Public housing
Tim READ (Brunswick) (10:52): With El Niño now established and the fact that the planet is approaching much faster than expected a number of climate tipping points, such as the melting of permafrost and resultant methane emissions and the disappearance of forest, it is much more likely that Melbourne will experience severe heatwaves in summers to come, including possibly this one. So it was great to hear the government announce just a year ago, just prior to the election in fact, at the public housing tower in Brunswick that they were going to invest $141 million in air conditioning in Melbourne’s public housing towers. Given the presence of El Niño and the likelihood of heatwaves, and the fact that heatwave mortality particularly affects more socially deprived neighbourhoods and that mentally ill people are at greater risk of heatwave mortality, I would encourage the government to hasten the installation of air conditioning in any public housing towers that are not going to be demolished in the next couple of years. It makes sense to start with public housing as the place most in need of air conditioning, and this is probably the best way to protect those residents from heatwave mortality in the hotter weather we can expect in the not-too-distant future.