The City of Moreton Bay council has told the Supreme Court that homeless tents it destroyed were not “homes” and the human right to a home was not violated.<\/p>\n
The council returned to court today to defend a human rights challenge mounted by Basic Rights Queensland on behalf of homeless campers evicted in April.<\/p>\n
The council’s representative, Scott McLeod KC, told the court the human right to home and privacy was not infringed since the tents were not homes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Scott McLeod told the court the council did not violate human rights. (ABC News: Xavier Martin)<\/p>\n
“There needs to be some sufficient and continuing link with a place to establish that it is a person’s home,” Mr McLeod told the court.<\/p>\n
“What the evidence demonstrates, effectively, is that a large number of applicants had been living at Eddie Hyland Park for six months at the time they were issued compliance notices.<\/p>\n
“We say they haven’t demonstrated a sufficient length of time.”<\/p>\n
Mr McLeod said one of the applicants, Debbie Bobeldyk, had camped in Eddie Hyland Park for eight months, which was an insufficient length of time to call it a home.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The council told the court Debbie Bobeldyk’s tent did not count as a home. (ABC Radio Brisbane: Kenji Sato)<\/p>\n
Mr McLeod also told the court the human rights had not been violated because camping on council land was “illegal to begin with” under local law.<\/p>\n
He said council officers were therefore obligated to enforce the local laws to prevent the illegal camping activity.<\/p>\n
The City of Moreton Bay made all homeless camping on public land illegal in March.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Karl Eichin is one of the homeless campers challenging the council’s eviction. (ABC Radio Brisbane: Kenji Sato)<\/p>\n
Human Rights Commision joins the fray<\/p>\n
The Queensland Human Rights Commission, which joined the case as a third party, told the court it disagreed with the council’s position.<\/p>\n
The commission’s barrister Lachlan Grant told the court human rights considerations did apply in this case because council officers had discretion as to how they enforced local law.<\/p>\n
Mr Grant said the council officers could have acted differently, potentially in a way that was more proportionate and reduced the alleged violation of human rights.<\/p>\n
“All Queensland individuals have human rights, and those who are homeless have human rights under the act,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The act is designed to promote a culture of human rights consideration and compatibility in decision making and conduct.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Council officers evict a homeless camper from Eddie Hyland Park. (ABC Radio Brisbane: Kenji Sato)<\/p>\n
Attorney-General joins the debate<\/p>\n
The Queensland Attorney-General’s office, which also joined this case as a third party, told the court it believed council officers did have an obligation to enforce the local law.<\/p>\n
Solicitor-General Gim Del Villar told the court the mere fact that council officers had discretion to act differently did not mean that human rights were unreasonably infringed.<\/p>\n
He said the onus was on the homeless applicants to prove their human rights were infringed “arbitrarily” or “unlawfully”.<\/p>\n
Mr Del Villar said that would be especially difficult if the council managed to prove it obtained homeless people’s consent to “bulldoze” their camps.<\/p>\n
“If in fact there was consent, it would be very difficult to see how there would be a breach of human rights at all,” he told the court.<\/p>\n
“This is for the disposal, or what the applicants more colourfully call, the bulldozing decision.”<\/p>\n
The case was adjourned in court today, with a return date yet to be decided.<\/p>\n
The homeless applicants were given an injunction relief extension, meaning council will be unable to evict them in the meantime.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Basic Rights Queensland director Sam Tracy said this case would have broader implications on how other councils treat their homeless population.<\/p>\n
“We are confident the court will make a decision that assists councils across Queensland to move towards best practice considerations of human rights for some of our most vulnerable,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Our clients, some of Queensland’s most vulnerable, now wait on the decision, but also on the fate of their ‘homes’ \u2014 the place they eat, sleep and share life with family.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The City of Moreton Bay council has told the Supreme Court that homeless tents it destroyed were not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[186862,186861,186864,187887,187886,43,186866,186867,44,187884,186863,187885,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-337633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-basic-rights-queensland","tag-city-of-moreton-bay","tag-debbie-bobeldyk","tag-eddie-hyland-park","tag-hamish-clift","tag-headlines","tag-john-bobeldyk","tag-kallangur","tag-news","tag-persons-experiencing-homelessness-camping-framework","tag-sam-tracy","tag-scott-mcleod","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}