Tamika Jamieson lives in constant fear of being moved on once more. 'They've taken all my stuff, all my belongings, everything off me five times,' she says. The City of Moreton Bay made national headlines last year when it unlawfully dismantled a tent city in Lawnton, north of Brisbane. In a landmark human rights case, the Queensland Supreme Court ruled the council broke the law partly because it did not treat its most vulnerable residents as 'human'. But residents of the dozens-strong population of Moreton Bay's largest tent city believe the time will come when the council will act again.
As homelessness surges in Australia, councils have been thrust to the frontline of managing the crisis. Many are abandoning their welfare-first approach, instead choosing to disband camps, send eviction notices to people living in caravan parks, and in some cases, considering fines for sleeping on footpaths. Last April, Moreton Bay council was among the first in the country to forcibly clear a tent encampment. It has also threatened $8,006 fines for sleeping in a car, storing items, or having a pet while homeless. Hundreds still sleep rough every night.
New Tent City Draws Attention
Moreton's new tent city is much more public than the old one. Placed directly adjacent to two homeless services, including a brand-new council-funded homeless 'hub', it has drawn attention due to its proximity to the Redcliffe Tennis and Pickleball Centre. The founder of Nourish Street, Beau Haywood, who was once homeless himself, now runs the local homeless service. Many of the residents had moved to the area after being moved on, he said. 'They've come to where they can be close to services and who can blame them?' He noted that the location is controversial, both because children use the neighbouring tennis court and because it has been a mess. He now pays for two large skip bins for the camp, though initially had problems getting council approval for them. 'It does give them the dignity. To me it's all about harm reduction,' he said.
Jessica moved to the park seven weeks ago. She has two tents, one for sleeping, the other for her two primary school-age autistic children to do homework. Becoming homeless for the first time was a terrifying experience, she said. Neighbours include drug addicts and sober people, a grandmother, also newly homeless, who helps take care of the camp, and a convicted murderer who spent decades in prison. But being moved on would not make things any better. 'Where are we going to go? I mean I get it, we're an eyesore here,' she said.
Community Divisions Across Australia
Across Australia, communities are divided. At a passionate council meeting in Melbourne's Port Phillip earlier this month, the LGA St Kilda beach sits in, locals debated new laws that give council workers the ability to confiscate the belongings of rough sleepers. Some residents, such as Penny Essing from Elwood, in Melbourne's south-east, who has pushed for disbanding the camp, begged councillors to 'restore safety in our streets, and protect the truly vulnerable and not enable rough sleeping'. Essing, like others, argued that allowing the encampments threatened people's safety and wellbeing, while dominating public spaces. One homeless person, Queenie, who lives in St Kilda, said they had already had their tent confiscated by council workers. 'It's not fair to have our stuff taken, which has happened to me,' Queenie said. 'I've had a tent stolen from me. A tent that kept me safe last winter, when the winds were so cold I was still shivering inside my tent. It's not fair, it's not humane.'
Port Phillip's Enforcement Debate
Port Phillip has been a melting pot of debate on how to handle homelessness. Last year, the council moved to fine people for sleeping on the footpaths. The plan was eventually scrapped after concerns were raised that the laws might not meet human rights legislation. Director Policy and Advocacy at St Kilda-based Southside Justice, Jess Richter, said councils around Victoria had been trialling enforcement over the last 12 months. 'What's happening in some areas, like the city of Maribyrnong and the city of Melbourne, is you've got this community safety rhetoric and this choice to employ security guards,' she said. In Melbourne, the council recently came under fire for an accusation, first published in The Age, that it had allowed its new Community Safety Officers to employ force on rough sleepers and beggars.
Legally, enforcement is tricky. Councils need the support of police to be able to move people on. While most councils have a flat no-camping ban, internal protocols often mean they cannot be enforced, Richter said, because it would impinge on the human rights of rough sleepers. But as pressure mounts on councils from local communities, many, including Yarra in Victoria, are looking at overturning the guardrails. 'There's a perception that enforcing the local law is a way of having kind boundaries,' Richter said. 'The narrative is that there are people who won't get help unless you force them to.' The answer was not just more social housing, but an investment in frontline workers, especially 'non-coercive first responders', she said, for situations where people are violent or drug-affected, to de-escalate and get people help.
Regional Increases in Rough Sleeping
Andrew Clarke, from the UNSW Faculty of Arts, Design & Architecture's School of Social Sciences, said the post-pandemic housing crisis has pushed homelessness into communities that have not historically dealt with it. Released on Friday, the 2026 New South Wales street count points to this. Across the state, 2,308 people are without a roof over their heads in 2026, a 5% increase from the past year. While Sydney and Byron Bay saw reductions, the biggest regional increases in those sleeping rough were recorded in the Hunter and Central Coast, alongside Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie. Clarke's research shows two-thirds (67%) of councils now consider homelessness a significant or acute issue in their local areas, up sharply from about 10% in the 2010s. He said the primary response from the majority of councils is to offer support, but getting a housing outcome for someone in the current crisis takes years, meaning communities get 'fatigued' by rough sleeping. 'Often services will have to work with members for a long time, a lot longer than what community members expect, in order to get a housing outcome. Then community members are saying, 'Why is this problem still here?' People get tired of it, they'll be fed up, the pressure will build on the council to make it go away.'
Enforcement Does Not Solve the Problem
He said around half of councils around the country said they will move people on or clean up belongings. But enforcement does not fix the issue, he said. 'Everyone knows that this doesn't solve the problem, right? If you're moving people on, it just moves the problem around,' Clarke said. 'Then you get this kind of domino effect amongst councils where when one does it, it puts pressure on surrounding councils to follow suit.' Enforcement actually entrenches homelessness because you are disconnecting people from support services, creating mistrust between rough sleepers and authorities, and causing psychological harm, he said. 'It increases the stress, marginalisation and stigma, which can deteriorate health, which makes it harder to exit homelessness.'
The mayor of Port Phillip Council, Alex Makin, called on the higher tiers of government to increase their funding to social housing. 'Homelessness is not being penalised here in the City of Port Phillip; what we are addressing are safety and amenity concerns,' Makin said. Melbourne's lord mayor said the council was investing more in homelessness specialists. 'Our Community Safety Officers and homelessness outreach teams work closely every day, supporting vulnerable people while helping prevent antisocial behaviour and crime before it escalates,' he said.
Landmark Human Rights Case
Sam Tracey is Legal Practice Director of Basic Rights Queensland, the community legal centre that ran the case against the City of Moreton Bay. He said the case was specific to Queensland, due to the state's Human Rights Act. But it is nonetheless a 'landmark case', one councils across the country should be taking guidance from, he said. The Supreme Court ruled that the council arbitrarily interfered with the right to a home, because their tents constituted a home. Justice Paul Smith found that moving a person from one park to another 'is not a reasonable or justifiable solution' and that 'forcing homeless people to move on does nothing to address the problem'. It ruled that a blanket approach to evictions, without providing reasonable time or alternative accommodation, and destroying belongings without following proper processes was unlawful.
Haywood said the Moreton Bay council has not ended the practice of moving people on, but it has slowed down, and it has not repeated the same large-scale tent city clearance since. But the homeless population today is larger than it was 18 months ago, and some in the community still want them gone. So he believes it is inevitable that it will happen again. 'You can't police homelessness, man. If they've got nowhere to go, they've got nowhere to go,' he said. Tracey said the judgment 'puts councils on notice' across the country. 'I think that when it comes to the vulnerable people being safe, we need to take that as the most important facet,' he said. 'Places like Musgrave Park in Brisbane, places like Central Station in Sydney, and across the country are places where people seek safety. If we target the people who are seeking safety, if we don't consider that those are the places that they need to gather, then we are disregarding their human rights.'
