Staring down the barrel of NSW’s burgeoning homelessness crisis, in which women 55 and over have now become the leading demographic of those most vulnerable, is a daunting prospect for the individual tasked with turning the ship around.
Minister Rose Jackson makes no bones about her own anxiety. Sworn in three months ago as NSW’s Minister for Housing, Homelessness, Youth, Water, Mental Health and the North Coast, Jackson’s remit stretches across numerous, complex intersections and “that weight of responsibility” is felt profoundly, she says.
“The situation’s getting worse. We are seeing more people homeless all the time. I hate that. I hate the idea that I am responsible for that area, and it’s going badly,” she starts frankly.
While her response is unnerving in its honesty, it’s also oddly reassuring to hear a politician speaking like a human not a cyborg. Acknowledging the challenges that lie ahead for what they are, lend the impression that Jackson understands what’s at stake and is prepared to do the work to turn tides. One area she’s firmly focused on is the shortage of social housing.
“There’s not enough social and affordable housing. There is a fundamental stock question, bricks, and mortar question,” she says.
“Everyone that I speak to in the sector– every homelessness organisation, every advocacy organisation, they’ve been saying that for years. In a way, you might think that is where the energy would be, but there just hasn’t been, and we’re going backward. I don’t think the previous government prioritised this. I just don’t think they came at it with urgency”.
Jackson adds that “the thing that horrifies” and keeps her up at night is trying to fathom and conjure up the momentum needed to deliver what’s required.
One possibility, which she tabled last month, is to explore converting empty offices and unused government buildings into social housing amid a backdrop of commercial building owners struggling with a surge in vacancies.
“We just have to get started. We’re looking at new options where we can have shorter-term crisis and emergency accommodation,” she says. “Building more social housing is obviously key, but is something that’s “going to take a few years to fundamentally shift.”
In the Northern Rivers, where hundreds of people are still stranded in pod villages erected hastily after the 2022 floods, Jackson notes a plan to get things moving and return communities living in limbo to some semblance of normality. However, she notes that the government “needs to be more creative” in a region they’re already miles behind in.
While the government is receiving an influx of requests from vulnerable people to buy the temporary homes, Jackson says she’s focused on “exploring more permanent modular housing solutions”.
“We need to look at whether there are better versions of modular housing. Because as I said, those pods are pretty basic, but there are options that are a lot more stable and offer people dignity, a proper home.”
“We’re keen to explore that, and to be honest, they’re affordable. That’s a key point. We just have to find a way to give them some housing solution, and we should build absolutely as much as we can, as quickly as we can”, she adds.
As the youngest woman currently sitting in NSW parliament, 38-year-old Jackson’s path to politics was perhaps linear but always defined by resolute ideology.
The daughter of journalists, she recalls political conversations at the dinner table and “going to save the ABC protests from when I was in a pram”. Later, at high school, she would stage strikes against the election of Pauline Hanson, and as a fierce student activist at the University of Sydney, she would fight former Prime Minister John Howard’s controversial funding cuts to higher education.
“I just made this decision when I was at university that I really cared about politics,” she says, “I wanted to do that as my career”.
Now, sitting tight as a core minster in the first Labor NSW government in more than a decade, Jackson’s power extends far beyond the rally megaphone. She is determined to lead her portfolios in a transparent, collaborative and creative way to make up for lost time– an approach she sees young people in politics taking up quickly.
“Look, our parliaments are too old” she says simply.
“I love all my colleagues, and there is a change that’s happening, even with the liberals. Give them credit. A bunch of their newer members who’ve just got elected are younger.”
The shift to younger political representation is important says Jackson, given young people are the ones who will inherit the seismic challenges we’re facing.
“I’m not trying to say I’m perfect, but our parliaments are older. Almost everyone owns a home. There’s not enough people of the generation that are going to inherit the problems that we’re facing.
I think that having more gen-wise, millennials, et cetera, at the table is a good thing and is going to make us a bit more focused on climate change, housing affordability, intergenerational economic inequality,” she says.
“There are so many issues where I think if you are a younger person under 50, under 40, under 20, your experiences are profoundly different. I want more of those people to have voices in our decisions.”