Melbourne electorate
Ms SANDELL (Melbourne) (14:48): (6302) My question is also to the Minister for Housing. Most of the public housing estates in my electorate—North Melbourne, Kensington and Carlton—have community rooms which are able to be used by residents for free or at low cost. The rooms are used by everyone: the Mandarin-speaking group of seniors in Kensington, who use them once a week to play mahjong, the Eritrean elder women’s group, after-school study support groups for kids and groups that hold weekly dinners for isolated residents. But the rooms have been closed for two years due to COVID. Residents have been forced to hold their activities in other, expensive venues. Most of the people cannot afford that, so they just stopped doing the activities altogether. Now, after increased campaigning and questioning from my office and questions from the media this week—surprise, surprise—we just heard today that the rooms will be opening in two weeks, which is good, but that is months after pubs, restaurants and theatres opened. Minister, why were these rooms closed for so long? Can you guarantee that they will remain safely open from now on? And why are public housing residents always left as the last people that the government considers?