Thursday, 13 August 2026

 Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (17:13): (1779) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Housing, Building and Precincts. The action I seek is for the minister to accelerate maintenance and renewal of public housing stock in the electorate of Gippsland South. This is an issue that has been gaining traction in the worst way possible over the last 12 or 18 months, particularly with certain individual circumstances of houses that have been off the market for use by people in need, simply because the government has not done the work on maintenance or renewal. I did ask the minister a couple of months ago for an update on the number of vacant properties in Gippsland South, and he was good enough to actually give me those figures: 147 vacant properties, 40 of which are scoped for general capital upgrade works and a further 11 properties which are earmarked for disposal through demolition or sale. So that is 51 homes that are currently not available, with 40 of them waiting for upgrade works.

We appreciate that at the end of a tenancy, or whatever the issues might be with maintenance, sometimes it does take a period of time for the government to get tradesmen in to undertake these upgrade works, but I hear anecdotally repeatedly about the number of homes that are left vacant where, for example, there might be a window smashed and it is simply boarded up and left untenanted for a very long time. We had a particular situation in Station Road in Foster where a property was vacant for about 12 months, and I still have at least two elderly couples who are in need of housing in the Foster area. They have seen this property; they know it is Homes Victoria stock. It has finally, after 12 months, been renovated and looked after. I believe the department is now trying to put someone into it. But it is emblematic of the problems that we have, and it is very, very sad.

I am sure many of my colleagues will be aware that 12 years ago, when I got elected to Parliament, you did not see someone sleeping rough. It just did not happen. But it is now happening in our country towns all the time. I do not believe for a moment that prior to that there were no homeless people; it was just that there were not the people sleeping rough. It is now happening time and time again. That is an issue with the private market, but it is particularly an issue with government housing. We have had the government trumpet for a long time just how much money it is supposedly spending on the Big Housing Build, particularly in regional areas, but it is just not getting through. To have 147 homes sitting empty at any given time, 40 of which were in my electorate and which are waiting for capital upgrade works, is leaving those families and people without somewhere to live. I ask the minister to take action to actually get on top of this issue and make sure that the homes that are there are fit for habitation and to get someone into them as quickly as possible.