Housing
Tim READ (Brunswick) (09:49): Last week Mark, a Northcote resident, got in touch to talk about rental stress. As the housing crisis worsens this is unfortunately not unusual, but there was something unique about this message: Mark had written a song. Do not worry, I will not sing it, but it was a poignant way to illustrate the problem. Mark had written to the Premier asking her to act to protect renters because a lack of stable housing was affecting his mental health, but instead of a response addressing his policy concern, all he got was a referral to a mental health service. We know that housing stress and homelessness can cause or exacerbate mental illness; a good government would treat housing as the important form of primary mental health care that it is and prioritise rent controls and public housing in Victoria. We cannot just ignore the issue and leave our overstretched mental health system to deal with the fallout, and if we are going to be referring people to Lifeline, we had better make sure it is properly funded. I suspect it is not right now. The Premier and her government must do better than what we hear in the final verse of the original song A Lifeline by Mark Hall:
Then she gave me her reply,
“Call 13 11 14”
…
“Call 13 11 14,
That’s all we can offer, nothing more”