Reason housing crisis could get worse

More than 1000 homes have been left uninhabitable by devastating floods on the NSW Mid-North Coast, a report has found, amid fears the climate crisis could put millions more at risk.
The report by the Housing, Homelessness, and Disasters National Symposium last week found 1153 homes were left uninhabitable by the floods. Another 1831 homes were damaged.
Some 23,000 Australians are displaced by floods, bushfires, and cyclones each year, with the report finding 5.6 million homes are at risk from bushfires as climate impacts accelerate.
Homeless Australia CEO Kate Colvin said as climate disasters become more regular, there was a risk of a 'two-tiered society' in which housing security determined disaster survival.
'There is a gap between people who are best able to protect themselves and people who are least able to,' she said.
Ms Colvin said renters were often limited to cheaper properties in more flood-prone areas and were less resilient to climate-related disasters, compared with higher-income earners.
Renters also often had less access to government support and faced a 'superheated' rental market. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Taree following the 2025 floods. Dean Lewins/POOL/ NewsWire Credit: News Corp Australia
'They can't compete because all those people who had insurance often also get a special payments system to afford rent during the time when their home is not available,' Ms Colvin said.
'They then can't get a rental because you've got this superheated market, so you have another wave of homelessness just because of the housing market impact'.
Ms Colvin called on the federal government to make renters or people facing homelessness a priority in future disaster responses, and include disaster resilience in its 10-year housing plan.
'In the planning phase, include the homelessness sector, include strategies around housing resilience … (and) in the response phase, be inclusive of people who are facing homelessness.'
The symposium brought together more than 100 professionals across the housing, emergency management, and governmental sectors to examine how 'secondary crises' affect NSW.
Factors included the prevalence of construction workers who flood disaster zones in the wake of climate events, inadvertently driving up rents for already struggling locals.
The symposium found that in Australia, some 953,000 homes were vulnerable to flooding and 17,500 were at threat from coastal erosion, with 169,000 people on the public housing list.
HowWeSurvive UNSW Sydney academic and co-author of the symposium report, Dr Timothy Heffernan, said climate disasters were already hitting 'housing-vulnerable' communities. At least 1153 homes were left uninhabitable by the floods on the Mid North Coast. NewsWire / Glenn Campbell Credit: News Corp Australia
'When you have 6.5 million homes at risk from bushfires, floods or coastal erosion, and a housing system that can't meet demand, every disaster becomes a humanitarian crisis,' he said.
'Hotels and motels fill up immediately, caravan parks are often in flood-prone areas … We're asking an already strained system to absorb sudden surges of thousands of displaced people.'
Social Futures general manager Martelle Geurts said the Northern Rivers housing system was 'already fragile' when it was hit by the 2022 flood disaster, damaging more than 10,000 homes.
Despite extensive recovery efforts, the Northern Rivers accounted for about a third of rough sleepers in NSW in 2025.
The most recent NSW Street Count - an annual audit of people facing homelessness - found 346 people sleeping rough in the City of Sydney. In the Northern Rivers, there were 654 people.
'Climate events are becoming more frequent and severe, and they destroy homes. So, climate change and homelessness are inextricably linked,' Ms Geurts said.
'People can't recover without stable housing.
'Disasters displace people and can cause lasting trauma. Some people experience PTSD, and the impact of that can be lifelong.
'What we know is that people can't recover psychologically unless they have a secure place to live.'

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Israel-Iran war: Deputy PM Richard Marles confirms nearly 4000 Australians are seeking evacuation

West Australian

40 minutes ago

West Australian

Israel-Iran war: Deputy PM Richard Marles confirms nearly 4000 Australians are seeking evacuation

Deputy Prime Minister Minister Richard Marles says nearly 4000 Australians have sought evacuation support from the Israel-Iran conflict, as the Middle East war intensifies in the wake of US-led airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. US President Donald Trump said on Sunday the US military had struck three sites in Iran, marking a direct entry into Israel's campaign to dismantle Tehran's nuclear program. Mr Marles on Sunday struggled to explain Australia's position on whether the government supports potential US strikes, instead continuing to urge 'de-escalation, dialogue and diplomacy'. 'The Iranian nuclear ballistic missile program is most definitely a threat to the peace and stability of not only the Middle East,' Mr Marles said. 'We have used our voice to urge de-escalation. And that's our position in respect of both the Iranian program, but also, more specifically, in respect of this conflict.' He said Australia had ramped up their support network in the region and were ready and willing to evacuate stranded citizens out of both nations with charter flights at the ready. However, he said a key obstacle to evacuation efforts was that Iranian airspace remained closed. 'The numbers of Australians, both in Iran and Israel, seeking assisted departures has grown,' he told Sky News on Sunday. 'This number is probably already out of date, but the last briefing is around 2600 Australians in Iran are seeking assisted departures, and around 1200 in Israel. Australia has deployed consular officials to Azerbaijan to assess how they can assist citizens trying to cross the border out of Iran. The government has also positioned civilian charter planes and military aircraft — a C-17 and a KC-30 capable of carrying hundreds — at the El Minhad base near Dubai, where its usual team of 40 personnel has been boosted to around 300 to support a range of scenarios. 'So, we really are poised to provide whatever assistance we can in the event that airspace opens up,' Mr Marles said. 'We have had a couple of groups leave Israel by land through Jordan. We're hoping to do a couple of more groups today.' Mr Marles said he has been in contact with the United States and that Australia would continue to maintain communication on the Middle East situation, though he declined to disclose further details. He also mentioned that the upcoming NATO meeting in the Netherlands he will attend instead of Prime Minister Anthony Alabnese will focus on strengthening strategic alliances and defense spending. Mr Marles said rearranged plans for a meeting between the PM and Mr Trump after they one-on-one was canned on the sideline of the G7 in Canada would occur in the 'not too distant future'. 'We continue at ministerial level and at official level to have pretty real constant contact with the United States, as you would expect,' he said. 'Our alliance with the US is the cornerstone of our strategic and foreign policy. 'We are managing all the equities associated with that relationship, and it is fundamentally going well.' Shadow energy minister Dan Tehan said the Albanese government has isolated itself from Israel and needs to show clearer moral resolve on wanting Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program. 'One of the real problems with the way the government has pursued the current issues in the Middle East is they seem to have isolated themselves from the Israeli government,' Mr Tehan told Sky News. 'I think that has left them in a situation where they're really trying to walk two sides here. 'I think what we need to see from the government is greater moral clarity as to whether they do, once and for all, want to see Iran rid of its nuclear weapons program.'