Thursday, 22 February 2024

Housing

Danny PEARSON (Essendon – Minister for Transport Infrastructure, Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop, Assistant Treasurer, Minister for WorkSafe and the TAC) (09:55): I was delighted to join the Minister for Housing at Flemington recently, when we welcomed back residents who took acceptance of brand new homes delivered by the Allan Labor government. Previously there were 188 ‍dreadful concrete walk-ups, which were freezing cold in winter and boiling hot in summer. We removed those 188 properties and we replaced them with 359 properties – 240 social homes and 119 affordable homes.

Affordable homes are incredibly important, I believe, because you want key workers living in the communities that they serve. You want to make sure that if a nurse is working at the Royal Melbourne Hospital they can live close to the Royal Melbourne, as opposed to having to travel from 50 kilometres away. It is about making sure that we have got a mix of housing stock. There is a very large African–Australian community in the state district of Essendon, many of whom have large families. What we have developed here are homes of between one and four bedrooms. It builds on the work that we did over at Dunlop Avenue in Ascot Vale, where we removed 80 walk-up dwellings and replaced them with 200 new homes – half social and half affordable.

I note the Greens are not here, because they have shown no interest in these things. These people have opposed every single investment that the Andrews–Allan Labor governments have made in social housing. We are the only game in town when it comes to making sure that the poor have the houses they deserve.