed by a number of ALP branches. The motion and background follows:HOMELESSNESS SUPPORT SHOULD BE BASED ON NEED AND NOT VISA STATUS The NSW Labor Government Homelessness Strategy 2025-2035 acknowledges that the right to housing is a basic human right. The Strategy estimates that more than 35,000 people are experiencing homelessness in NSW. There is an increase of 27% between the censuses carried out in 2011 and 2021. The Refugee Council of Australia (RCOA) reported in 2025 that in the City of Sydney alone, nearly 20% of people sleeping rough are non-residents on uncertain visas, including asylum seekers. Over the years, successive Federal Governments have reduced Status Resolution Support Services (SRSS) funding and eligibility and removed many non-residents’ work rights and access to Medicare, while the NSW State Government has excluded non-residents from homelessness support. Consequently, non-residents are locked out of mainstream social services and there is no safety net in place to prevent destitution and homelessness. The RCOA reported that currently, charities and frontline asylum services are left to fill the gap. They provide food, emergency accommodation, rent assistance, transport and healthcare but with little or no government funding. These services are stretched beyond capacity and rely heavily on donations and community goodwill. The Asylum Seekers Centre (ASC) reported in 2024 that homelessness is detrimental to the welfare and mental health of non-residents. Subsequently, this affects their ability to lodge and progress visa applications. This motion is about giving all non-residents and asylum seekers access to homelessness support. No one should be excluded based on their visa status! MOTION That this NSW Labor Conference recognises the right to housing is a human right. Humans include people in our community without visas and we recognise that the Commonwealth controls who gets visas and when, as well as the conditions on those visas, including withholding the right to work. In these circumstances, to ensure homelessness is rare, brief and non-recurring in NSW, we call on the NSW Labor Government to include accessible, safe, affordable shelter for non-residents and asylum seekers in the NSW Homelessness Strategy 2025-2035. LATEST DEVELOPMENT IS A BLOW Disappointingly, we have since learned, that the Policy Committee that examined our motion, decided that our motion should only be “Supported In Principle”, rather than being “Supported” outright. This was a blow for us as we had not been officially informed of this decision and the change of position by the Minister, until early this week. The L4R Secretary had attempted on numerous occasions over the last month, to make contact with the Minister’s Adviser to discuss the motion, but to no avail. Since discovering this bad piece of news, The L4R Secretary has requested to speak to the Minister’s Chief of Staff, in the hope that L4R and the NSW Government can find some common ground, that can result in an outcome that will benefit homeless asylum seekers and non-residents living rough on our streets. If you want to read all the motions submitted to NSW Conference by ALP Branches, trade unions, and other ALP units (including our motion on homelessness) and see the response each motion received by the Platform Committees, the Policy Committees Report can be found by clicking here. Volunteers needed at NSW Conference We are asking for volunteers to assist us in handing out our L4R leaflet early on Saturday morning at the Sydney Town Hall, to Delegates arriving on the first morning of the conference on Saturday 4 July. Registration for Delegates commences at 7.30am so that’s when we plan to be there. In order to assist us, you will need to be a member of the Labor Party and register as an Observer, otherwise, we don’t know if the security measures surrounding the conference, will allow you to stand and hand out on the steps of the Town Hall. To register please click NSW Labor Observer Registration Please get back to Nizza Siano at contact@labor4refugees.com if you have any time to offer L4R or let her know at our meeting next week. L4R Fringe Event at NSW Conference L4R has organised a fringe event on the theme of our campaign on homelessness. It will take place on SATURDAY 4 JULY AT 2PM in the Lower Town Hall. NSW Labor is in the process of producing a booklet for the Fringe Event and you will find all the details in this publication. Details of our Fringe Event follow: Title: “HOUSING IS A HUMAN RIGHT” Guest speakers: ELIJAH BUOL OAM, CEO of the Asylum Seekers Centre SHAHEEN WHYTE, Senior Policy Officer of the Refugee Council of Australia and NADIA who is a person seeking asylum with lived experience of housing insecurity in NSW. She is a mother of three and runs her own catering business. Please attend and promote our event so we can show the government (both State and Federal), that many people care about the plight of asylum seekers. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Listening to Pauline Hanson list all of her One Nation policies at yesterday’s National Press Club, sickened me. I was amazed that her attack on the media, did not elicit a walk-out by the media representatives who attended this event. They were being directly attacked by Ms Hanson yet just sat there, too timid (or stunned), to speak out (with a very few exceptions). This compliance and willingness to view One Nation as a mainstream, respectable Party, worthy of consideration, is exactly how fascism grows. My family experienced it in Nazi Europe. It’s because the “ordinary” voter, is unable to see how voting for change, for the sake of change, can damage whole communities and our society. This reluctance to see beyond populist rhetoric, is what allows these extremists to flourish. Unfortunately, only too late, people realise that the destruction of institutions that support them and enhance their quality of life, have vanished under these right-wing governments. Instead, many become targets.You just have to look at Trump as an example of this and see how he has destroyed the lives of people living in the USA (and elsewhere). Refugees and migrants have always been the scapegoats for Pauline Hanson and we must fight with all our might, to prevent her popularity from growing because of the misguided views people hold, who are suffering for all sorts of reasons, but who instead, apportion blame on others who are also suffering. These people will NOT benefit from a change of government from a Labor Government to an Australia ruled by One Nation. |
| I hope to see you at our online meeting next Wednesday. RegardsNizza Siano Secretary L4R NSW email: contact@labor4refugees.com |