Queensland’s supreme court has temporarily ordered a council not to evict homeless residents from sleeping in a park, warning those sleeping rough faced “serious risk of harm” if denied shelter.
Justice Paul Smith issued the injunction on Friday as part of an ongoing human rights challenge by 11 residents of Goodfellows Road, a park in Kallangur. It prevents the City of Moreton Bay from evicting anyone from the park while an application challenging the council’s homelessness policies continues.
“If shelter was to be taken away, the applicants would be placed at serious risk of harm from being exposed to the elements,” Smith said.
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The council changed its local laws to ban homelessness in February. In April, it started evicting residents of several homeless shelters with the aid of police, council rangers, a bulldozer and an excavator.
Law firms Hall & Wilcox and Basic Rights Queensland challenged the practice under Queensland’s Human Rights Act.
Many of the residents of Goodfellows Road previously resided in Eddie Hyland Park in Lawnton, before they were moved on from there in April.
They were then issued notices ordering them to move on from the new park in June.
Smith said he was persuaded that there was a prima facie case suggesting the council had failed to make proper consideration of potential breaches of the Human Rights Act before enacting its new local laws. Under Queensland law, human rights may be limited by government action but only after consideration and where doing so is proportionate.
“I find there is a reasonable argument on the part of the applicants that the relevant decisions infringe these particular rights and insufficient considerations given to those rights before the decisions were made,” he said.
Smith found the council would be harmed less by his granting the injunction than those sleeping rough would be if he did not grant it.
“I can understand that some of the community might complain about homeless people living in their midst in tents,” he said. “On the other hand, the Human Rights Act provides protections to all citizens, including the homeless, and I consider it to be wrong not to protect vulnerable applicants from the potential loss of their homes in the midst of winter.
“There is a risk in my mind that the applicants may lose their homes”.
Moreton Bay acting chief executive officer Matt Anderson said in a statement released after the court hearing that the injunction meant rough sleepers would be able to remain at Goodfellow’s Road “for now”. He said council “will comply with the decision of the court”.
Anderson described the legal challenge as “disappointing”.
“As a community, we should all be working towards ending homelessness. Bringing this matter to court does nothing to resolve this issue,” he said.
The council’s lawyer, Scott McCleod, argued that the City of Moreton Bay had promised in correspondence to the court not to enforce the notices. However, Smith said it had not made a formal undertaking to allow the applicants to stay.
Barrister Matthew Hickey, acting for the applicants, argued they were vulnerable people who had nowhere else to go if evicted again.
Under the order, the council is still permitted to enforce local laws intended to ensure public health and safety that existed before it banned homelessness.
The injunction will apply until the case is heard in full in November. The court heard the government may request a later date.
