3 hours ago
Homeless people living in tents in a park were “not treated as humans” while being evicted by a Queensland council, with the supreme court ruling it an unlawful breach of human rights.
A group of residents who had been living in a park off Goodfellows Road, Kallangur, challenged eviction notices issued against them by the City of Moreton Bay last year.
The council changed its local laws to ban homelessness in February. In April, it started evicting residents of two tent cities with the aid of police, council rangers, a bulldozer and an excavator.
Justice Paul Smith issued a judgment on Friday ruling that the April removals were unlawful, “degrading”, “horrible” and “inhumane”.
They were conducted on a “wholly unfair” timeframe, involved errors of law and were done without “any justification”, he found.
Moreton Bay council argued that residents’ property was removed by consent.
But the court found that some items of property were seized without consent, including “the ashes of [a] deceased daughter” and “sentimental items” belonging to a deceased mother.
“The loss of their daughter’s ashes was inhumane. I consider that being left to sit under a tarp in the rain when she had no other accommodation available was degrading,” Smith said.
Smith found that the council had violated the right to protection from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, the right to property, the right to privacy, and the right for families and children to be protected.
He also found that the council had arbitrarily interfered with the right to home, because their tents constituted a home.
“I accept [the park residents’] evidence that they felt they were not treated as humans,” he said.
Smith said the council ought to have assisted the homeless residents “in organising accommodation before they were evicted from council land”.
Many of them had been living in the park for years, and in some cases were given just hours to leave, he said.
“It seems wholly unfair that such a short time frame would be given for compliance bearing in mind the length of time they had been there,” he ruled.
Some of them were not eligible for immediate housing assistance.
Council officers also failed to consider their human rights when ordering them to leave, Smith said.
Guardian Australia witnessed several of the April evictions.
The court judgment reveals that officers were recorded on bodyworn camera discussing how the evictions would appear in the media.
At one stage an officer noted “media’s not recording now”.
After that remark, “there were discussions between officers about getting the excavator in,” according to the judgment.
At another point, while evicting a homeless resident while it was raining, a ranger remarked: “the media want a bit of crying”.
The judgment does not prevent council from enforcing its ban on homelessness, but sets a limit on how it is able to do so.
Brisbane city council and the City of Gold Coast have also implemented similar homeless clearances in the last year and a half.
Sam Tracy, legal practice director at Basic Rights Queensland, which led the lawsuit, said the decision was a “historic victory for the basic rights of Queenslanders”.
He said he expects other councils will “pause” and “look at implementing better practices that actually are in coincidence with the Human Rights Act obligations that they have”.
The Moreton Bay council did not apologise for its unlawful action on Friday and did not commit to halting homeless clearances.
City of Moreton Bay CEO, Scott Waters, said the judgment “does not change City of Moreton Bay’s camping on public land local laws”.
He said the Human Rights Act “is not a licence to do what is otherwise unlawful. It should not prevent the enforcement of council local laws made for the safety, health and amenity of the community”.
“Public spaces are for use by everyone and are not fit for habitation.”
