Nickolas Varvaris will expose himself to the elements tonight in his second charity sleep out at WIN Jubilee Oval in Kogarah.

Joining rugged-up locals, the Liberal Member for Barton, with only a sleeping bag and a cardboard box to keep warm, is braving the elements to raise awareness of the plight of homeless people.

Speaking to Neos Kosmos, Mr Varvaris recalled the chilly experience of his first such outing in 2013.

“I parked myself in the middle of the oval and there was ice covering my sleeping bag when I got up in the morning,” said the MP.

“It’s obviously challenging. I used to do a fair bit of camping, but I won’t say I know what it’s like to be homeless on a day-to-day basis.”

Statistics drawn from the latest census and from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show that there are about 105,000 homeless people across the country, with young Australians making up nearly half that figure.

Forty-two per cent of all homeless people are aged 24 years or under, and while being homeless might be a world away from those potential home-buyers frozen out of the market due to soaring prices, they’re certainly both rungs of the same ladder.

In a recent reader poll by The Sydney Morning Herald asking whether the federal government should do more to tackle the problem of housing affordability, 88 per cent of the 13,500 respondents answered in the affirmative.

Those readers are unlikely to have been won over by Joe Hockey’s much-publicised remark that all first-home buyers needed was to “get a good job that pays good money”. For Varvaris, the treasurer’s comment was taken out of context.

“What he was basically implying was that the harder you work and the more effort you put in then obviously the more reward you’re going to get.”

One thing the government has been doing to improve the situation, says Varvaris, is to “clamp down” on overseas buyers.

Foreign ownership laws restrict foreign buyers to purchases of new housing stock, but Varvaris said that in the last six years of the Labor government, there were no recorded breaches of those rules.

Varvaris says the Abbott government has focused efforts to ensure compliance, adding that the habit of multiple dwelling developments getting approval and then being primarily marketed overseas is unfair.

“There’s no opportunity for local buyers who were hoping to get themselves into the residential market.

“Having come from local government, it’s my long-held view that if you really want to make housing more affordable, it comes down to the simple equation of supply and demand. That ultimately determines housing affordability.”

Varvaris says delay in local government approval of new housing developments was also a contributing factor affecting supply.

Labor has criticised the NSW government for its proportionately low reinvestment of vast revenues from stamp duty into the newly-announced, $400 million Housing Infrastructure Fund.

Varvaris says what’s important is that funds are being used to increase the level of infrastructure in areas where housing stock is being increased.

“As long as there’s investment in infrastructure that supports that increase in accommodation, that’s what you need.”

Property agent, Harry Triandas, who has offices covering south Sydney, including the Barton electorate, says housing affordability is becoming a significant problem and “locking up” of properties needed urgent attention.

“I think we need to deal with it sooner rather than later,” Mr Triandas told Neos Kosmos.

“Locking up has been a common problem in the past – just purchasing a property and locking it up. It should be going into some kind of rental pool.”
He applauds the government’s stance on foreign buyers.

“As a country we’ve got to look at this. This is going to be a national problem.

“I think it’s important enough to say that we are running out of resources and at this point in time we have to start looking at and protecting both our natural and housing resources.”