Catholic Social Services Victoria has welcomed the Victorian Parliament’s vote last week to decriminalise begging in the state.
The Victorian Parliament voted to decriminalise the offence on Thursday as a step towards recognising dignity and away from the criminalisation of poverty.
In the midst of a housing and homelessness crisis, with almost 60,000 people on the social housing waitlist and the lowest percentage of social housing of any state, Victoria had remained one of the few Australian jurisdictions to still treat begging as a criminal offence.
It brings Victoria in line with Western Australia, NSW, the ACT and Tasmania which have already decriminalised the offence, the Herald Sun reported.
“Our laws must always uphold the inviolable dignity of every human being — and most especially those at the margins of society,” CSSV said In a statement.
“As the Church has recently restated, every human person possesses an infinite dignity that is grounded in their very being and that prevails ‘in and beyond every circumstance, state, or situation the person may ever encounter’.
“That dignity is not earned, and it cannot be forfeited. It belongs as fully to the person begging on the street as to anyone else.”
CSSV executive director Josh Lourensz said the “right and effective response” to begging is “connection — to services, to housing, to support — not punishment.
“The repeal of this anachronistic offence matters: it allows us to have a broader conversation about the dignity of each human person, at a time when some local governments are taking increasingly punitive approaches to people experiencing homelessness within their jurisdictions, including the confiscation of personal property,” Mr Lourensz said.
“By repealing this offence, the Parliament has sent a clear signal that poverty is not a crime, and that there are better ways to respond to those doing it tough.”
FULL STORY
‘Decimate the city’: Begging is no longer a crime in Victoria and traders aren’t happy (By Shannon Deery, Herald Sun)
