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Premier Chris Minns says he is committed to addressing growing homelessness in NSW, being fuelled by the cost of living and housing stress.

Mr Minns will become the first NSW premier to brave the cold alongside business leaders at the annual Vinnies CEO winter sleepout.

Aiming to raise more than $10 million nationwide to fund St Vincent de Paul homelessness services, the event is also a chance for the public and private sectors to collaborate on solutions.

"It's an opportunity just for a brief period to experience what life is like if you are homeless and sleeping rough," Mr Minns said.

"And that small bit of empathy is so important for a broader understanding that we live in a community, that we live in a society and it's everyone's obligation to do everything we can to reduce the amount of homelessness and housing pressure."

Mr Minns kicked off the fundraising ahead of the June 22 event, announcing a $50,000 donation from the Premier's Discretionary Fund.

The premier will be joined by top executives from Lendlease, KPMG and other major firms that have the potential to make a difference in the housing sector.

Advocates are urging state governments to dig deep and build more social and affordable housing to address the root cause of the worsening homelessness crisis.

The City of Sydney council found almost 300 people were sleeping rough in the inner city in February, a 23 per cent increase on the previous year.

St Vincent de Paul Society NSW chief executive Yolanda Saiz said many were seeking help for the first time, amid rising living costs and housing pressures.

"Rough-sleeping is actually only six per cent of the total homeless population," she said.

"It's really about insecure housing - people sleeping in their cars, people sleeping in tents, boarding houses or overcrowded dwellings."

The charity is calling on the NSW government to deliver 5000 new social homes a year to help address a 10-year waitlist for long-term accommodation.

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said the pandemic showed with the right political will, governments could find the money, resources and urgency to address major challenges like insecure housing.

The mayor wants a minimum of 30 per cent social housing and 20 per cent affordable housing in the state government's proposed redevelopment of the inner-city Waterloo estate.

The public housing precinct is the country's largest, currently home to almost 2500 tenants with more than 85 per cent of dwellings provided by the government.

However, fewer than three in every 10 units in the new development will be devoted to social housing, which Ms Moore calls a missed opportunity.

NSW Housing Minister Rose Jackson told AAP the government would review the redevelopment with an eye to increasing its percentage of social and affordable housing.

© AAP 2023

AFL chief Gillon McLachlan has vowed a relentless pursuit of racists as coaches and players ponder how best to combat the vilification.

The AFL's inaugural Gather Round opens on Thursday night against a grim backdrop of racial abuse of players.

The league's integrity unit is this week investigating separate incidents involving three clubs, Adelaide, Fremantle and Brisbane.

The unit's fresh probes come just two weeks after the racial vilification of Western Bulldog Jamarra Ugle-Hagan.

And the fresh racial abuse comes amid an independent investigation into alleged historic racism at Hawthorn.

The Hawthorn allegations, initially aired last September, involve former Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson and his then-assistant Chris Fagan, now head coach of Brisbane.

"I certainly feel it has gone a long time and I think that has been difficult for everyone involved, complainants and the defendants," McLachlan said of the Hawthorn investigation.

McLachlan said he was almost lost for words when this week's fresh cases of racial abuse were detailed.

Adelaide's Izak Rankine reported being racially abused on social media on Monday and, the next day, Fremantle's Michael Walters and Nathan Wilson, and Brisbane's Charlie Cameron, reported similar vilification.

"The set of words I have, I am just sick of saying them," McLachlan said on Wednesday.

"It has got no place in our game, it has got no place in our community - it's frankly just a disgrace, it's abhorrent.

"It causes so much hurt to our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community, frankly I think it offends 99.99 per cent of all football followers, all Australians.

"I am out of words.

"We are taking the action we can. We work hard to track them down but we know they disappear."

Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir put heat on owners of social media companies to play their part in stopping the abuse.

"I'm not across how we can stop it but social media companies need to take some ownership on this sort of stuff as well," Longmuir said.

"It's not good enough. Our Indigenous players shouldn't have to open up their phones and read that."

Port Adelaide defender Aliir Aliir, who was born in Kenya, condemned the latest racial abuse.

Born in Kenya, Aliir said he had also been a past victim of race-based vilification and questioned the best approach to halt the vilification.

"The whole competition, we want to get rid of it," Aliir said.

"But us just saying it, it's not just going to happen.

"Honestly ... I try to get my head around it, what ways can we do it?

"If someone cops it, do we stop putting it on social media because some of them might get a kick of us reposting whatever it is they said?

"I'm not sure what is the best way for us to get rid of it."

© AAP 2023

Prince Harry will attend the coronation next month of his father King Charles but without his wife Meghan, the couple say, bringing an end to months of speculation about whether they would go.

Charles will be crowned in a ceremony that dates back a 1000 years, surrounded by foreign heads of state and dignitaries.

But the participation of his youngest son had been in doubt after the 38-year-old heavily criticised his family in a book and documentary series.

Buckingham Palace and a spokesperson for the couple confirmed that Harry, known as the Duke of Sussex, would attend the May 6 event while Meghan would remain in the United States with the couple's two young children.

Their eldest, Archie, turns four on the same day.

"Buckingham Palace is pleased to confirm that The Duke of Sussex will attend the Coronation Service at Westminster Abbey," the palace spokesperson said.

"The Duchess of Sussex will remain in California with Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet."

Harry and Meghan stepped down from royal duties in 2020 and moved to California, saying they wanted to forge a new, independent life, free of the scrutiny of the British press.

They agreed with the royal family that they would not take part in any future official royal events or tours, and they have only been seen in the United Kingdom on a handful of occasions since they left, including for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth, who died after a 70-year reign.

Tensions soon emerged following their departure and in recent months Harry has published a memoir containing intimate revelations about the royal family while the couple also appeared in a Netflix documentary series.

Among their many accusations, they said some royals, including stepmother Camilla and brother William - the heir to the throne - had leaked stories to tabloid newspapers to protect themselves or enhance their reputations.

They also said the royal family had dismissed the race-related hounding of Meghan by the press as a rite of passage and compared her treatment to the intense media intrusion that his mother Princess Diana had suffered before her death.

Some media reports had suggested that Harry wanted an apology from his family before he agreed to attend the coronation - an event that will be marked in the UK by a public holiday.

Asked in one interview in January whether he would attend, Harry said: "There's a lot that can happen between now and then. But the door is always open."

Buckingham Palace had made clear that Harry - one of the most popular members of the royal family before he left the country - had been invited to the event.

Harry was last in the UK in late March, attending a court case he and other high-profile figures have brought against the publisher of the Daily Mail newspaper over allegations of phone-tapping and other privacy breaches.

The publisher denies the accusations.

The case is one of several that the prince has brought against British newspapers.

© RAW 2023