Wednesday, 2 August 2023

Matters of public importance

Public housing

The SPEAKER (16:01): I have accepted a statement from the member for Richmond proposing the following matter of public importance for discussion:

That this house calls on the government to ensure public land is used to build public homes by abandoning its ground lease privatisation model, noting that:

(1) Victoria spends the least per capita of any state on public housing and has no plans to build more;

(2) the Andrews Labor government is currently privatising four public housing estates in Victoria in Port Melbourne, South Yarra, Prahran and Hampton East; and

(3) under the ground lease model the majority of these estates will be handed over to private developers for expensive for-profit housing, when this public housing land should be used to build thousands more public homes in the midst of a housing crisis.

Before I call the member to speak on the matter of public importance, I would like to draw attention to the decision to reopen the public galleries that was recently made. We are always pleased to welcome people into this building to view Parliament’s proceedings. I would like to remind members that it is not in order to refer to people in the public galleries during debate. Further, any interactions from the public gallery are also not acceptable. This includes taking photos or video of debate, interjections, clapping or any disruptive activity.

Gabrielle DE VIETRI (Richmond) (16:03): I rise today to address the matter of public importance. Margaret Kelly is the last remaining resident of the Barak Beacon public housing estate in Port Melbourne. For 25 years Barak Beacon was Margaret’s safe, peaceful home, but last month the Andrews Labor government took Margaret to court to evict her from her home. Margaret will be forcibly evicted on Monday. Not long ago 89 households shared Barak Beacon across five low-rise buildings. They were built in the 1980s. They were solid, well-designed buildings for families and workers. But under the Andrews Labor government plan this estate will be demolished and the majority of the land will be given to private developers to build private, expensive housing in the middle of an unprecedented housing crisis, with no plan to build public housing.

There are currently over 125,000 people on the public housing waiting list and on any given night 30,000 people experiencing homelessness. There are currently only 126 properties that are considered affordable for low-income families in Victoria and zero – yes, zero – properties that are considered affordable for parents on youth allowance or JobSeeker. In regional towns tent cities are growing. Across the state, retirees are sleeping in cars. Young parents are couch surfing, and on Friday a young woman, a survivor of domestic violence, came into my office with a suitcase because every crisis centre and housing agency had turned her away. Successive governments have failed to do their job of making sure everyone has a secure, affordable home.

Victorian Labor has been in power for 20 of the last 24 years, and during that time the number of public homes has actually declined. There are now 600 fewer public homes in Victoria than there were 10 years ago, and with Victoria spending the least per capita of any state on public housing, this is an utter failure of this government to address one of the most pressing issues of our time. For all their talk, under neoliberal Labor’s plan this housing crisis will get worse. Estates that have been given away to private developers are sitting empty right now. Elizabeth Street in Richmond – demolished, sitting empty since 2012. Walker Street, Northcote – vacant for five years, sitting empty. Right now, as we speak, excavators are crashing through the walls at Margaret Kelly’s home at Barak Beacon.

The reality is that the Andrews Labor government has abandoned public housing. Over successive years they have branded and rebranded their privatisation agenda to make it look like they are doing something, but whether it is called the Big Housing Build or the public housing renewal project or social affordable housing or the ground lease model, they are all smokescreens for abandoning public housing and funnelling public money into property developers’ pockets. The government’s ground lease privatisation model is seeing residents like Margaret Kelly evicted from their homes and displaced from their communities, their homes demolished and replaced with expensive private housing. But Margaret is not giving up. Margaret and other public housing residents are listening to the debate today alongside incredible community members, activists and campaigners who have joined the campaign to save Barak Beacon. Many who have kept vigil and occupied the site for 21 days now are young people who will face the worsening impacts if this government fails to act. But Barak Beacon is not an anomaly, because right now Labor is privatising at least 18 estates. The latest four – at Port Melbourne, Prahran, South Yarra and Hampton East – are being packaged up in a neat four-for-one package for one lucky developer.

Here is how this ground lease privatisation model works: across these four estates, taxpayers are funding the privatisation of public housing and public land to the tune of $700 million. That is $700 million to demolish 502 public homes – keep that figure in your head, 502 – and construct 554 community housing units. That is a net increase of 52 homes across four estates, each community home costing taxpayers $1.3 million. If you consider that much of this public housing did not need to be demolished in the first place, the cost would be much greater.

These numbers are obscene, and once we hand over this land, we are never getting it back. Labor must abandon its disastrous privatisation model and ensure that public land is used to build thousands more public homes, not expensive investment properties, because housing should not be a lucrative income stream. It should not be a speculative investment property. Housing should not be a carrot dangled in front of wealthy Labor donors, because housing is a human right. Surely the MPs sitting opposite me would not want Margaret Kelly evicted. Surely they would not want families turfed out on the street, survivors of domestic violence begging for a bed. But Labor MPs are caught between doing the right thing and funding their next election campaign.

Last year the Australian Labor Party declared over $1 million in donations from various property developers and the property industry, and that is not to mention hidden sums handed over through loopholes and back doors and in suitcases. The Premier himself was caught having a $10,000 dinner with Victoria’s dodgiest developer – the very same developer who has donated $1 million, mostly undeclared, to the Labor and Liberal parties over the last nine years in a bid to influence government decisions. As long as Labor accepts donations from property developers it will remain captured by their interests. Pressure is growing on the Labor government to change course, forcing Labor to weigh up the value of their donors against the electoral cost of letting the housing crisis get worse.

The impacts of this housing crisis are becoming impossible to ignore, and Victorians are at breaking point. But heroes like Margaret Kelly are standing up to the government to say ‘enough’. Labor will blame everyone else in spite of being in the seat for the last 20 of 24 years making the decisions. They will say it is the councils, it is the Greens, it is the nimbys. If only those nimbys would get out of the way, Labor could have done their job. Well, in Greens areas that get a bad rap from this government, like my own municipality of Yarra, over 90 per cent of housing applications get approved, and Yarra, Port Phillip and the City of Melbourne, areas of high Greens representation, have accommodated half of greater Melbourne’s new housing in recent years.

Despite what they will tell you, nothing that the Greens have done or will do at the federal level is to blame for Labor’s failure – in fact quite the opposite. Our federal Greens colleagues are exposing the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023 for the neoliberal scam that it is. Blocking it so far has resulted in more housing being funded than simply waving it through, because the HAFF is a swindle so that Labor can gamble $10 billion on the stock market and maybe – maybe – they will pay out $500 million to subsidise some housing. Five hundred million dollars across the whole nation – a drop in the ocean. Do you know what else costs $500 million? The Reserve Bank, the one that has been hiking up interest rates, renovated their offices – that cost $500 million and so did the renovation of the Australian War Memorial. The Sydney Opera House renovated their concert hall; that cost $300 million. That is the piddly amount of investment that the HAFF would seek to give out. They do not even need legislation to spend it. They could spend $500 million on housing tomorrow if they wanted to, and Victorian Labor could spend money on public housing right now too.

There is $5.3 billion for the Big Housing Build, and because of Greens pressure federal Labor suddenly found $2 billion for housing they said did not exist, some of which will go to Victoria. Labor’s Commonwealth Games failure has produced another $1 billion, which should be used for housing. There is a plan to spend it on housing. It comes to $6.3 billion, which will build an awful lot of public housing. But what will this neoliberal government do? Well, they have already spent $2.8 billion in the neoliberal experiment they call the Big Housing Build for a net increase of 74 social homes – just 74 homes. Watch carefully as they quietly siphon the rest of it to their developer buddies while using empty words like ‘affordable’. But it does not have to be squandered. This government now has the opportunity to fix this mess and build new public housing on public land, and there is a costed plan.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! Members will be removed from the chamber if they do not cease interjecting.

Gabrielle DE VIETRI: Architecture firm Office has presented alternative plans to repair, retain and reinvest in public housing at Barak Beacon, building hundreds more public homes for a fraction of the price. The plan makes sense. While this government is hell-bent on demolishing and privatising public housing, the Greens are pushing for more public housing on public land. In my own electorate we are urging the government not to give away 3 hectares of public land to private developers and build public housing instead.

Listen carefully to the speeches that follow, because I can bet you they will not use the words ‘public housing’. They have legislated it out of existence – that is why – to confuse the public between social, community and public housing. But they are not the same thing. Public housing is secure. It is rent controlled, and renters are protected, with rent being capped at 25 per cent of their income. Community housing, while it has a role to play, was never intended to completely replace public housing. It was meant to plug small gaps left by the government, and it does not afford the same protections or conditions for tenants.

You will also hear the MPs opposite using the word ‘affordable’, but do not be fooled. Think of it more as a brand name than a description, because Labor’s definition of ‘affordable’ is not affordable. In fact I checked the website yesterday, and their updated definition is no more than market rate. I am literally quoting from the Homes Victoria website when I say that the program promises:

Rents will never be more than market rent with the added protection of a cap set at 30 per cent of a median income.

Well, the median income in my area is $110,000 a year, so rent will be capped at $33,000 a year, but the maximum you can earn to be eligible for this housing is $71,000 a year. That means that if you earn the maximum amount under the capped amount, you will still pay 46 per cent of your income. The definition of housing stress is spending 30 per cent of your income on rent. Let us not forget that unlimited rent increases are currently legal, so under Labor’s plan the market rate can be whatever the market decides.

All that Labor’s dodgy affordability housing model guarantees is more housing stress. What we really need is a freeze on rent increases to stop more people from facing homelessness and a massive and urgent build of public housing – publicly owned, publicly operated housing. More public housing means fewer people competing in the private housing market, increasing the supply and putting downward pressure on housing prices. That is how you make housing affordable. The only thing standing in the way of more public housing here in Victoria is the Andrews neoliberal Labor government. I dare those opposite to at least say the words ‘public housing’. I dare you to look Margaret Kelly in the eye and say that Labor is doing what matters. Look her in the eye and tell her that you want her out of her home.

Colin BROOKS (Bundoora – Minister for Housing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (16:16): I am absolutely shocked. We are in the middle of a national housing crisis, which I went to this morning in a debate on the housing program the Big Housing Build. We have, through cost-of-living pressures and interest rate rises, people being pushed down the housing continuum, a waiting list that has increased despite the small reduction that I mentioned previously in the June quarter figures, over 30,000 people on the priority waiting list and people in desperate need right across the country and here in Victoria; I absolutely acknowledge that. That means that governments and parliaments need to build more houses. We need to get on with the job of building more homes for more people, particularly social housing, so that people can get into homes when they need roofs over their heads.

On the front steps today the Victorian Homelessness Network organised a display of little paper houses symbolising the need for many more real houses for people to live in. The theme of that event was ‘Housing ends homelessness’, and I could not agree more. For all of the programs that we run in terms of homelessness and the support we provide and the funds that government invests in a whole range of service delivery areas, we all know, I think, that investing in housing is not just the right social decision and the right moral decision but also a good economic decision, because it means we do not have people falling into those other areas of disadvantage.

The Greens do not get an MPI very often because they are a minor party in this place; they have a proportionate turn in terms of being a raise a matter of public importance. In the middle of a housing crisis, which the Greens have had plenty to say about, for their matter of public importance to not put forward a way forward in terms of more housing for people who need it but to instead focus on one particular model that they do not like – the ground lease model – without any positive policy proposals to take forward I think is just amazing. It is a great shame that they have decided today, in the middle of this housing crisis, to take this opportunity to attack the government and one of the housing models that we have got rather than talking about the ways in which we could work together to deliver more housing. This goes to what the Greens are doing here in particular with their campaign around Barak Beacon, and I will come to that in a moment, and the particular residents of that housing estate who are being relocated so we can get on and build more social housing at that site.

This ground lease model has had one tranche already delivered at Brighton, Prahran and Flemington – those sites are under construction. The Bangs Street, Prahran, site will deliver 228 new social housing dwellings at that site, so nearly doubling the amount of social housing on that site, as well as a mix of affordable and private houses to have a mixed development there. But you do not see the Greens down there campaigning against the Bangs Street development, because that is one of their seats. This is a political issue for the Greens.

They are running against the Port Melbourne site because it is a Labor-held seat. I think that is despicable, because they are picking a particular community to run a campaign in based on politics, not based on pure conviction of their concerns about any particular model. There are sites at Bangs Street, Prahran, and New Street, Brighton. In terms of the ground lease model 2, which the Port Melbourne site is part of, there is a site at the old Horace Petty estate in South Yarra; Essex Street, Prahran; and Bluff Road, Hampton East. But none of those seats are target seats for the Liberals, and so they are not running a campaign there. It is quite shameless that they are doing that. I would be interested to see if the Greens are opposed to Bangs Street, Prahran, as part of the same model – if they are opposed to the extra social housing that will be delivered through all of these sites at those locations – because we will be quite happy to tell the residents of those communities that the Greens oppose the delivery of those new social housing developments.

To go to a point raised by the member for Richmond in relation to public housing, we on this side of the house see a strong social housing system as a very strong public housing system and a very strong community housing system. They are not mutually exclusive, and we are funding and supporting both of those. Seventy-seven per cent of the social housing dwellings in Victoria are public housing, and the lion’s share of the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement payments that we get goes to supporting our public housing renters. I am very proud of that. To suggest anything otherwise is just completely false.

Of course we see a place for community housing providers as well. We know they play a really important part in delivering housing for Victorians for a whole range of reasons. Aboriginal Housing Victoria we work very closely with as a community housing provider because they know Aboriginal communities better than we do. If we are going to move to self-determination, we need organisations like Aboriginal Housing Victoria to play not just a provision role but a stewardship role as we move towards self-determination. Women’s Housing Limited do wonderful work with us in providing housing for women who need social housing as well.

The confected outrage that we see from the Greens campaigning on this particular site at Port Melbourne but choosing not to campaign at other sites because it does not suit their political ends is just shameful. We have seen this campaign run before as well. If you look back at some of the clippings from the past, there has been similar public opposition to projects that the government has pushed on with. At what is now known as Harvest Square, the old Gronn Place, in Brunswick West, again a community campaign opposed this – the same lines run out by the Greens. Then once we push through and increase the amount of social housing on that site – and we are delivering new, modern, energy-efficient social housing at Harvest Square – the Greens disappear. When we announced Ascot Vale, the same again: the Greens ran a campaign screaming. Ascot Vale now has residents moving back in. Those residents who were relocated out have first right of return. I remember speaking to one of the residents at Ascot Vale who had moved back into her new home, her new apartment – a modern, energy-efficient, comfortable secure home, much better than the old, run-down housing that was there before – and she was delighted to be back into that home. We have seen this model of protest from the Greens time and again. Markham estate is another classic example where the Greens teamed up with their friends across the table here, the Liberal Party, and in the upper house to block that development time and again. Of course the Andrews Labor government, the only party in this Parliament that will push through and deliver more social housing for Victorians who need it, pushed on and have now delivered Markham, and residents are moving into that particular development as well.

This is a pattern of political protest. It is a formula that the Greens have developed to latch onto a particular community and run a campaign around one particular site, and then they move on. I can say to the people of Port Melbourne: once the government pushes on and builds new social housing in Port Melbourne and at these other sites, you will not see the Greens again. They are only there to run a political campaign. They do not have any care for the delivery of more social housing for people who need it. As I said at the start, this matter, which is all about one particular model of delivery, which I will come to in a moment, highlights the fact that they are not interested in actual solutions, because they would have set out what they see as the needs for housing in this state. They would have set out –

Ellen Sandell: We have. We have a policy; it’s on the website.

Colin BROOKS: Has that policy been costed? I wonder if the policy the Greens took to the election has been costed.

Josh Bull: It’s on a website.

Colin BROOKS: It was on a website, yes.

The SPEAKER: Order! Through the Chair, Minister.

Colin BROOKS: My apologies, Speaker. The ground lease model is a model where we retain ownership of the properties and the land. The speaker before me, the member for Richmond, indicated that somehow this was privatisation, that we were going to offload the land. I want to make it really clear that under the ground lease model it is a ground lease and the government, the public, maintain ownership of the site and the properties. For the Greens again this goes to their political campaign to mislead people about these projects, and then they will move on to another project. It is a complete furphy. The government owns the land. The government owns the properties.

The ground lease model is also a great model because it provides more housing. It provides social housing for people who need it, and it goes without saying, but I will make sure it is on the record, that the residents who are relocated out of these homes have first right of return back into them. That is an important thing: that these people are supported to move into another home, and then if they choose to, when the construction is completed, which I admit can take sometimes a number of years, they will have the opportunity to stay where they are or to move back into the brand new accommodation.

I should say I acknowledge that asking someone to move out of the home that has been their home for a number of years is a difficult thing. It is disruptive, and it is not easy. I absolutely acknowledge that, and I can understand people, particularly the individual that the member has referred to, being upset at having to move. But given those commitments we have got around supporting them to relocate and first right of return, the government also needs to consider its broader responsibilities to the Victorian public – to the 31,000-odd applications on the housing priority waitlist. Those people are deserving of consideration for a social housing dwelling as well, a roof over their heads, and so we have a responsibility not just to the people in our social housing but to those who want to get social housing and therefore to build more of it. That requires us to move on, deliver more social housing and redevelop estates, and that is disruptive. Again I am disappointed that the Greens would latch onto a campaign, where residents are I think sometimes genuinely concerned about some of the issues that are at play here, and take a cynical view of trying to campaign off the back of those people’s concerns.

Just in terms of the ground lease model, it is important to remember residents have first right of return. It is about uplifting social housing. It is about providing a mix of housing so that there is affordable housing. I think the member for Richmond confused the calculations for affordable housing in her electorate. There are two different calculations. One is for rural Victoria, one is for metro, and she has used the rural Victorian one in her calculation. But I will stand to be corrected on that. The calculation used in metro Melbourne is 10 per cent below market rent, so we can point the member to the relevant section of the act.

Importantly, not just more social housing at these sites but more housing in general – and in particular in a rental crisis, when people also are feeling the pinch in terms of rentals – providing more housing supply for more affordables and more market rentals, is not a bad thing. It is a good thing, more supply into the market. This is part of our Big Housing Build, the ground lease model that the member for Richmond has referred to. It is part of our Big Housing Build, $5.3 billion, 12,000 homes across the state. I have talked in this place before about the accelerator fund from the federal government, another just under half a billion dollars for more social housing in Victoria, and then recently the Premier announced the $1 billion Regional Housing Fund for social and affordable housing in regional Victoria. There is a strong pipeline of social housing that we will be delivering across the state, and it is only Labor that is getting on with delivering that.

Just this week in the Senate, and this was mentioned by the member for Richmond, we see the Greens and the Liberals and the Nationals teaming up to stop the delivery of the housing package in the Senate. I was just speaking to a homelessness worker upstairs, and she used the same language that I used this morning at the doors with the media. Across the country, for a whole range of reasons which I talked about before, we are in a housing emergency. We need more housing urgently. It is an emergency like a fire, and you need to send a fire truck. What we have is the Greens argument that it is the wrong sort of fire truck. I think most people would say just send the fire truck. Let us deal with the emergency with social housing instead of getting in the way. If you are not going to be part of the solution, get out of the way. Get out of the way and let us get on and deliver more social and affordable housing. Go out the front steps today and talk to those people who are concerned about homelessness or the people who work with homeless people. They are all saying, ‘Get on with the job and get the Housing Australia Future Fund passed through the Senate.’ They are all saying the Big Housing Build is doing a great job. These are people who understand the need for more housing supply, that the Andrews Labor government is delivering it and that the federal government wants to deliver it. People can have an argument about whether it is too much or not enough at another time, but get out of the way and get that funding passed through so that those of us in the states – all of the members behind me support social housing in their communities, both public and community housing – are able to get on and deliver more housing for our communities. Because as I said this morning, every member in this place from every part of the political spectrum understands the need, because it is coming through our doors, it is coming through our phones and our emails. We understand in our own communities what the housing crisis means for our local communities. We all understand on this side of the house that the only way you deal with it is to provide more supply.

I say to the Greens: instead of cynical political games and campaign after campaign in different parts of Melbourne, get out of the way and let us get on with the job of building more housing for Victorians who need it the most.

Darren Cheeseman interjected.

The SPEAKER: Member for South Barwon, you are warned.

Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (16:31): I rise to contribute to the matter of public importance put forward by our friends the Greens. I would have to say I am in the unenviable position of having to agree with all sides in this argument that we have indeed a massive housing crisis in Victoria at the moment. We can all dispute and argue around the edges about how we solve that problem, but at the end of the day, as we saw on the steps of Parliament out the front today, there is a huge workforce of community groups and services – not for profit, for profit, government agencies and others – essentially an enormous workforce that is at the coalface of dealing with this problem on a daily basis.

As I have travelled around the state and spoken one on one with many of these workers, the single biggest problem that they face, apart from all the normal trials and tribulations of going to a job each day, is the fact that this job is dealing with people’s lives, their livelihoods, the way they wake up, their mental health, their ability to get a job and their ability to access education. At the moment in the state of Victoria, day after day after day after day, they are turning people away and every indicator is heading in the wrong direction.

Women escaping domestic violence are not waiting the time the budget papers this year said that they would have to wait: 10 months for a home. They are waiting nearly 24 months, over 20 months. That is nearly two years before a mum and her children escaping domestic violence have any hope of accessing a fair and safe home to live in. That is not good.

For young people – I was speaking to the people from the Barwon south-west region who represent my area – there are no homes at all. If you are a young person, if you are lucky enough to get a voucher for a motel unit at night, that is all you get. You have no hope. No understanding, no concept, no message, no soothing words from a support worker are going to get you into a bed any time soon. It is desperate. For us to be sitting here in this house debating over who builds it and how they build it is wrong. We need to be going ‘How do we get people into beds?’

The concern that this side of the house has consistently raised is we have heard from this minister and his predecessor about the big build. It is 12,500, sometimes it is 13,000. In fact Minister Wynne two years ago at Public Accounts and Estimates Committee told us it was going to be 15,000 homes. It is not, chamber. It is not. It is a sleight on the spend of money. We are at best at 3000 homes, but the official record from this government, from 2017 to the last time they reported how many homes we have, is 74. It is not 774. It is not 7074. It is a total gain of 74 homes in the state of Victoria since 2017. We have added 4000 families a year to this list. There are 300 per cent more people without homes in the state of Victoria since this government came to power after nearly $6 billion, and we have added 74 homes. The minister can shake his head, but it is his record. It is his reporting.

In fact at the budget hearings this year, only six weeks ago, the minister’s department said it was an oversight that they had not printed how many public houses we have in this state. There has been no reconciliation. How can this government, the largest landlord, the largest controller of houses that could ease the pain and suffering of Victorians, rock up and have forgotten to count how many houses they have? If you cannot measure what you are doing, you cannot possibly go to the community and say you are doing a good job. It is a disgrace, it is a let-down and it is a disappointment.

For those with just a simple calculator on your phone, when the minister and the Premier stood before the people of Victoria and said, ‘We’re scrapping the Commonwealth Games because we can’t afford them. We’re going to spend $1 billion on 1300 homes in regional Victoria’ – I welcome that spend of money in my electorate and others around regional Victoria, absolutely welcome it – do the sums. Thirteen-hundred homes into $1 billion: this minister is planning to spend the best part of $1 million per house. For heaven’s sake, you can go to any country newspaper and see you can buy at least two homes for the price of that. It is a wanton waste of money, a wanton and terrible, scandalous waste of taxpayers money, but most importantly that lack of prudence, that lack of responsible government, is costing people their dignity. It is costing people their ability to function, but worst of all it is leaving people in the most precarious circumstances for months and years at a time with no end in sight.

We talk about the ability for us to get on top of this problem in a country and a state so enriched with land and opportunity, with a stable government that owns and controls land from one end of the state to the other, and yet we cannot unleash the opportunity and the potential that that land can provide.

While I welcome the fact that our friends the Greens have raised this very important issue as a matter of public importance, I will disagree with the Greens on the ground lease model. We cannot pick and choose and start having a fight and stop development of public housing over which way it works. The only discussion should be: how many new homes are we making available? As of March 2023, 67,985 families are now on that list. Back in 2014 when we were last in charge of this place there were 30,000, which was a figure way too high even then. But it has gone so far in the wrong direction, so far, and it just proves that money alone does not solve this problem. It requires good management, it requires a government that understands what is important when measuring and trying to solve this problem and what is important is how many new homes we make available for the people of Victoria that need them, whether it is the government that builds them, a developer that builds them or mum-and-dad investors.

People are currently sleeping in their cars, sleeping in tents, sleeping in caravans. I am ashamed as a member of Parliament that in my country town, where I have grown up, where I was born and bred for 51 years, I have elderly women sleeping in their cars in front of the police station. I am ashamed that that is the state that we are in, that we cannot find a parcel of land in a country town to provide enough respectable, safe housing and accommodation for people.

Instead I look at the state’s estate and I go to places where buildings and accommodations are torn down and they are sitting empty and idle, vacant lots of land that are not going to have houses on them in one year or two years. I hear on the radio, as I did yesterday, there are private real estate agents flogging off – and I use that word deliberately – up to 30 public houses at a time of rental crisis. What on earth sort of management are we seeing from the state when we are turning these around? In fact I know that these houses are often quite all right, because I went and gatecrashed an auction about two months ago, and I can tell you now there was nothing wrong with those homes. They had new kitchens, new bathrooms. Yes, they did need a paint, Minister, because sadly our maintenance schedule on public housing is absolutely appalling. I can take you if you have not been. I can take you around to Clifton Hill, to an apartment around there where people have had heaters pulled out and the walls not patched up; they have not been painted for years.

Our maintenance and management of our public housing is a disgrace. We are spending this much money and wasting this much money, yet we cannot clean spouts, we cannot manage heating, we cannot keep kitchens and bathrooms and floor coverings up to a spec that we would expect landlords, particularly the state’s largest landlord, to be able to look after and monitor. Today I am glad we are having the debate about homelessness. I am glad we are having a debate about the way this government and this state manages it.

Mary-Anne Thomas: Except you shut the debate down before on housing. You shut it down.

Richard RIORDAN: No, we have had this discussion. It is an important discussion. The Minister for Health can interject, but the issue quite simply is: the only way to measure success is by how many new homes we are making available. We have a government in charge that after two years still has not done the reconciliation on what they have built, what they have demolished and what they have provided. The minister can put as many hard hats and as many fluoro vests on as he likes and have many photo opportunities, but the homeless people, those waiting for a home, do not want to see your photos, Minister. They want to see action. They want to see a home they can go home to, and they want to be safe.

Kat THEOPHANOUS (Northcote) (16:41): Thank you to all of the previous speakers in this debate so far, although I do think that the win for best performance goes to the member for Richmond. I mean, seriously, we have all had the opportunity to witness her confected outrage before in this chamber, but I think she may have taken it to a new whole level today. Unfortunately, though, theatrics do not build the safe and secure homes that Victorians desperately need right now, and neither do simplistic tweets and neither do catchy slogans, the other weapons in the Greens arsenal, yet we have seen them plastered all around our inner-city suburbs and on fancy cupcakes paraded by the member for Richmond.

Nothing demonstrates the utter hypocrisy of the Greens political party more acutely than their position on housing. The level of cognitive dissonance it takes to convince themselves that they are champions of housing while simultaneously being directly – directly – responsible for blocking it from being built is beyond disturbing. The fact that the member for Richmond can stand up there and moralise to us about housing when she herself as the mayor of Yarra council was responsible for scuttling social housing in Yarra is utterly despicable. How do these people look themselves in the mirror? How do they reconcile two completely incongruent positions in their mind, one that demands more housing and the other that demands it not be built? What kind of self-justifications do they mutter to themselves at night when they pull the sheets over their heads and dream about the Greens revolution?

Our Labor government is serious about addressing the housing crisis in Victoria and about our responsibility to not only build more housing but renew the old stock to make it fit for purpose and up to modern living standards. Many of my colleagues today, including the Minister for Housing, have outlined exactly how we are putting that into effect through our $5.3 billion housing build, our $1 billion Regional Housing Fund, our affordable housing rental scheme, our rental reforms and other initiatives that are giving more housing choices to more Victorians.

Of course even more genuine reform is sitting on the table with the federal government’s $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, the HAFF, a fund that would support the construction of 30,000 new social and affordable housing properties with a minimum $500 million each year over the next five years, a fund that includes provision for 4000 properties for women and children experiencing family violence and older women at risk of homelessness. If the Greens truly want to support an increase in public and community housing, they should pick up the phone to their Greens mates in Canberra and ask them some hard questions about why they are teaming up with the coalition to block this bill. They say you can judge character by the company you keep. Well, the Greens are keeping very close company with the likes of the coalition, One Nation and the United Australia Party up there in Canberra – very close company indeed.

The Greens pretend to care about people doing it tough, but time and again they show up only for themselves. Their federal member for Griffith even penned an article effectively arguing that refusing to pass the HAFF bill is part of a strategy to sow disaffection, to mobilise and weaponise disadvantaged sections of society in support of the Greens. Nothing could be more sinister, and it was rightly called out by the Prime Minister, who pointed to a fundamental truth of the Greens political party – that they are frauds. They do not care about the policy outcome, they want the fight. They want the fight because it is their only way to get attention and, more importantly for them, to recruit.

Meanwhile the federal government has just injected an additional $2 billion into social housing, and it will be a lot more if the HAFF passes. But the Greens political party think it is more worthwhile to throw a tantrum for relevance rather than take meaningful action. So fragile are their egos that they are willing to risk the most significant housing reform policy our nation has seen in decades. How petty. How utterly immature, how disingenuous and how dangerous. We are in the middle of a housing crisis and all the Greens care about is how much political capital they can squeeze out of it. The hard truth is that the Greens political party do not want to see real reform in the housing sector because as long as they are able to block real projects that will deliver real homes for those who need them, they know they can keep campaigning and fearmongering and recruiting.

We know the play because we have seen it before with the radical right; the mean-spirited and manipulative tactics are taken right out of the populist recruitment handbook. They are deliberately designed to exploit people’s vulnerabilities and escalate disadvantage in order to weaponise it against their political opponents. The theory behind these tactics is very well documented and understood, and their use of them has been effectively admitted by the Greens member for Griffith.

As the member for Mordialloc rightly pointed out earlier today, it is all cynically based on the polling in their electorates. They have done the numbers and with calculated ruthlessness they are willing to prevent homes from being built for political gain. I heard the Greens member for Brunswick earlier today trying to justify their opposition to new housing by saying not enough of it is public housing. This is where the Greens argument completely lacks nuance and strength, because they are utterly incapable of recognising the value and place of community housing within the sector. Community housing run by not-for-profit providers is absolutely vital in allowing models of housing that cater to specific cohorts. That includes housing specifically for women and children fleeing family violence. It includes housing run for and by Aboriginal Victorians, housing for older women, housing for people living with mental health issues and housing for young people. Are the Greens really proposing that we scrap these models of housing provision? Really?

That is not the only falsehood dished out by their marketing team. Another one is that we are not building public housing any more. Wrong. The 1000 homes project is public housing. The Markham estate is public housing. We certainly are building public housing. In fact the vast majority of housing stock in Victoria remains public housing. The Greens seriously need to do some soul-searching. They need to stop trying to gaslight Victorians into falsely believing that they give a damn about vulnerable people. They do not. They are so far from being interested in actually helping people. The truth is they are not for more public housing, they are for publicity, and it does not matter to them what communities they trample in the process. It does not matter to them what wounds they open and who they exploit.

Nothing matters to them so long as they can put their slogan on a rock poster to try to convince people they have some moral substance and position themselves to take credit for Labor’s reforms. Victorians see through it, the housing sector sees through it, tenants see through it, people living pay cheque to pay cheque see through it, and none of us can afford to wait for the Greens to run the housing crisis through their slick marketing machine. Front up and support the HAFF. Do not wait until October. Do the right thing.

In my community of Northcote I have spoken to many people who are living in housing stress, fearful of what the future holds. These are people and families that are working hard, doing it tough and who deserve the dignity, security and foundation of a home. In Northcote we need a variety of housing options from social housing to affordable rentals and to make it easier for people to buy their first home or to run the one that they own. That is why we are currently building over 200 new homes for people who need them in our inner-north suburbs. In partnership with Unison we have transformed a 22-bedroom rooming house in Fairfield into 38 modern, self-contained units for vulnerable women. We have constructed and opened a new family refuge, Virginia’s Place, at a secure location to provide safety and dignity to women and children escaping violence. Locally we have also facilitated exclusive opportunities for first home buyers to enter the market without competing with investors. We are building key worker housing, and we are working hard to give more residents the opportunity to live in energy-efficient homes through our rebates and programs.

There is scarcely a conversation right now that is more important than the one that we are having collectively on housing. We need to be able to build more homes to manage the growth of our state, embed sustainability in our suburbs, create jobs and keep pace with services and infrastructure. None of these policy considerations are easy to navigate, but as a government we have a duty to tackle them. That is why we are working towards our housing statement, which will deliver a considered and cohesive plan for our state’s growth. At a very basic level it will mean getting more homes built, and that means every level of government needs to front up. Yet across Yarra, Darebin and Merri-bek the Greens have consistently voted to oppose critical housing projects for vulnerable people. Others have elucidated some of those examples very well in the debate this afternoon, but it is emblematic of the appalling attitude that the Greens continue to have on housing – an attitude that could not care less about the people who need these homes. It is an attitude of utter contempt for the housing sector and housing providers. It is an attitude that is right now hurting Victorians, and each and every one of them should be ashamed.

Tim BULL (Gippsland East) (16:51): It is a pleasure to rise and make a contribution on the matter of public importance put forth by the member for Richmond, which without going through the clauses of the MPI generally relates to housing affordability and availability. I just want to add that I believe there probably could have been one dot point added to the MPI, and that is that when it comes to housing availability and affordability we should be looking to address the rental crisis in this state, and to do that we must stop punishing landlords.

Building more public housing is certainly a big part of the answer to our housing problem. There is no doubt about that; I do not think anyone would disagree with that. But it is certainly not the whole answer, and we need to look at the housing availability issue. Our state is contributing to this problem with policies that are pushing landlords either interstate or away from the market altogether, meaning that there are less properties available. When you have less properties, you end up having higher prices for home seekers. As a result, more people – and we have seen this in the first half of this year – are adding their names to the public housing waiting list. When landlords are forced into selling their properties, there seems to be an assumption that they are being bought by people who are in the rental market who are saving to buy a home. I represent the electorate of East Gippsland, and we have a lot of holiday areas – Paynesville, Lakes Entrance, Metung and Marlo. When a home gets sold there, it is not usually purchased by someone who is currently renting a home, it is purchased by someone who is purchasing a holiday home. So we have a home that goes out of the rental market, and then we have greater demand arriving in that cohort that is seeking a rental property.

There seems to be a perception that all landlords are rich and can afford these increased charges that are being imposed on them, but the simple reality is not all landlords are rich. Some also seem to think that they can continually add costs for landlords and they will not look at other investment options if we just keep taxing them, and that is not the case. Certainly some landlords are wealthy – absolutely they are – but data shows the majority of our landlords are people who own one additional property and are mum-and-dad, middle-income people who have simply chosen property investment over the stock market or a fixed-term deposit. In fact the top 40 occupations of landlords in this state include workers in child care, workers in the disability sector and aged care, motor mechanics, truck drivers, receptionists, sales assistants, schoolteachers, nurses and police officers. I would not imagine that they would be the top income earners in our communities, and the reality is we have got a raft of new regulations and taxes that we are imposing on these mum-and-dad investors, meaning they are either selling their properties and investing in another forum, like the stock market or fixed term, or they are moving their investments interstate. What does that do? It drives up further demand in our rental sector as a result of state government actions.

On top of the recent changes, the issue that we have is it is all about to get a lot worse. From 1 January the tax-free threshold for land tax rates will reduce from $300,000 to $50,000 for the next 10 years. This is going to hit more rental property owners. It will force their hand. In addition there will be an extra fixed annual charge imposed, starting at $500 for landholdings that are valued from $50,000 to $100,000, and it rises to $3675, $3500 above, for the top end of the market. Talk to any real estate agent. I talk to the real estate agents in my electorate, and they tell me that because of these increased costs that government is putting on landlords they are leaving the marketplace. They are selling up and investing elsewhere, and at the end of the day that simply further widens the gap between those seeking a rental property and the amount of rental properties that we have.

We have got the Greens, who have time and time again proposed a rent freeze. I could not think of a better policy to drive even more mum-and-dad investors out of the rental market. These mum-and-dad investors have got interest rates going up. They have got land taxes going up. They are considering where they are going to invest their money, and we are going to put a rent freeze on them that will force their hand into investing elsewhere. In my area and I am sure many other areas of the state, those homes, when they get out – in Paynesville and Lakes Entrance and these places – will not be sold to people who are seeking rentals. They will be sold to people from the metropolitan area who are looking for a holiday home. What does that mean for my area? I am sure this is duplicated around the state: more and more people on the rental waiting list because of the actions of the government if they introduce a rent freeze as suggested by the Greens. Even a rent cap would provide another disincentive for landlords to stay in that marketplace. They would look at other investment opportunities.

Wouldn’t it make more sense with these mum-and-dad investors, rather than look at punishing them, to perhaps look at incentivising them? Say to someone who owns a rental property, ‘If you want to get out of Airbnb or whatever you’re doing with your rental property, just commit to providing your rental property to the marketplace for five or 10 years, and we will make you exempt from these new land taxes we are introducing.’ Let us provide people with an incentive to invest in the real estate that will increase the amount of our rental properties. To give an example of the impact of things like the land tax money grab that we have recently had, I note the commentary from the CEO of Stockdale & Leggo, one of our biggest real estate companies, and she said when the land tax change was announced:

… all our offices across Victoria received … calls from landlords saying …they wanted out …

The number of rental properties being built has dropped to the lowest in 10 years. Why would you invest in building rental properties when we have got all these disincentives and extra costs? They are looking at other forums to invest their money in because the returns out of rental properties are just no good. First National Real Estate chief executive – another leading real estate company – Ray Ellis, said that if we introduced a rent freeze, which is being proposed by our friends up here the Greens, he feared the move would result in an estimated 30 per cent reduction in rental supply, at a minimum. If we want to push down the path of having a rent freeze, expect 30 per cent of your landlords to sell up. The majority of those homes will not go to renters. They will go to holiday homes in my patch. I am assuming all around coastal Victoria they will go to holiday homes, and it just rips a whole lot of rental properties out of the marketplace. We need to think very, very carefully about how we are going to handle this very, very complex issue.

In addition to that, we have had the federal government recently announce massive numbers of international students coming into our country. Reports show that international students took up 70 per cent of new housing units in the last financial year. Now, I support our international students coming into the country, but many commentators now for the very first time are debating the benefits of international education against the impacts on young Australians looking for a home. We have never had that discussion before, but it has got to become part of a commonsense, mature discussion about these issues.

The reality is we have had a series of policies and taxes that have pushed middle-income landlords from the marketplace, and we are seeing the results. Halting the war on our mum-and-dad landlords and providing a framework that will indeed encourage people to invest in property, to become landlords, will result in more rental properties for those that are saving up to buy a home. More rental properties at affordable prices will be very, very beneficial. We need to look at that as being a key part of the solution to housing affordability and availability.

I will finish up by saying we also need to do some work with our councils around the state. We have councils that are knocking back housing subdivisions that would ease housing availability and affordability simply because they have a couple of local objections, and it gets overturned at VCAT because council is too scared to make the decision. We need to look at that element of this problem as well.

Michaela SETTLE (Eureka) (17:01): I am moved to stand to speak on this matter of public importance. As many in this house know, my marriage ended as a consequence of gambling, and I found myself with two young boys being the sole breadwinner and needing to house my children. I faced that need for a safety net front on. I was lucky to have family. I bring this up and I put this at the forefront because I want people to remember that what we are debating here, what we are talking about, is women who need housing and people and families who need a home. This is not about grandstanding. This is not about a recruitment drive for the Greens political party. This is people who need homes and houses. That we find ourselves now in this dire, dire housing affordability crisis and people can play political games like this, that they can dispute a model of provision, is just obscene. I want you all to remember that what we are talking about here is people that need a house, people that need a home, women that need a safety net. They do not need the Greens political party telling them that their house is modelled in an incorrect way, that somehow or another this is a neoliberal conspiracy. This is about women who need a home.

I would like to commend the contribution from the Minister for Housing earlier. He is an extraordinary man who has worked so very, very hard to deliver this. His contribution was even-tempered and real and factual, and that is what we need now in this debate. We acknowledge that this is the single most important issue facing our country now. It is imperative that governments across Australia act now to provide social and affordable housing. This is not the time to run a recruitment drive, to score political points or to bring stunts to Parliament. It is time to find innovative solutions to the housing crisis, to work collaboratively and not in eternal opposition, to find partners to work with, to get on with this big build and to build houses for people who need housing.

In this matter the Greens seem absolutely hell-bent on demonising community housing organisations. The Greens political party want us to believe that community housing is privatisation. That is factually incorrect given that government continues to own it, but more than that, it is morally abhorrent. The groups that we are talking about here, let us have a little talk about them – Aboriginal housing trust, Salvation Army Housing, Melbourne City Mission, Women’s Health West, Women’s Housing Ltd, in my patch UnitingCare, Haven Home Safe and Centacare. Do they sound like rapacious private enterprises? Do they sound like neoliberals? No, these are people that care about people, who want to look after them and get them housed. They do not do this just for their own seats – to win their seats, to win a few votes.

If you have a look at UnitingCare in Ballarat, they are a fine, fine organisation. What they do is they provide wraparound services, so we get people into housing and they have the support that they need. I do not call those people neoliberal, I call them supportive community housing that are there to support people in the community. They offer an insight, but more than that, they bring their own support. They are not-for-profit organisations, and as charities they can borrow additional funds and attract grants and philanthropic donations as well as contributing their own funds. I think what is really important is that they also bring a knowledge and an understanding of the cohort that they work with – for example, the Aboriginal Community Housing group. As mission-driven and values-based charitable housing providers they are exempt from GST, land tax and stamp duty. They can borrow from the private sector. They can help to build more houses for more people.

The base proposition here is that basically we need more homes, and it seems to be the single most important fact that eludes the Greens. They can run around and they can demand caps on rents. That is fine and dandy – or to use the words from the member for Richmond, whoop-de-do. Whoop-de-do if we put a cap on those rents. If there are not the houses there, then we are not going to be housing people. What we need to do is increase the stock. Whoop-de-do to you and the concern that you gave to this government’s commitment –

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Through the Chair.

Michaela SETTLE: to renters through the rental reforms that we made, which were described, as I say, by the member for Richmond as whoop-de-do. I hope renters remember that. More than that, what they must remember is that the way that we can address the housing crisis is to bring more stock. We need more stock. While they continue on that side to block all efforts by this government and the federal government to increase stock, people will lose out. I am talking about people like Sharon Jose. In June 2023 our wonderful Minister for Housing visited Ballarat, and we visited Sharon in her new two-bedroom unit with her cat called Fraidy. She talked about the importance of finally being in a home of her own after countless stints in temporary accommodation. She said it was better than she could have ever imagined – and guess what, it was managed by CatholicCare, a community housing organisation. My concern here is for the many people who are in desperate need, those families that are out there waiting for a house right now that is being blocked by the Greens. I think really more than anything for those of us on this side of the house it is the utter, utter rank hypocrisy of this motion that leaves such a bad taste. At every turn the Greens have blocked housing in this state and across the nation.

Now, we did have a motion earlier. I know these figures have been read out before, but can I just remind everybody in this house that in 2017 Greens councillors in the City of Darebin led the vote against the development of new social housing. Greens councillors in the City of Darebin opposed and delayed the Preston renewal project by 12 months. In 2020 Greens councillors in Merri-bek voted against the redevelopment of the former Gronn Place. That same year in the other place the Greens teamed up with their Liberal mates to vote against the much-needed social housing at the Markham estate. In 2020, led by the then mayor and now member for Richmond, the Greens-dominated Yarra City Council voted against Collingwood social and affordable housing. Remember that. Remember all the times that the Greens have stood against governments providing social housing for women and people in need. Remember that. While they grandstand, this government is getting on and delivering. In 2020 we announced the big build, a groundbreaking investment. That was before the Greens had worked out that this was a great slogan for them. We were getting on and delivering.

I want to in this moment pay tribute to the previous Minister for Housing, the Honourable Richard Wynne. Richard Wynne did more for housing than any minister in this country, and it is a travesty – it is an ugly, ugly travesty – that his seat is now filled by someone who will work tooth and nail to block housing, at every turn has blocked housing, as a mayor and in that seat of Richmond. It is a travesty when that seat was held by the Honourable Richard Wynne who did so much for community housing. We have the big build, and it is more than any jurisdiction has ever done before. I would like to acknowledge Richard for all he did.

I would also like to point out in the minute I have got left that I come from the regions. Those over there probably do not know my advice is: head towards Yarraville and keep going, and you will find the Western District. In the Western District we have had $119 million committed in Ballarat, we had $20 million committed in Moorabool and we had $15 million committed in the Golden Plains shire. But the Greens do not care about the regions. Do you know why? Because there are no votes for them in the regions. Instead they hang out with their neoliberal mates, their good friends, as we were told earlier, the Liberals to block social and affordable housing for people that need it, for mothers, like I was, on the line needing support. You can have all of your morals. You can have your high horse. This is about people, and you should start thinking about people and making sure that we support policies that put people in houses, not Greens in seats.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Before I call the member for Kew, I just would like to reiterate the Speaker’s words earlier to remind members it is not in order to refer to people in the galleries. Further to that, any interactions from the public gallery are also not acceptable. This includes taking photos or videos, interjections, clapping or any disruptive activity.

Jess WILSON (Kew) (17:12): A very passionate response to follow. I have to say, in listening to the contributions this afternoon, I think it has been amusing to hear the Greens members and the member for Richmond in particular refer to the Andrews Labor government as a neoliberal government. It is not quite the apt description I would use.

Danny O’Brien: What does that say about the Greens?

Jess WILSON: What does that say about the Greens? But I am pleased to rise today to speak on this motion around the state of housing in Victoria. We have seen over recent times, in fact today, hours dedicated to talking about the issues when it comes to housing in Victoria – social housing, affordable housing, being able to get first home buyers into the market – and we have seen over recent months the government time and time again talk about the fact that they are going to bring a housing statement to the fore and explain how they are going to deal with the housing crisis in Victoria.

We certainly do have a housing crisis here in Victoria. We have a housing crisis in Australia. Yet we are hearing a lot from the government and from others about the issues without any solutions on the table. We are hearing policy ideas floated in the media from day to day. We are hearing about new property taxes, the accommodation property tax, the holiday tax – the Airbnb tax is one option, and I know that the member for Nepean is very concerned about that, not that he is here anymore. Time and time again there is a lot of talk about the housing crisis but very few solutions on the table.

Now, this government has presided over the worst housing affordability crisis in living memory. It has never been harder to buy a home in this state. It has never been harder to rent a property in this state. We have seen and heard today in contributions from this side of the house about the fact that the public housing list, the priority list, has grown considerably over the past eight years. This government certainly has an addiction to property taxes, as we know, and that is going to result in the private housing market becoming less and less accessible for people needing to access it, and that will only put further pressure on the public and social housing sector.

The government’s track record in this space leaves a lot to be desired. When we look at every metric when it comes to housing, Victoria particularly under this government is the worst-performing state in the federation, and of course social housing is no different. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, social housing accounts for just 2.9 per cent of Victoria’s residential properties. Now, this is the lowest of any state or territory in the federation. The proportion of social housing has declined in Victoria since Labor took office, from 3.5 per cent under the previous Liberal–Nationals government in 2014 to 2.9 per cent now. As we have spoken about today in this house and as has been identified in a previous motion before the house, Victoria spends the least per capita of any state on public housing.

Of course we are here today because social and public housing is an incredibly important social safety net for vulnerable Victorians, and we need to make sure that everybody has a roof over their heads regardless of their financial circumstances. I think we have heard contributions from everyone in the house today about the number of people coming to our own electorate offices to talk about the fact that they are in desperate need of housing support. But if we look at the facts, when we left government in 2014 there were about 9900 applications with priority status on the social housing list. As of March this year that number had grown to 37,000 – in fact over 37,000 – applications on the priority list. These are not individuals, these are families, so the number of people actually needing access to public housing is much larger than those 37,000 applications. These are people who are looking to escape domestic and family violence, and we have seen that list itself grow to 20 months up from a promised 10 months. Ten months itself is far too long a period, but seeing that grow for those who are in desperate need of safe and accessible housing is very, very concerning and is something that this government should be absolutely ashamed of presiding over.

When we look at social housing and speak to some of the community housing providers – some that operate in and around my electorate – they make the point that they are under increasing pressure to provide support that the government is not providing. While they are working incredibly hard and trying to help those who are in need of housing and putting a roof over their heads, the problem is that when it comes to accessing capital for new builds, there is a lack of notice for letting housing providers know that there might be availability of new funds or grants, so they are not able to plan in time – they are not able to get those applications in in time. So when it comes to the $5.3 billion that this government talks about investing in social and affordable housing, long-term planning is a critical part of that – long-term planning when it comes to the regulatory environment and actually understanding how the community housing sector can work in partnership with the government to provide that much-needed housing.

We have heard a lot today as well about the fact that the Albanese government is putting forward a large housing package, and we know that the Premier has said that the Victorian government will be accessing hundreds of millions of dollars of that. What was really concerning about that was when the Premier spoke about receiving those funds, he spoke not about the fact that those funds would be dedicated to building new homes, new affordable housing and new social housing but that those funds might be actually used to purchase existing property. Now, we have heard today from everyone around the house that the fact is that we have a housing affordability crisis in Victoria, and we have a housing accessibility crisis in Victoria, but ultimately that is all driven by the fact that we have a housing supply crisis in Victoria. Housing supply is not going to be assisted by the fact the government is going to take hundreds of millions of dollars and use that to step into the property market and bid for existing homes rather than increasing the supply of new stock that we desperately need. New dwelling approvals in Victoria are at record lows. We have seen over many, many years now, over the past decade and more, that new dwelling approvals are falling behind in Victoria compared to other states. The result is that less people are able to get into the housing market. It drives up prices, which means we are seeing fewer and fewer people in the housing market.

The other issue that has been raised today is around the Commonwealth Games and the billion dollars that will be committed to so-called legacy investment. I am not sure how that legacy will exist given we do not have the Commonwealth Games in the first place, but these 1300 homes that are spoken about are averaged to cost around $770,000. That is a huge amount of money per property. I know that the member for Narracan spoke about this previously with his expertise in the building industry, and I have spoken to many builders in this space who say that that is far in excess of what it should cost to build affordable housing and only means that we are going to see less stock coming into the market with figures that high. Only the government can deliver such inflated prices. Just like we are seeing cost blowouts on the Big Build and the Commonwealth Games, everything that this government touches seems to cost more and more and more rather than actually being delivered in a way that delivers value for money for Victorian taxpayers and actually delivers a greater supply of homes by reducing the initial cost of those properties.

We all spend time in our own electorates looking at the increase in homelessness, and I know that many people in the chamber today on this side have highlighted the fact that their own electorates are on the top of that list when it comes to the increasing rates of homelessness. I would just like to pay credit to the local housing providers and the community groups that step into the brink in this space. In my own electorate Servants Community Housing does amazing work to support those people who are on the cusp of homelessness to provide housing options. But also the local communities help those who are sleeping rough at night and those who are not able to find a roof to put over their own head by connecting them with community housing providers. In my own electorate Boroondara Community Outreach does a huge amount of work in this space connecting those people that come and explain their situation and do not have a place to sleep that night with the people who might be able to provide that. This matter today just highlights what a dire state Victoria is in when it comes to the housing crisis.

Katie HALL (Footscray) (17:22): I am very pleased to be making a contribution to this matter of public importance today. We have been discussing housing and homelessness all day, and this week it is a very important discussion to be having. I note that the Greens did not bother to turn up before midday today; they did not bother to come into the chamber and support the government so that we could continue the debate on housing. They were absolutely missing in action; none of them were in here. I will always fight for more public, social and affordable housing in my community of Footscray. I said that in my first speech, and I will say it again today. I am so proud to be part of this government. Richard Wynne, a person who has been acknowledged previously by my colleague the member for Eureka, is someone who spent every single day of his working life fighting for people in public housing and fighting for better outcomes for the most disadvantaged people in our community. He really achieved something in his career by delivering this $5.3 billion Big Housing Build. That was a really proud moment for this caucus and for the government.

There is something in the saying that you are judged by the company you keep. I do not know how I would sleep at night if I had joined with One Nation and the Liberal Party to block the construction of 30,000 homes in the Senate. I would not be able to sleep at night. The thing is we know what the Liberal Party stand for – they are up-front and honest about it; they do not really support public housing. We know what One Nation stands for. The issue here is that the Greens political party pretend that they care about public, social and affordable housing, and then they go and do the opposite thing. It is more insidious because they will say they stand for one thing, and then when it comes to actually effecting real and meaningful change, they cannot bring themselves to support the government of the day because that does not suit their political purposes. One of the most important things I think is putting your values into action, and I am so proud to be part of a Labor government, as a Labor member for Footscray – proudly from Footscray – where we get to put our values into action every single day.

In Canberra what is happening is that the Greens political party – it is extraordinary really for them to be siding with One Nation and the Liberal Party to block public housing, but that is exactly what is happening. We know that some in that cohort genuinely do not believe in the fundamental human right to a safe and affordable place to call home, but we on this side of the chamber get it. I think about my colleague in the other place Sheena Watt and her brave and extraordinary first speech, where she described what it was like as a young Aboriginal woman living in a caravan. And right now we have got the Greens political party, who will happily refer to community housing providers and the build as a ‘neoliberal arrangement’, when those sorts of organisations provide housing for Aboriginal people in our state. You should be ashamed.

It is walking on both sides of the street, which is another saying that comes to mind when I think about the Greens, because in reality it is nothing more than a hollow brand. There is absolutely nothing underneath the surface. It is like this meme bot that just produces memes, taking credit for Labor reforms day after day, and Insta posts and TikToks, organising stunts on housing when they could have been in here participating in the debate this morning but were nowhere to be seen. You have accumulated power, so why not use it to effect some real and meaningful change? That is about putting roofs over people who need a home, you know? Because that is what this is about.

I think often about someone who was a member for Maribyrnong, a man called Moss Cass, and he was a great Labor reformer. He said that the only point of having power is to do something bold with it. So what I would like to encourage the Greens to do is to do something bold today: leave the chamber, get on the phone, call your mates in Canberra and tell them to pass the money in the Senate. Because what that means, some industry analysis from the Community Housing Industry Association has said, is that 25,000 vulnerable people are missing out on housing because of the Greens’ decision – 25,000 people. Is that worth this political stunt? I do not think so.

The Greens in essence today have said that they do not support community housing. The member for Brunswick described it as ‘woolly’ in his contribution before. There is nothing woolly about the tiny homes in my electorate that are being supported by Launch Housing and that support men who predominantly have been homeless and suffered from mental illness all their life. That model has a place in our system alongside public housing, alongside affordable housing and alongside options for people to get into the rental market or for people to buy their homes. What we need is more supply. This is all about supply. I do not claim to be an economist, but I do understand the issue of supply and demand. Right now we have a supply problem and we need more housing, and the Greens in Canberra are shamefully blocking it.

I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge some of the people in my electorate who make great change every single day. One of them, Jocelyn, is in the gallery right now. She has an Order of Australia. She runs McAuley social services, and what her organisation does is provide long-term wraparound services for women fleeing family violence. The Andrews Labor government is very proud to support McAuley House. It is not a very neoliberal arrangement. It is the kind of housing that allows women who have been in the worst possible situations to recover, and it is valued. I am so grateful for her work and for everyone at McAuley Community Services.

There was a group of homelessness workers that I wanted to bring into the gallery today, but unfortunately we could not get them in. The gallery was full. But I want to acknowledge who those people are, because every day they help people with homelessness and housing issues under very difficult circumstances. Jocelyn, Tania Farha, Judy Line, the amazing Rhonda Collins – and if anyone from the Greens had bothered to come out at lunchtime, they would have seen Rhonda speak passionately. She is the CEO of Latitude housing for young people. Rebecca Cleaver, the CEO of Wombat Housing; Cheryl McKinley, the homelessness manager at the Salvos; Deborah Gorsuch, the housing team leader from Uniting Wyndham; the incredible Sarah Langmore, the Western Homelessness Network manager; and Donna Bennett from Hope Street – these are people who work every day to deliver real change every single day.

You are in the privileged position to be in this place, to be an elected member where you can use your power for good and to effect real change. So I would encourage the Greens to work collaboratively with the government rather than stage these sorts of stunts, which only do a disservice to this very important issue. You can do something bold with the power you have accumulated, unlike the former mayor of Yarra who used her position to block 100 social housing units and 100 affordable houses. That was a shameful thing to do.

Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (17:32): It is always interesting in here to get up and see a little bit of argy-bargy, but there is no argy-bargy like the government versus the Greens. They like to give it to us, but there is no better ringside seat than when the government takes on its good mates the Greens.

Brad Rowswell: That’s why we are here.

Danny O’BRIEN: I can only assume it is why everyone is in here, because it certainly is not to listen to me; I know that. All the government members, pretty much all of the ones over there, got elected on Greens preferences, but here they are ripping into them every time they get the opportunity. It is just extraordinary. There is no fight like a family fight, is there, when they really get into each other, and that is what we are seeing here. But this has actually been an interesting debate, because sometimes we do get told in politics that we are all the same: ‘You’ve all got the same policies. You’re indistinguishable from each other’. Well, this has actually been a pretty interesting debate to highlight the differences between all the parties in this place – at least between the Labor Party, the government, and the Greens. No better demonstrated is this than by the fact that the Greens think that this Labor government is neoliberal. What does that say about the Greens? Where are they? Somewhere next to Trotsky? I don’t know – Marx? I am not sure what it is, but if this government is neoliberal, I will be winning Australia’s Next Top Model next year. This is just extraordinary.

But it is true, what I am saying. The point is accurate that there are very big differences between the parties on these issues. We have got the Greens, who think that the government should own everything, basically, and the government should only build public housing and social housing. We have got the government, which even though the member for Footscray just talked about supply does not actually get the supply issue and thinks that taxing housing is going to help it, and us on this side, who realise that it will be private investors investing in housing – mums and dads putting away something for their future and providing a place to live for someone who wants to rent – who will actually solve this problem. So the words are supply, supply, supply.

When it comes to actually addressing the housing crisis, we have seen this government absolutely botch it every step of the way. Since this government came to power, we have seen 49 increased or newly introduced taxes, and 23 of those new or increased taxes have been on property. In the midst of a housing crisis what have we seen in the last couple of years? We have had a windfall gains tax introduced on property development. What do you think the property developers are going to do when they get a windfall gains tax?

Brad Rowswell: Tell us, Danny.

Danny O’BRIEN: Are they going to just cop it? Are they just going to say, ‘Well, that’s an increased cost to business’? No, they are going to pass it on to the cost of housing, aren’t they? And then this year the geniuses in the Treasury office, at the height of a housing affordability crisis, a housing availability crisis when rents are going through the roof, what are we going to do?

A member: Tax.

Danny O’BRIEN: Another new tax. We are going to introduce a rent tax on landlords. The Treasurer had the gall in his Treasurer’s speech this year to refer to economics 101; he said, ‘If you know economics 101’. As I said at the time in the budget, I have actually done economics 101. It is literally a course description.

Tim Richardson: How did you go?

Danny O’BRIEN: I aced it, thank you, member for Mordialloc. I did very well, unlike the Treasurer, who clearly has not paid any attention whatsoever. Because if something is in short supply and you add a cost to it, a cost that cannot be avoided, it is going to be passed on. And what is going to happen then? Rent is going to go –

Members: Up.

Danny O’BRIEN: Thank you very much. It is going to go up. We have the government at this point in time adding additional taxes – 49 additional or new taxes, and they have increased 23 of them on property. And the government is now surprised that we have got a housing affordability crisis.

James Newbury: They did not do economics 101.

Danny O’BRIEN: They did not do economics 101, that is right, member for Brighton. This all comes on the back of the new rental laws that were introduced in 2021. Some rebalancing of the rental laws may well be appropriate. I think that there is a balance in this. You always have to make sure the renters have rights and that landlords have rights. But we saw the changes introduce a ban on rental bidding, new rental minimum standards, which has forced a lot of landlords to have to spend a lot of money in the last couple of years. We have got no eviction without a reason, allowable modifications by renters, which has had a big impact on those people who are providing rental accommodation. Landlords, many of them are telling their agents, ‘I do not want to see my house modified without approval.’ And there are new rules with respect to both pets and urgent repairs.

Again, some of this may well be justified, but the evidence has already shown that landlords are getting out of the market. We have seen this in recent weeks in relation to the government’s new land tax changes. An article on 23 June on realestate.com.au said:

Victoria has been dubbed the nation’s worst state for landlords and faces economic headwinds and housing shortages as population growth soars.

Who would have thought? That came from a survey by the REIV that said nearly 90 per cent of real estate agents in Victoria have had an increase in contact from landlords who are looking to recover increased costs as a result of the Victorian governments new and increased land tax on investment properties. What did I say? Economics 101: if you add a cost, it gets passed on.

The member for Gippsland East, I do have to mention him because he gave an excellent speech. It was very good. It did not probably get the credit it deserved, but he made the point that our rental providers in the main are mum-and-dad investors. Seventy per cent of them only have one second property, and 43 per cent of those earn less than $100,000 a year. This is not wealthy landlords in the main. This is not people with multiple properties. That is the reality of our housing affordability and the housing availability in Victoria where 70 per cent of rental properties are provided by the private sector.

For the Greens to be saying no private stuff and put in a rental cap, let us stop everything – what do they think is going to happen? If you make rental availability less attractive, there is going to be less of it. I know what they will say because they have said it to some degree, ‘If landlords are selling up, that is good because more people can then afford to buy a house. If there’s more supply, house prices will come down.’ Yes, in theory, to a bit. What if you are a 23-year-old just starting to make your way in the world and you need to rent? You are not going to be able to go out and afford to buy a house. This is just economic lunacy from both the government and the Greens.

On the public housing question, back to what this is really about, I give the government credit for the Big Housing Build. We absolutely needed to increase the level of public housing stock in Victoria, and – we know this from the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee – that is because the Victorian government was a long, long way behind the rest of the country on a per capita basis in terms of public and social housing availability. That was in the ROGS data in 2021. The Productivity Commission Report on Government Services made it very clear we were at the bottom of the table, so we actually needed to keep up. Those opposite have mentioned the former member for Richmond. He acknowledged that; he actually accepted that we had to do a lot more. So it is good.

But we have also just heard from the minister before and we hear from the government regularly how they are going to deliver 12,000 new homes. We are going to have 8200 new homes. That is a net gain. So far – and again this has just come back from the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee hearings this year – there is an increase of 2900, so we are still a long, long way from anything like what the government is claiming that it is going to deliver. That is in the context – other members have raised this – that in the past 12 months, in the 12 months to March 2023, 3681 people, or households, were added to the public housing waiting list. 842 of those were priority families. So we have got an increase in the waiting list, more and more people, and we are not keeping pace with the investment, even with what the government is doing. That is something that the government needs to address.

In my own electorate – the Big Housing Build is $5.3 billion – in South Gippsland shire there are six new homes, six. I have got people coming to me all the time looking for housing, whether it is private housing, whether it is rental or whether it is public housing. The government needs to do better. The $1 billion it is pledging to apparently spend on regional housing after the Commonwealth Games debacle it absolutely needs to deliver to rural areas of the state. It needs to do a lot better, and it needs to ignore the Greens when it comes to policy on housing in this state.

Ella GEORGE (Lara) (17:42): I am so proud to be a member of this government, because on this side of the chamber we understand the importance of housing. We know that public housing, social housing and affordable housing provide many Victorians with the safety, security and dignity of a home. We do not sit on the other side of the chamber virtue-signalling or filming TikTok videos full of faux outrage. On this side of the chamber we live our values. We are taking action on the housing crisis in this state, and we are investing billions of dollars in housing in this state.

The matter before us states that there are no plans to build more housing in Victoria, and this is simply not true. The Andrews Labor government has invested $5.3 billion in the Big Housing Build to deliver more than 12,000 new homes across Victoria. Already more than 7600 homes have been completed or are underway. More than 2800 of these are completed and welcoming residents, and we are willing to work with partners in the federal government to invest every single dollar of the $500 million recently announced by the Prime Minister in our Big Housing Build to deliver even more homes. Just a fortnight ago the state government announced a further $1 billion Victorian Regional Housing Fund to deliver at least 1300 new homes right across regional Victoria. That is $6.8 billion invested in housing in this state, delivering more than 13,300 new homes. So it is simply not true to say that there is no plan to build more homes. This government has a plan for more homes, it has invested in more homes and it is delivering more homes – more homes than the Greens political party will ever deliver.

This matter also claims that four public housing sites are being privatised. Again, this is not true. These sites are in public hands, and they remain in public hands. We are not the party of privatisation. These four projects will deliver a total of 1400 new homes, including 650 social homes, and that is an increase from the previous 502 social homes across these sites. This is a model that actually delivers even more public, community and affordable housing into the market, and it is 1400 more homes than the Greens political party have ever delivered or ever could deliver.

Those in the Greens political party would like you to believe that there is no more public housing left in the state. Well, that is not true; 70 per cent of government housing is public housing. There are 64,000 public housing properties across the state. That is 64,000 more homes than the Greens political party can ever deliver. On top of that is a further 22,000 social homes, 20,000 community housing properties and 2000 properties managed by Aboriginal community controlled organisations. The member for Northcote put it well earlier that the Greens political party do not understand the nuance in Victoria’s housing system. They do not appreciate the value of having community housing provided specifically for women experiencing family violence or being run by Aboriginal community controlled organisations for First Nations people.

There is no bigger issue in our state than the housing crisis, and a number of members today have spoken about their experiences in hearing from residents facing homelessness and housing insecurities in their communities. These are stories that I hear every week in Lara: families in private rental properties struggling to make ends meet and joining the public housing waiting list, people who are couch surfing, moving from place to place and trying not to overstay their welcome, people who are sleeping in their cars and people who are camping in parks or camping near community facilities to feel more protected by lights and security cameras overnight. These are devastating stories. I have heard from community organisations who distribute tents to people experiencing homelessness and who are shocked by how quickly all those tents were taken up. I have heard concerns about a growing number of women, particularly older women, who are facing homelessness. When you hear these stories, you realise pretty quickly that there is more to do when it comes to housing.

To me, that is the difference between the Andrews Labor government and the Greens political party. While those in the Greens political party are moving self-righteous motions that will achieve nothing, shooting off angry tweets, making TikTok videos and not actually contributing towards increasing housing supply, the Andrews Labor government is getting on with the job. We are getting on with building more homes and replacing tired public housing that desperately needs to be upgraded. We are partnering with the federal government to build more houses and we are partnering with the community housing sector to deliver homes to Victoria’s diverse communities.

Housing is not just about having a roof over your head. It is about feeling safe and secure and comfortable in your own home. I know that my office supports so many constituents who need assistance with housing, and I am sure that is the same for many others on this side of the chamber. Earlier this year we helped a public housing resident who was seeking a higher front fence. Their property was on a main road and they were having issues with other local residents that concerned her and her children. Thanks to the wonderful team in the minister’s office and our local department staff, we swiftly moved to have a new fence built at her property. This is just one example of how we on the side are helping people in public housing feel safe and more secure, and I am sure people on this side have countless examples of all the work they are doing.

What really disappoints me is the complete disregard for regional Victoria by the Greens political party. We can give you a map if you like. Geelong is a little further down the freeway past Yarraville, as the member for Buninyong pointed out earlier. The reality is that the Greens do not care about regional Victoria. They are out of touch with the unique pressures facing regional Victorians and regional Victorian families. While the TikTok videos and the rock posters might sound like a good campaign for inner-city Melbourne, I can assure you they fall flat in our regions. In our regions, the $1 billion regional housing package has been welcomed by the community and the housing sector. The community is thrilled with this investment and that a further 1300 homes will be built. This is an investment that the Greens political party would never make because there are too busy running campaigns in inner-city Melbourne hunting for more votes.

Today we have heard from the self-aggrandising Greens political party about the importance of public housing and just how critical it is. Well, if the Greens political party think it is that critical, then perhaps they should consider supporting funding for housing instead of blocking it. Because right now in the federal Parliament the Greens have that opportunity, but instead they are blocking legislation that will unlock billions of dollars of investment into housing right across Australia. The Greens political party preach the need for more housing, but when they get the chance to do something about it, like right now in the Senate, they just wreck it. So we have the Greens political party blocking critical housing funding of billions of dollars in Canberra like it is something to be proud of.

This Labor government knows that having a safe and secure place to call home gives people a solid foundation to thrive in life. Our Big Housing Build will deliver 12,000 more homes across Victoria, right across the state, and an additional 1300 homes across regional Victoria. We could deliver even more homes right across the state if the Greens political party supported the federal legislation to unlock billions of dollars in funding. So maybe when you go home tonight, it would be an opportunity to call some friends in Canberra.

We know that Victorian families are in need of these homes and that every new and affordable home our government is building is providing a roof over the head of a family in need. Every house that we build is a house that the Greens political party could never build and would never build, because it is only a Labor government who cares, who is making the single biggest investment by any state government in Australia into housing. We know there is more to do; there is always more to do, and unlike those opposite in the Greens political party who block public housing investment at every opportunity, we are getting on with it and building these homes.

Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (17:50): It is my honour to hopefully conclude the debate tonight. Back in 2016 I stood in this very place and raised my concerns that the public housing waiting list in Victoria had blown out to 33,000 applications. At the time I called that a crisis, because it was, yet here I am seven years later standing in the same place with that number now sitting at 130,000 people. Under the Andrews Labor government’s watch the waiting list has blown out by 100,000 people – and they are not just numbers; they are actually people. Many of those people come to my office seeking help when they have tried everything else, and I want to share some of their stories today, because I think it is really important that we remember who we are talking about.

I want to share Ali’s story. I have changed his name to protect his family’s privacy. Ali came to Australia as a refugee in 2015. He lives with a disability. His family is on a low income. In 2017 they started struggling to pay their rent, so they did what they thought was the right thing to do and applied for public housing. But because there are so many people on the priority waiting list and because they already had a house, even though they were struggling to afford the rent, Ali’s family was approved for public housing but were put at the bottom of the list. Then two years later, in 2019, they were evicted from their private rental and became homeless.

When they were first evicted Ali and his family were supported by the Salvation Army to access temporary crisis accommodation, but as anyone who has interacted with the homelessness system knows, crisis support is only temporary and runs out long before you are ever offered a long-term safe place to live. Over the past five years Ali and his family have had to stay in motels, couch surf with friends and family and sleep in their car because they still had not got a public home. During this time they were separated, staying in different places while they waited. Last Eid Ali had to rent out a friend’s garage for the week just so his family could spend some time together for the celebration.

Before becoming homeless Ali was a leader in his community, but being homeless he found it difficult to engage with his community. He and his wife separated for five months due to the stress of the ongoing homelessness. Their daughter had no internet access during her final year of school and had to work out of libraries to complete her VCE. She was later hospitalised with poor mental health. This is a family who came to Australia seeking a better life. My office worked with Ali and his family for over a year, and I am happy to say that we were recently able to help get him into a home, but it took five years of being homeless. It should not have been that hard.

Housing is a human right. No-one in life, none of us in this place, can succeed in life without a safe place to sleep at night. It should be a key responsibility of government, just like health and education. But the thing is that instead of taking on that responsibility, governments of both persuasions, Labor and Liberal, and not just here in Victoria but across Australia have decided to wash their hands of it. I think it is really important to actually just really clearly outline what has been happening here, because I have been in this place longer than many of the people on the opposite side and I have seen for myself exactly how we got to this point. It is particularly interesting to see the commentary from people like the member for Northcote, whose election campaign received a $10,000 donation from a property developer. I am not quite sure that that really fits with some of her commentary – a property developer that is the subject of an anti-corruption commission investigation through IBAC, I would add.

What actually happened is that maintenance in public housing here in Victoria got so bad it got to crisis point. This stock was falling down. The government had a choice. They could invest – rebuild ageing public housing, build more, fix it up – but instead what they decided was it was a liability and they would get rid of it or at least try and find a way not to pay for it. Of course Labor does not say that. Labor says they are building more affordable homes, but that is actually not really what is happening. Let us talk about what is actually going on. The government has a model called the ground lease model. The government takes public land – that is, land that belongs to everyone in Victoria and has existing public housing on it – and essentially give it to private property developers. They will say it is a lease, but just like privatising the Port of Melbourne and VicRoads, long-term leases are a model of privatisation just made to sound more palatable. What they do is they then demolish the public housing. They move the tenants out. They say, ‘Don’t worry, we promise that you’ll be able to come back.’ Then they take the land and they use it to build a whole bunch of private homes, giving those profits to the private developers. They rent or sell them for profit at market rates.

The government have bought this neoliberal ideology. It sounds good, right? The government does not have to pay much. Developers will rebuild public housing for them. Win–win, right? But if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, and there is a catch – in fact there are many catches. First, we are essentially gifting public land to developers. They make a mint on land that we could have actually used to build public housing. Once the land is gone, we are not getting it back. Secondly, the housing that is rebuilt is not actually public housing at all but community or affordable housing managed by non-government organisations where people will likely be paying more of their income on rent than public housing tenants and do not have the same rights. It results in a loss of public housing overall. On top of this the government says it will result in a net increase in social homes, but actually most of them are much smaller apartments, so overall the number of people, the number of bedrooms, is actually reduced, so fewer people can live there. In a case like Barak Beacon estate in Port Melbourne it means that public homes in good condition are being bulldozed so developers can sell private apartments with beachfront views – what a boon for the developers. Labor will try to spin it, but it is selling off public land for private profit.

We have actually had experience of this in my own electorate of Melbourne. In 2005 the government demolished public housing in Carlton and sold the land to developers for a tiny fraction of the market value. The developers made about $300 million. They did this because they said they needed to integrate public housing residents with private tenants, but as the project went on, the developers started to change their plans. They separated and segregated the public housing buildings from the private apartments. The private apartments were offered exclusive access to a garden and a courtyard that were actually separated from the public housing residents by a 1.8-metre-high wall. Then in 2012 public housing in Kensington was sold for 5 per cent of its true value to developers – they made $45 million from the redevelopment – and 265 public housing properties were lost from the estate. The minister talks about Ascot Vale. We have someone in the gallery here watching who is from the Ascot Vale estate. Only apparently one person is living in the affordable housing in Ascot Vale at the moment.

Instead of learning from these mistakes, the government doubled down on this model. I get it. They do not want to pay for the maintenance of public housing. But guess what? You are the government. You have to. We get so many people through our office. We had someone who had their bathroom roof fall in from water damage that they had been reporting to their local housing office for months but could not get fixed. I visited an elderly man recently who had lived for 10 years with a broken kitchen exhaust fan despite reporting it was broken, a mother whose front door would not lock and she could not sleep at night – these stories just go on and on and on. In North Melbourne, in my electorate – I want to tell one more story – Khali was forcibly removed from her public housing in Abbotsford Street because it is part of this model that is being developed. She was evicted in 2018. She was told that she could come back to this estate. She was rushed out. She felt pressured to accept a property that was not suitable for her family, but she did it because apparently she could come back. She was told she could return in two years, by 2020. Demolition did not even start until 2021. Then the time line was pushed out to 2023. Now it has become 2024, so it has not even started. Residents like Khali have been waiting for five years to come home, but now there is actually no guarantee that the property will be even big enough for her to return. On top of this the government has scrapped the community consultative committee of that project that would have given residents a say.

We can build public housing. We do not need to rely on this privatisation model. This state budget allocated over $400 million in new money for the racing industry and only $100 million for homelessness services. This is not a matter of not having the money. This is a matter of not having the political will. There are people watching this debate. They are watching what this government does. They want more public housing – proper public housing – and they will watch what this government does.

Brad ROWSWELL (Sandringham) (18:01): Look, I am conscious that clearly during the course of the matter of public importance debate there are a number of speakers who have not filled the time allocated to them, but with the 1 minute and 28 seconds that is allocated to this debate, I am very, very happy to make a small contribution.

I think that nothing could be more fundamental than the opportunity for a fellow Victorian – in this place we speak about numbers, we speak about statistics, we speak about theories and things that are far removed from the realities of community and life. But when we speak about housing, we should remember first and foremost that we are talking about our fellow Victorians. We are speaking about mothers and fathers. We are speaking about brothers and sisters. We are speaking about people who are hard on their luck, people who are tragically exposed to the cycle of dependency. On this side of politics we want to do everything we can to enable those people and to empower those people to stand on their own two feet, to get on with their lives and to be net contributors to our community. That is our determination when it comes to matters of housing.

Further, what we want to see is that everyone who needs a house gets a house. What could be more fundamental? Because a roof over someone’s head provides for them the opportunity to contribute back to the community, and that is something which will always be a guiding principle for this side of the chamber, unlike for those on the government side and from the Greens who have contributed today.