Shame on us: Rudd pleads for homeless

Jonathan Pearlman
January 28, 2008

KEVIN RUDD has declared a 10-year effort to tackle homelessness, warning that the problem is getting worse despite the nation's soaring wealth.

The Prime Minister said yesterday the Government's first white paper will be a policy document canvassing long-term options to reduce the growing number of homeless. About 100,000 people a night are homeless, including 10,000 children under age 12 who are forced to sleep outside or in crisis accommodation, boarding houses or with family and friends.

"We don't believe it is something which a country as wealthy as ours in the 21st century can just ignore," Mr Rudd said.
"It is dead wrong that … on any given night some 14,000 people are sleeping rough. We should not be allowing this to happen."

Mr Rudd said Labor would fulfil its election pledge to spend $150 million on new places in crisis shelters and will use the white paper to fund further policies aimed at prevention, such as tackling mental health and education problems. It will be overseen by one of the country's most experienced welfare advocates, Tony Nicholson, and is to be completed by August.

"I don't want to live in a country where we simply discard people," Mr Rudd said. "I don't want to live in a country where we accept people begging on the streets is somehow acceptable to the Australian way of life … We are not like that."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/shame-on-us-rudd-pleads-for-homeless/2008/01/27/1201368945676.html

Keeping a campaign promise? Maybe our politicians should try that over here in the USA?

Truer words were never said.

And what a national leader the Aussies have in Rudd! Bizarre that the opposition have readily concurred. It makes you wonder if the Liberals (conservatives) are like those disoriented whales who fetch up, totally disoriented, on ocean shores... I hope not though.