Thursday, 30 October 2025

 Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (17:23): (1383) My adjournment this evening is for the Minister for Housing and Building in the other place, and the action I seek is for the minister to immediately intervene in the Homes Victoria decision to go against its earlier commitments to the Colac Otway shire and the community – to not build 50 small Homes Victoria homes on the one site in Pound Road and in fact to listen to the community and build 40, with some open space, and find other locations in the community, in consultation with the Colac Otway shire, to build the balance of the 10 units.

This is really important because, like all regional communities, Colac Otway shire and the township of Colac are in fact desperate for some more public housing homes, having been neglected now for so long in the provision of affordable social housing. However, despite decades of evidence that says concentrating disadvantage in one small spot with no outdoor space, no car parking, no green space and not close to public transport is not a good idea, this government has decided to inflict that model for no good reason on this country community.

More disturbingly, in a meeting only today with the CEO of the Colac Otway Shire Council and council representatives, the government had the gall to tell the local representatives, upon the news of the reversal of their decision to build 40 homes with open space, ‘We’re no longer going ahead with the open space, because it’s too dangerous.’ What a terrible, terrible thing to tell a community – that we cannot provide some dignity and open space to the most vulnerable, who we seek to house, because it is too unsafe. If that is not a sign of a government giving up on good planning, giving up on suitable housing, giving up on properly supporting regional and country communities, then I do not know what is.

Minister, I plead with you to talk to your Homes Victoria representatives to demand, quite frankly, that they treat regional communities with respect. They need to talk to the local councils. This is a project where the quantum of housing is greatly supported by the community. The decision and the application of that decision are up for great contest. It is not supported by the mayor, it is not supported by the council, it is not supported by the neighbours, it is not supported by the Salvation Army, it is not supported by the local community. No-one agrees with the tack this government taking – to think that your department, Minister, went through a sham community consultation process where they undertook to do some difference but now, at the 11th hour, have decided to take away that consultation, take away that community input and to go ahead with their original plan regardless of the community.