Beach, I am not sure what part of Australia you are from/reside, maybe the back blocks of Queensland. To your shock horror you seem to have just discovered "Struggle Street" and the Sydney burb of Mount Druitt was that from TV? The Druitt is not the only location of its kind in Sydney the Houso flats of Waterloo will testify to that, along with a dozen other places. Melbourne has the same as does Brisbane and all around Australia.
As for your attack on Shorten and gay marriage with your perceived insensitivity of Labor for the suffering of the often decent people of "Struggle Street". I believe unlike Abbott, who certainly does not give a toss for Australia's poor and needy, Shorten is capable of some multi-tasking on issues.
Mark Latham is only stating the obvious.

Paul1405,

Being linked with the elitist, Trotskyist, NSW 'Watermelon' Greens as you say you are, you cannot be expected to be interested in Struggle Streets either.

Ex-Leader of the Labor Party Mark Latham's criticism applies to the Greens as well and with bells on.

It is all 'Do what we say and never you mind' from the idealistic 'Cultural War' elitists of the Watermelon faction.

Tell us all now, what exactly has (say) your hissing, serial activist Watermelons ever done for the 'Struggle Streets' that has produced any practical results?

The Greens are all human headlines, there are almost as many factions are there are Greens. Their new leader has his work cut out trying to manage the seriously lunar Watermelon faction that loves dabbling in international affairs - embargoes and nasty sledging directed against Israel mainly, the only democracy in its region.

Bob Brown couldn't handle the Watermelons and finally resigned leadership.

However Bob Brown was also much more interested in gay issues and Mark Latham's criticism is very fair comment on his leadership in spades.

So the Greens have always put their idealistic Cultural War and dabbling in social re-engineering ahead of the practical problems of Struggle Street too.

It will be interesting to see if there is any change under the new Greens leadership.

In terms of advancing Australia, it won't go very far at the moment, as we are already in election mode. I saw a shocking advertisement, which came up by coincidence, when I was watching a youtube recently.

See it at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbnYlMQq3CA

If the two major parties can't work together in a positive way, it will have to be the community to advance Australia not Bill Shorten, Tony Abbott or a small number of Senators.

I've lived in Chippendale, Sydney (hardly "Struggle Street") for 23 years.
When I first moved here, I never saw homeless people.
NEVER!
To see a tramp, I'd need to go shopping in the CBD.

Now I see them all the time, especially outside the Broadway Shopping Centre.
Mostly young White men. (Where is has their "privilege" gone?)

I saw a middle-aged Asian couple with all they owned in a shopping trolley (good luck doing that now with those wheel clamps).
Not doubt "enriching" Australia with their diversity after "reunion" with their family.

With over 700,000 unemployed and 100,000 homeless, unless a party proposes SERIOUSLY slashing or even stopping immigration, anything else they say or do is just BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.

Bite the bullet, drongos, before it's too late.

My goodness NathanJ, you do lead a very sheltered life indeed.

>>I recently saw a homeless person sleeping at night recently, in my area for the first time and I was shocked. The person looked filthy, dirty and had some type of blanket over them.<<

Here are some insights for you to digest, in case you ever need to venture out into the real world from your comfort zone:

http://www.homelessnessaustralia.org.au/index.php/about-homelessness/homeless-statistics

The "answer" however is out of the hands of Bill Shorten, though, as he is currently Leader of the Opposition. So it is puzzling why you should choose to focus on his statements at a conference - which are necessarily non-specifically fuzzy - instead of asking the question of those who are actually in a position to do something about it.

Federal and State Governments should be your target here, surely.

Apropos of vested interests, Andrew Robb was bragging on AM this morning about great progresss towards negotiating a Trans Pacific Partnership aimed at undermining the sovereignty of Australia, America and Canada and reducing our labour and social conditions to those of Asian slave economies.

Challenged over the secrecy and lack of public consultation, Mr Robb responded that thousands of industrial stakeholders were being consulted - those being the owners of industry, cetrtainly not its creators.

He went on to note that the Prison Republic of China was not part of the negotiations, but not to worry, free trade agreemensts with with that monstrosity and others like it were being stitched up as we speak.