Thursday, 15 August 2024

 Peter WALSH (Murray Plains) (17:08): (781) The adjournment matter I raise is for the Minister for Housing in the other place. The Allan government has promised to build 80,000 homes every year for the next 10 years, and my question to the Minister for Housing is: how many of those promised 80,000 new homes have been built in my electorate of Murray Plains in the last 12 months?

As I said, the government has promised those 80,000 new homes each year for the next 10 years, and we are in desperate need of those homes. My office is currently dealing with a number of families who cannot find housing, and that is why it is so critical that the Allan government actually keeps those promises to build those new homes, because those families that we are dealing with just cannot get any help anywhere for a house. Of those 80,000 homes, my expectation would be that 25 per cent of the Victorian population lives in regional Victoria, so 25 per cent of those 80,000 new homes should be built in regional Victoria. That is 20,000 homes per year for regional Victoria out of that commitment to building 80,000 new homes.

A good place to start for those new homes would be Swan Hill, in my electorate, where one of the major builders there has actually started to lay off staff because it does not have enough work to keep all its staff employed. There is the land in Swan Hill, there is the demand in Swan Hill and there are the workers available in Swan Hill to build those homes, so what we need is the government to keep its promise to build those 80,000 new homes per year for the next 10 years, and particularly to build 20,000 of those homes in regional Victoria, because they are so desperately needed. I want to make sure that a fair share of those homes are in my electorate. As I said at the start, I ask the Minister for Housing to tell me how many homes are built in my electorate of that 80,000 each year.