Thursday, 16 November 2023

Preston electorate housing

Nathan LAMBERT (Preston) (17:31): (460) Like the member for Ashwood, my adjournment matter is for the Minister for Housing in the other place, and the action I seek is for the minister to join me in visiting the Strathmerton Bolderwood public housing estate to chat with residents about their experiences with our public housing and the government’s policies and plans for the future.

We heard this week from the Premier about the huge body of work that this government is doing to upgrade and build social housing. That program is very real, it is very important and it is making a difference in Preston and Reservoir as we speak. We have watched a lot of those new social housing dwellings being built, and we are very excited to now see many of them being tenanted. Some have been built for specific communities, including I believe 39 in our area as part of our Building New Homes to Fight Homelessness program. I think it is a real credit to the minister, her department and the contractors that whatever the specifics of those builds, they have been done in a way and are of such good quality that they are indistinguishable from the private housing builds that might be next door. As we know, if we look back historically, that certainly was not always the case.

I would like to shout out to the team at Harnest in particular, who have done a great job with some of the builds near our home, and I do want to shout out to Richard in their team. The former Minister for Housing, the Minister for Creative Industries, and I met Richard at one of their projects. Richard actually grew up in public housing just near Northland. He has now moved, I think, somewhere further north, but as life would happen, he is now back in his old neighbourhood just around the corner from his old house working as a building professional on our public housing projects. I suppose, as such, Richard was in a unique position to observe that it is certainly true that we do those builds much better than we used to in almost every respect in terms of the quality, the energy efficiency, the way we work with prospective tenants and the way we work with the community and neighbours. We thank Richard for his work and all of that team.

If the minister does come up to the estate, she might get the chance to drop into Reservoir Neighbourhood House, which is just next door. It is a wonderful place of community and family for local residents in that area – a shout-out to Craig, Kate, Lia and everyone up there. They held their AGM recently, and I believe that Vicki, one of their wonderful volunteers, was recognised as volunteer of the year. I think she was; if not, I have just anointed her volunteer of the year. But I know that every time we are up there Vicki is there. She does fantastic work. We thank her for her work in that community. I am sure she will have some things to pass on to the minister if the minister should get the chance to get out there as well. We thank the minister for her consideration.