Thursday, 20 November 2025

 Brad ROWSWELL (Sandringham) (17:20): (1443) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Housing and Building, and the action that I seek is that the minister re-evaluate the complaints procedure at the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing to ensure the safety of community first. My office continues to receive a disturbing number of complaints regarding social housing in our community. I have been confronted with stories of neighbours who are living in fear, too scared to open their own front door and leave their house after dark lest they be confronted with a machete-wielding public housing tenant, as happened recently to a member of my community. I received video footage from a scared resident in a unit complex of a resident attempting to attack her friend in the middle of the street in broad daylight with a baseball bat. This is what it has come to. Residents in my community are having to endure police sirens at their door, the screams of violent outbursts echoing into their homes and even death threats. It is simply not acceptable.

I have also heard from landlords who, with the greatest of intentions, hand their property over to the public housing system to house someone in need. These are empathetic Victorians, good Victorians, who are willing to provide for the greater good of others. Yet they get their properties trashed and destroyed, as is the case for one Mentone property owner who had their property turned into a drug lab. This was even after the tenant spent time in jail and the property was supposed to be vacated. Why then, I ask, are decent Victorians being punished by this government’s inaction, and why, when they contact the department of housing, does it take quite literally months to organise the removal of the resident or the resolution of the circumstance? The current circumstance is, quite frankly, a disaster. Every single Victorian deserves to be safe in their own home. The Allan Labor Government must take action to ensure these innocent people are safe and can leave their homes without fear.