Moreton Bay city council has been ordered not to clear a homeless encampment after a hearing in theQueenslandsupreme court on Wednesday.
Numerous homeless residents of Eddie Hyland Park in Lawnton wereevicted by council rangers in April, with their tents cleared by heavy machinery. Just two were granted public housing. Most have set up a new camp in a different park in Kallangur.
They were issued additional move-on orders last month, which came due today.
Law firms Hall & Wilcox and Basic Rights Queensland launched a lawsuit challenging the council laws permitting the evictions under the state’s Human Rights Act.
On Wednesday, the supreme court justice Rebecca Treston held a last-minute hearing on an injunction against evicting them again, on behalf of 12 residents of the Kallangur park.
“They are people who have nowhere else to go. They are people who in many cases are ill, supporting family members or both,” the barrister Matthew Hickey, representing the applicants, told the court.
“Many suffer from debilitating anxiety, depression or PTSD. None have been offered any public housing and all have been on the waiting list for years, in some cases many years. None have been offered any emergency accommodation.
“Where are these people to go?”
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Hickey told the court that one of his clients had lost the ashes of their deceased daughter in a council raid.
“That’s not the way a civilised society should work,” he said, of the clearances.
Moreton Bay has thestate’s longest social housing waiting list, sitting at 4,521 in December. About 200 people sleep rough on the streets, many until recently in one of many tent cities across the region.
Since December, Moreton Bay council had gradually tightened restrictions on rough sleepers. In February it completely banned people from setting up tents in public parks.
Since then, the Brisbane and Gold Coast councils havebegun their own evictions of tent cities.
“The health and safety of people experiencing homelessness is core to this change and repealing the framework will enable these individuals to get the critical support they need,” thecouncil CEO, Scott Waters, saidin May.
Council rangers issued a series of notices threatening fines of $8,065 before moving in with bulldozers from April.
Barrister Felicity Nagorcka, acting for the council, argued that there had been reports of fires at the camp, piles of rubbish and mattresses, noise including loud screaming, and a lack of toilet facilities.
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Hickey argued that any problem anticipated by council – like a lack of toilet facilities – could be solved with money.
“And yet what your honour is asked to is to accede to a situation where these people are not given the court’s protection for a few months, where generally the consequence will be [that] they will be turfed out on to the street,” he said.
After an hour-long adjournment, council agreed to consent to an order that it not evict the residents until the full hearing at the court on 24 July.
The substantive case will be heard in November.
The Basic Rights Queensland director Sam Tracy said he hoped to be able to “set some new standard” for how homeless people were treated, including inBrisbaneand the Gold Coast.
In a statement, the Moreton Bay council said it had granted rough sleepers a “reprieve”.
Waters said two of the applicants, Debbie and John Bobeldyk, had been recently granted public housing and therefore their matter was “simply a waste of the court’s time and ratepayer resources”.
Another 11 people filed an application overnight, which he said also diverted resources.
Waters said the council’s previous framework would still apply, requiring residents of the park to not impede reasonable access to the area, not conduct illegal behaviour and keep the area clean, safe and tidy, he said.
“Daily patrols of the site will ensure compliance against public health and community safety standards are met,” he said.