BCCM CEO gives evidence to hearing of the Legislative Assembly Select Committee on Essential Worker Housing

6 February 2025

Read evidence presented by BCCM CEO Melina Morrison to the hearing of the Legislative Assembly Select Committee on Essential Worker Housing at Blacktown today.*

I’d like to thank the Committee for this invitation to appear at the hearing today.

I represent the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals, the national peak body for member-owned businesses, including more than 750 co-ops and mutuals in NSW. Our members include mutual banks like Police Bank, but also motoring clubs like NRMA, health funds like HCF and Westfund, housing co-operatives including their NSW peak body Common Equity NSW, and agricultural co-ops like Norco. Co-ops and mutuals contribute more than $15.7bn in revenue to the NSW economy and employ more than 28,000 people. They are heavily invested in their members’ needs and their communities. That’s why they are so important to addressing wicked problems like housing for our state’s essential workers.

This issue is incredibly important. How can we expect the people who are there in our hour of need, first on the scene in an emergency and tirelessly working around the clock when disaster strikes, to also cope with housing insecurity? I’m not going to say much more because this hearing has heard a lot of compelling statistics about the gravity of the problem. Suffice to say that it’s unconscionable, as well as contributing to OHS issues and impacting retention of the workforce, to expect people who are required to be first responders to have to live far from where they work or not be able to have a stable roof over their head.

What I’d like to share is how logical and vital it is to partner with the co-op and mutual sector to find sustainable solutions to this and other housing issues.

If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a society to solve the housing crisis. There’s not just one but many possible solutions. We have made a submission supporting our member, Police Bank and their funding partner Hope Housing’s shared equity scheme. Police Bank is a member-owned bank which means it exists to serve its members’ interests and not to make a profit for shareholders because it doesn’t have any – it is owned by its members. That puts the bank in a wonderful position to respond to its members’ needs with new solutions. Police Bank was originally formed to help people in the police force to access mortgage lending because they were not able to back then. The solution they have arrived at today is a contemporary solution to housing insecurity because it’s still their core purpose. The solution is different because the need has evolved. Now, it’s the cost of housing rather than access to loans.

Governments urge the private sector to partner with the government to address societal challenges and community needs. This is an example. Police Bank has no other agenda than to help its members. It doesn’t need to profiteer from the enterprise it just needs to be sustainable to provide the debt in the shared equity scheme. Police Bank and Hope Housing request an emblematic investment of $300m to fully realise the potential of this scheme and attract larger funders especially from a sister mutual movement, industry super funds. This is an investment, not a grant, and therefore does not cost the state anything. At the same time, it will help a scheme that is already demonstrating huge success in addressing the issue we are here to discuss. Let’s get on with it and see more essential workers able to sleep soundly between their long shifts caring for us.

Thank you for your time.

* A redacted version of this evidence was given at today’s hearing.