Wednesday, 15 October 2025

 Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (17:31): Boy oh boy, am I ready to grieve this afternoon. Listening to some of the grieving opportunities from the government members today – you know, the best they can do to represent the good people of Victoria and regional Victoria is to sort of quote Victorian governments from nearly 30 years ago. I think that expresses the loss of focus that this government has. The member for Lara, the member for Ripon, and others – and probably the member for Wendouree – say they represent their communities. One of the biggest protest rallies ever against the government was in the member for Wendouree’s electorate in recent weeks, and she tried to write it off as a bunch of malcontents. She completely disrespected the people within her community and around her community. We have the members for Ripon and Lara, who have had major projects cited for their communities. They do not talk about the angst and the heartache in those.

But worst of all, the biggest issue still in regional Victoria is, of course, the massive tax burden that this government insists on inflicting on regional Victorians. And the bit that they just do not understand is that people are paying hand over fist. I mean, for example, this emergency services tax. You know, the fire trucks and the volunteers and everybody – they have got to take their lives into their own hands to drive on the roads. In fact I received multiple pieces of correspondence this week from people on the Great Ocean Road. We are inviting the world to come and ride on the Great Ocean Road this weekend with Amy’s Gran Fondo, and people are genuinely concerned about the safety of the thousands of bike riders in that region because there are just so many dangerous potholes on the Great Ocean Road. This is an iconic road – it is the nation’s largest war memorial – and this government cannot even find the resources to maintain it to a standard that we can ride a bike on. That is how desperate things are in the state of Victoria. So when we understand how broke we are, how poorly managed we are, and how this government is happy to film the Premier on the world’s largest escalator, going up and down and surfacing herself down in a train station that we are led to believe will open sometime in the next six to eight months, when that eventually happens – the Premier cites that as this government’s crowning achievement. The rest of us, who will most likely never use these facilities, are left to deal with the consequences.

The biggest consequence, of course, is the housing crisis. As the Shadow Minister for Planning and Housing, I deal with this issue every day. A couple of things concern me about the debate this afternoon. One was that the member for Laverton bemoaned the fact that people want to live in her electorate. She said, ‘The opposition wants people to live in Laverton.’ Well, when was the last time a member of this chamber did not want people to live in their electorate? I mean, you come to this role proud of your electorate. People coming to live in your electorate is a good thing. And yet we have members of Parliament representing the new areas of Melbourne – the growth areas of Melbourne – and members of Parliament are bemoaning the fact that people want to live there. That I find extraordinary.

But, as the member for Bulleen points out, perhaps one of the reasons the member for Laverton can be forgiven for misunderstanding the desires of people to live in her part of the world is because she is not from there either. And so I guess, as a parachuted member from Sydney, she probably does not fully understand the wishes and desires of the people in her community.

But when we look at the rhetoric coming from government at the highest levels, we can fully understand why the member for Laverton may have said that people going to live in her community was a bad thing. I refer first to the former Premier, who in 2022 made a grand announcement, which has sort of been the focus of this government for quite some time, that young people do not want to own houses. Young people do not want to live in houses; they all want to live in apartments. Okay, that was his choice, because he had the significant data research from what his kids had told him. So let us assume that the Andrews family want to sell up in Mulgrave and go somewhere else into a penthouse apartment perhaps. That is good for them, but is it the desire of the average Victorian? Well, this side of the house absolutely supports Victorians’ rights to own a home, to have their ambition to get their piece of dirt and have their own home. It is not a desire everyone has, but it is still, we believe, an overriding reason for people to live. So you can imagine my shock when attending a briefing to industry sector leaders in the last week when this was the rhetoric from the head of planning and housing here in the state of Victoria, and I will quote. In the lead-up to this, of course, those at the forum asked the question: why was housing so unaffordable and so unattainable here in Victoria? And the answer to that question was: yes, in part it is tax. So the government and those in the department recognise that the 43 to 44 per cent tax burden that is on the average cost of a new house is part of the problem. We agree with that. We absolutely agree with that.

Then they went on to say, ‘In part it’s planning reform.’ Well, yes, we can always do better planning reform; that is true. Of course we disagree strongly with the way this government is zeroing in on local councils, local communities and existing residents to demonise them as part of the problem. But nonetheless, we will agree that there is in part planning reform required, and yes, ‘Part of it is changing cultural attitudes to housing.’ There is that ‘cultural attitudes to housing’ concept that the former Premier brought up some three years ago.

Let us go further into the answer. ‘I do hear a lot that migrants come to Australia chasing the Australian dream of the quarter-acre block.’ Well, I am really sorry, but that dream does not exist anymore in Victoria. Imagine a government so bereft of good housing policy that it publicly declares to the housing industry, to those given the job of building new homes, ‘We’ve given up on people being able to live in a house.’ Well, I am sorry, this side of the house does not believe that. This side of the house does not support that proposition. But wait, there is more. They went on: ‘Well, I’m really sorry, but that dream does not really exist anymore. We need to as a society that includes new Australians’ – so they are having a dig at the people that come here to make a home, and this is this government speaking – ‘embrace the fact that the way we live has to change and reflect our changing society, as per the vision articulated by the former Premier.’

That is just such lazy government. It is a give up on what people want. Every single study, every single report, says most people in Victoria still aspire to own a home. This government says, ‘Oh, well, they aspire to own an apartment near a train station.’ Well, heavens above, who on earth thought that is what most people aspire to? Yes, it is part of the market; I totally agree with that. But is that where 70 per cent of Victorians want to live – they are going to come to Melbourne and live near a train station, because they are never going to drive a car again?

I am from regional Victoria. We heard members on the opposite side before talking about, ‘Oh, we’ve got to not disrespect regional Victoria.’ Well, you are not going to get very far in regional Victoria under this current government’s regime, because if you wanted to go to Warrnambool and see the whales, for example, and come through beautiful Winchelsea, Birregurra, Colac, Terang and Camperdown, if you are happy to stand for 3 or 4 hours with no food and a broken toilet – and that is if the train has not been substituted with a bus – then that might work for you. But you would probably only ever do it once, because of the concept of going that distance with substandard transport, particularly because that journey today takes longer than it did in 1890.

It takes longer than it did in 1890, and there is less food. The timetables under steam were more impressive than what this government can produce, and that is, quite frankly, a disgrace. The government not only disrespect regional Victoria but they are winding the clock back. Our roads look like roads from 1890, they are so pothole ridden. In fact I had a marvellous front page in the Colac Herald last week, you will be pleased to know. Even the member for Wendouree has been on the front page of the Colac Herald, which means they cover a broad range of topics. The member for Narracan shared that photo with you.

We had an issue where our dual-lane Princes Freeway was completely and utterly blown to bits, pothole after pothole. In order to guilt this lazy government into doing something we got the front page. Later that afternoon, out came the poor hapless Fulton Hogan repairmen or VicRoads repairmen or whoever they had on duty that day, and they threw a little bit of cold mix into the holes. Do you know what? I drove on the road that afternoon and saw the ready hasty patching that went on, because that is all country Victorians can expect these days, a bit of patching. We have patching at our schools, we have patching in our hospitals, we have patching everywhere, and now we got patching on the roads. I went back the next day after 20 mil of rain, and sure enough the cold mix was all gone and we were back to square one with our holes. That is what we are dealing with in regional Victoria.

In the moments I have left I want to get back to housing because the member for Lara, and I certainly listened to her contribution, talked about the houses this government is building. Can I just educate those opposite, because they are reading too many of their minister’s press releases which talk about the houses they are building. They are not talking about the actual increase in houses and, quite frankly, the homeless, women escaping domestic violence and the poor people living under bridges and in doorways all over Melbourne. Colac is a sea of homelessness with people living in tents that the RSL hand out. Every community is experiencing homelessness like it has never seen before.

I just remind those opposite of the most recent facts that their government has produced. If you are looking for public housing in inner-eastern Melbourne, you have less bedrooms now than what you had in 2018. If you are in outer-eastern Melbourne, you have less public bedrooms available than what you had in 2018. If you live in Hume and Merri-bek, you have less homes available. If you live in Loddon, you have got a heap less bedrooms available in public housing. North-east Melbourne has less homes and – I was actually surprised by this – even Bayside has a lot less bedrooms available than what they had in 2018. Despite all the rhetoric and focus on attacking the Shadow Attorney-General for his advocacy for his community, they have even got less in his electorate. Then we get to Inner Gippsland, fewer homes. Outer Gippsland, less bedrooms.

We get to Barwon, my own patch, the member for Lara’s patch. Who else is over there? You have got your one member who does not turn up at all for Geelong. Guess what? Barwon, my region, has less homes. We have had promises, we have had talk, we have had hard hats, we have had fluoro vests – we have had the lot – but we have got less bedrooms for $4.5 billion. We are not talking about a little, mild attempt at spending money. They have spent – I cannot say what most people would say about the amount of money – a lot of money with very little outcome, because everyone on the other side is happy to read the minister’s press release and look at glossy photos with hard hats, and no-one says, ‘Have we got more for that? Have we actually got something more for that?’ The answer, tragically, sadly, is no. The absolute irony is that the next big effort that this government is making is to demolish the 44 housing towers. They are talking about getting rid of more bedrooms before they have even got back to the same amount of bedrooms they had when they started. It just seems incompetent beyond comprehension. I know for a fact this government has been advised on numerous occasions on ways that they could have spent this money to end up with more accommodation, more housing and more safety for women escaping domestic violence.

In fact we have had quite a debate today on people with mental health and the need for support and this government’s commitment or alleged commitment to helping with mental health. Can I give an example in my own electorate? We were the beneficiaries of a community housing provider focused on mental health. The accommodation was finished back in December. We still have got empty flats or apartments in that because the system does not allow people in my local community who are desperate for mental health to get there, and the reason is they do not have enough money. So this Labor government is creating public benefit mental health housing and has a system in place that the poorest people cannot access. Quite frankly, that is a disgrace. It is just another example of how, on the housing issue, whether you are escaping domestic violence and being forced to wait in excess of two years or whether you have got mental health and you are on an NDIS plan but your NDIS plan does not have enough money to pay for your accommodation, you miss out. And these people, as a government, are happy to let brand new accommodation sit empty, just like the ones in Ararat. The member for Ripon up there has got 16 lovely new public housing apartments built – finished back in April – and they are sitting there empty. I mean, heavens above, there is a housing crisis. I do not know what more needs to be given to this government for it to understand it has to look at its performance. It has to look at how you better serve people in Victoria.