Housing
Tim BULL (Gippsland East) (19:16): (739) My adjournment tonight is for the Minister for Housing, and the action I seek is more timely action to be taken against public housing tenants displaying violent and threatening behaviour. Being allocated a public housing home is something that should be respected, especially with the state of our current public housing waiting list, which is skyrocketing. In a time when we are rightly taking a stand against violence against women, it does not appear to be being applied to the very, very aggressive behaviour being displayed by violent public housing tenants. I have two single female residents in Bairnsdale who have been forced to take out intervention orders against Department of Families, Fairness and Housing tenants after having their lives threatened and being repeatedly abused. Despite calling 000 and having police attend their premises for multiple incidents on a large range of occasions, these victims have been asked to provide housing tenant officers proof of harassment to substantiate the claims. Of course this is hard to do. When you are getting violently abused you do not have your camera on filming, as that will only agitate the matter.
In a time when we often hear people in this chamber saying ‘Believe women’, this mantra is not being applied to the department of housing. The current Minister for Housing has said publicly she is sick of victim-blaming rather than the focus being on the perpetrator. The Premier has said women should have the right to move safely around their community, and I certainly agree with that, and even the Minister for Housing herself, Ms Shing in the other place, has championed respect for women and said she wants a community where women and girls feel safe. I agree with her there again. However, here we have public housing tenants continually displaying aggressive behaviour, threatening violence and repeatedly verbally abusing female neighbours, who feel they are not being protected and through lack of action are being made to feel that the problem is theirs. So I call on the minister to take stronger action in these instances and apply the mantra that the government has adopted to the department of housing.