Affordable housing will clearly be a major issue in the May 2017 budget, both for families and young people being priced out of the market, as well as for the increasing number of over 55’s who, because of personal circumstances, are finding themselves homeless. The May budget, however, will not necessarily solve this issue.

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We gather today to seek to be together, to acknowledge, stand in solidarity with, give voice to, to cry out – in anguish, pain, frustration, anger and great sadness. We are here to lament. Lament is looking to the future and trying to find hope but it requires a truth telling where we need to speak the unspeakable and find words in traumatised numbness.  It demands that the truth be told; that it be heard and received. It is a catalyst to examine responsibility and complicity. Truth telling causes us to remain alert, to educate and help prevent new victimisation and finding ways for healing, offer restitution, promote restoration of those unjustly treated and work for justice. Pope Francis has said: ‘The thing the church needs more today is the ability to heal wounds…and you have to start from the ground up.’

A coalition of human rights organisations have today called on the Federal Government and Opposition to end the political impasse and bring refugees on Manus Island and Nauru to safety in Australia, in light of the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the US-Australia refugee resettlement arrangement.