Wednesday, 3 June 2026

 Gabrielle DE VIETRI (Richmond) (17:01): Labor has let down my community. Earlier this year – during the school holidays, thank goodness – Collingwood College’s ceiling began to collapse, with chunks of concrete falling into classrooms, forcing them to close off a third of their learning spaces. Students now cannot access the science labs or the computer classrooms, affecting their ability to learn at a crucial time of their lives. The school council and management raised the alarm about the ceiling stability multiple times, but it took me lining up the media to get this government to do anything about it, and even then we were looking at bandaids, temporary portable cabins, with no timeline for serious structural repairs and upgrades to make Collingwood College safe, now and into the future. Local residents, parents, the community and students should have been listened to from the very start. I am calling on the government to follow through with urgent and extensive repairs to Collingwood College and to stop pork-barrelling school funding.

Parents at Spensley Street Primary School in Clifton Hill have also been fighting for basic repairs to make their school functional. Spensley Street is a thriving community, but its facilities have been neglected by this government for decades and the school is desperate for upgrades. After huge pressure from me in Parliament and from the local community and again media attention, the government finally agreed to the bare minimum: repairing the toilet blocks, where the toilets constantly need unblocking. The blocks are growing moss and have unstable floors and walls. For years children have not wanted to go to the toilet while they were at school because the toilet blocks were in such a state. This was urgent and critical and, frankly, the delivery from the government is very little and very late. There are still urgent upgrades to the admin spaces, collaboration spaces and first-aid spaces that have not been funded. I will keep pushing for that, because the Clifton Hill community deserves so much better.

Every morning in Clifton Hill and Collingwood hundreds of workers, children, students and local residents cross the multilane highway that is Alexandra Parade. But the crossing at Gold Street is dangerous and not fit for purpose despite traffic lights and the crossing supervisors working really hard to ensure everybody’s safety. The timing of the lights heavily favours pedestrians, the crossing is too narrow and not well delineated for the dozens of pedestrians and cyclists that cross at one time. Many cars leave the freeway and just speed through the red light, putting kids at risk. This intersection must be made safer for schoolchildren, pedestrians and cyclists, so I am calling once again on the local council and the Minister for Roads and Road Safety to work together to make this crossing safe.

Our young people are being short-changed. At a time when this government seem to be hell-bent on focusing on youth crime, funnelling billions of dollars into our prison system, they are stripping support for critical community-based preventative programs that give our young people the best chance in life. The Sunrise homework club in Collingwood and Richmond helps 86 young people from Collingwood and Richmond public housing estates to complete their homework, have a meal and connect with community. It is run by the local parents, some of whom are still learning English themselves. The homework club also gives those parents culturally appropriate support networks to deal with navigating school and government bureaucracy and a landing pad for newly arrived refugee and migrant families, and it really helps develop strong community bonds.

Young people who have been students there at the homework club have gone on to uni and then come back to teach the next generation. Because of the community’s and the Greens’ advocacy, Yarra council has recently reinstated the funding that was cut last year, but it only covers a really small proportion of the funding that they need. So we are now asking the state government to step in with $90,000 a year to cover teachers, textbooks, supplies and meals for the students. At a time when migrant communities are being scapegoated and young people need all the support that they can get, I urge the state government to step in and support the Sunrise Homework Club.

Airtime Basketball runs an amazing youth crime prevention program. Head coach Manny Hendrix Jr and the Airtime Basketball community have fostered meaningful connections with hundreds of young people, mainly from African backgrounds, and many of them are Collingwood public housing estate residents. Manny’s approach is to engage people in basketball as an access point to holistic wraparound support, including mental health specialists, nutritionists, mentors, drivers and homework tutors. Programs like this prevent youth crime that Labor and the Libs are constantly trying to outdo each other on. Rather than ruining more lives by locking kids up and increasing the chance of them reoffending when they get out, we can actually look at the evidence for preventative programs like Airtime Basketball. I urge the state government to recognise the value of these holistic programs like Airtime Basketball and like the Sunrise Homework Club and deliver the money that they need to give young kids the best chance in life.

Labor has failed our community when it comes to public transport. Richmond station is not fit for purpose. Ten thousand workers flow through it daily, but it has not seen an upgrade in 60 years. The platforms are narrow, the surrounding areas are dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists and it is not accessible for people who use wheelchairs. Two of the three exits are often closed because the government contract requires them to be staffed when they are open, so they just close them. Keep the gates open, upgrade the station and upgrade the surrounding areas in Richmond and Cremorne to bring in better flow and to get more open space and safer access for pedestrians and cyclists. Burnley station has also been neglected by the state government. The only access to it is an underpass that floods when it rains. The ramps to the platforms do not meet basic accessibility standards. This urgently needs to be updated. East Richmond station has infrequent services. Despite being on one of Melbourne’s busiest rail corridors, many trains pass through and few actually stop. The residents have told me they are fed up. They want more trains stopping at East Richmond station, and I am joining them to ask, as the populations of Richmond, Burnley and Cremorne continue to grow, that our public transport options grow too.

Local residents in Abbotsford and Richmond are asking for more community investment for a community and cultural centre on Victoria Street, for trees and plants along the shopping strip, for a support centre for those in need and to help revitalise the local shops. We were lucky to be able to secure $2 million of investment into the North Richmond precinct fund, but this is not enough. Many of us have been calling for support for people sleeping rough and for those struggling with mental illness or drug addiction in the area. Yet Labor stripped support for young people who are using drugs or at risk of committing crimes when they defunded YSAS, and Yarra council, by order of the mayor, completely defunded the Yarra Drug and Health Forum, which coordinates a local response to drug and alcohol use between the council, the government, the community, the health services and the police. Right now we are seeing the impact of both of those moves, and anyone can predict that it spells disaster for the future of the Richmond and Abbotsford communities. That is why I am calling on the council and the state government to urgently reinstate funding for these important services. This district has been the centre of Victoria’s Vietnamese community for decades, and we want to see it thrive. For that we need a big vision, we need proper funding and we need ongoing support for the local community, particularly for those who are struggling.

The Greens will always support evidence-based harm reduction approaches to drug use and addiction. That is why I am proud to host the supervised injecting facility and Victoria’s only pill-testing facility in my electorate.

The medically supervised injecting room is a lifeline for so many. It has saved hundreds of lives and safely managed thousands of overdoses. They offer wraparound services to drug users, social support, housing support and pathways to better health and employment.

North Richmond Community Health has secured a couple of outreach workers who can leave the centre and assist people in the surrounding area, and they do such an incredible job. I have called on them personally to help someone I could see was having a mental health crisis. But they are stretched thin, and the need is only growing. That is why I am calling on the government to fund additional outreach workers in Abbotsford and Richmond and will keep pushing for more supervised injecting rooms wherever there is need.

Cohealth in Collingwood and Fitzroy have been fighting for survival. Over many years they have consistently asked for more support from the Victorian and the federal Labor governments so that they can deliver health services to people with complex needs. Pressure from our community and from the Greens secured temporary reprieve, but the government cannot expect Cohealth to run a functional health service if they have to fight every 12 months for breadcrumbs. That is no way to run a health service. They need permanent, sustainable funding and more infrastructure support to be able to deliver their vital services for our community. Since 2019 Cohealth has had a shovel-ready plan to rebuild their crumbling facility in Collingwood, along with 50 co-located community homes for people with complex health needs to live in. But Labor has refused to fund this important health centre. This is an urgent call on the state government to cough up the money to rebuild the Collingwood health centre, alongside this additional housing, as recommended by the independent review that was released today and is supported by the community.

While this year’s budget support at the federal level was about winding back tax concessions for property investors, Labor at a Victorian level quietly extended its uncapped stamp duty concession for off-the-plan apartments and townhouses until April 2027. This concession, which is open to ultra-wealthy property developers buying multi-million-dollar penthouses costs taxpayers millions of dollars every year. Last year it was reported that buyers of luxury developments were the main beneficiary of the scheme. One recipient saved $1.1 million on a $20 million purchase in a luxury development in Armadale. Labor says this concession will help boost housing supply, but experts have described it as a windfall for developments that would have proceeded anyway and for buyers who would have purchased regardless. If this scheme was really about helping struggling people get into home ownership, surely there would be a cap on the concession. Every dollar this Labor government spends on an uncapped tax concession for billionaires and property investors is a dollar that cannot be invested elsewhere to get people in need of a home into a home.

This is a grievance motion. This is an opportunity to raise complaints and problems, and I have left my biggest grievance until last. Like so many of the activists engaged on this issue, I am exhausted talking about it over and over with not a shred of compassion or interest from the Labor government, banging our heads against a brick wall. I am referring to their plans to demolish all of Victoria’s 44 public housing towers. It is an outrageous, expensive, poorly thought out and frankly inhumane plan that affects my constituency more than most. We have the most public housing in our electorate, with around 500 local residents that are going to be impacted – families who will be moved away from their school, elderly people who will no longer have access to their GPs and communities that will be torn apart. It will completely gut the public housing that our state provides, which is already shamefully the lowest in the country.

Just yesterday the government responded to the parliamentary inquiry, rejecting all but four of the 21 recommendations. After such compelling testimony, frankly, it is arrogant and disrespectful that Labor is charging ahead with a disastrous plan to demolish and privatise all our public housing towers in Victoria, despite the parliamentary inquiry clearly recommending otherwise. This project has no support from experts, no support from the community, no justification and no public benefit. They refuse to rule out selling off public land to developers. They could not guarantee there would be any public housing built on future redevelopments, and they refuse to publish a case-by-case justification for demolishing over retrofitting.

Labor is refusing our community transparency, refusing people their human rights, refusing expert advice and refusing to tell us the truth: who really benefits from this project? The only winners are private developers, who want access to valuable land, and Labor, who want their dirty donations. The Victorian Labor government have proven that they interest in ensuring that people have housing; they have made that clear. But that will not stop us from fighting this every step of the way.