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The Guardian
02-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Judge orders Queensland council to pause planned demolition of homeless camps
Moreton Bay city council has been ordered not to clear a homeless encampment after a hearing in the Queensland supreme court on Wednesday. Numerous homeless residents of Eddie Hyland Park in Lawnton were evicted 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?' Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email 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 the state'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 have begun 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,' the council CEO, Scott Waters, said in 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. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion 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 in Brisbane and 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.
ABC News
02-07-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
City of Moreton Bay to pause homeless camp demolition after Supreme Court challenge
A plan to bulldoze homeless camps in Moreton Bay has been halted by the Supreme Court of Queensland after a challenge from human rights lawyers. On Wednesday the City of Moreton Bay agreed to not demolish camps at a bush reserve next to Goodfellows Road in Kallangur pending another court appearance on July 24. The legal challenge was launched by Basic Rights Queensland alongside pro bono lawyers from Hall & Wilcox and other law firms. The lawyers argue the destruction of people's possessions constitute a human rights violation. They are representing a dozen homeless people who set up camp at the otherwise empty plot of council bush reserve. City of Moreton Bay's barrister, Felicity Nagorcka, told the court the pause would prevent the council from fulfilling its public health and safety obligations. "What is being sought is an injunction to restrain a council from enforcing its local laws," Ms Nagorcka told the court. The representative for the homeless people, Matthew Hickey KC, told the court most of his clients had already been forced to move from Eddie Hyland Park. In April council workers came to Eddie Hyland Park with an excavator and threw homeless tents and other possessions into a garbage truck. "They lost what little possessions they had," Mr Hickey told the court. "These are people who have nowhere else to go. "They are in many cases ill, one is pregnant, many suffer from debilitating anxiety or depression, none have been offered social housing after being on the social housing waiting list for years." The matter is due to return to court on July 24, when the council will put forward its public health and safety concerns. Basic Rights Queensland practice director Sam Tracy said an extension to the pause would be sought until a judicial review in November. "Homelessness ought not to be a crime," he said. The judicial review will determine whether the City of Moreton Bay's destruction of homeless possessions was illegal and whether the council's decision to ban all homeless camping on public land was illegal. In February the council repealed its Persons Experiencing Homeless Camping Framework, which outlawed camping on public land.
