Wednesday, 30 October 2024

 Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (15:06): (876) My question is to the Minister for Housing. Why is Labor wasting $360 million to demolish public housing in my electorate when there is a better alternative on offer? Beza came to Melbourne after leaving Ethiopia at the age of 12. She studied here and has worked as a nurse at the Royal Melbourne Hospital for 10 years. A personal crisis during the height of the pandemic in 2021 meant she faced the prospect of homelessness as a single mother, but Beza found a home at the Flemington public housing estate. She says public housing saved her life and the life of her child. But right now she is terrified because in the middle of a housing crisis Labor wants to kick her family out of her home, demolish the building and then use this land to build mostly private apartments. What makes this plan even more baffling is that demolishing the towers is actually more expensive than the government retrofitting those buildings and building new public housing on the site. This plan makes absolutely no sense and is a waste of money.