The Assistant Minister for Housing and Homelessness has defended comments he made about putting “a positive spin” on homelessness.

Lord Mayors from around Australia attended a summit in Brisbane today to focus on the issue.

Some accused Assistant Minister Luke Howarth of playing down the homelessness crisis after he said it was important to “put a positive spin” on the issue.

But Mr Howarth tells Merrick Watts he was simply trying to focus on how far we’ve come in recent years.

“I wanted to look at some of the positive achievements around homelessness.

“If you look back over the last 15 years, people sleeping rough, according to the last figures we have, have actually dropped a little bit.”

Click PLAY below to hear the full interview