Thursday, 24 March 2022

Ms Lovell (Northern Victoria Region)

Ms WARD: I will also take this opportunity to join with the member for Altona in condemning the words that were said by a member for Northern Victoria yesterday. My mum grew up in public housing. She grew up on the outskirts of Fawkner in a two-bedroom concrete block. She had the right, along with every other Victorian, to secure housing in a friendly neighbourhood, no matter where that neighbourhood was. For the member to lean into economic prejudice and to think that that is acceptable, particularly in this day and age, is absolutely shameful. People in this state have got the right to live in the communities in which they reside or want to reside—or in fact where the department puts them. Sometimes they do not even have a choice. To think that you can say, ‘You don’t have the right runners. You haven’t got an iPod or an iPhone. You shouldn’t live here. You should go and live somewhere else’, is absolutely unconscionable. It is necessary for governments to create equality of opportunity. To tell people, ‘You don’t have the right to live here because you’re poor’, is nothing short of shameful, and I urge the member to apologise.