Thursday, 27 August 2026

 Nathan LAMBERT (Preston) (17:34): (1816) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Housing, Building and Precincts, and the action I seek is for the minister to progress amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act 1997 to address the very small proportion of social housing residents who pose a serious risk to the livelihoods and safety of other residents and their neighbours. Anyone who works with community housing and public housing, as we do, as I know you do, Speaker, as I know the member for Broadmeadows here does, the minister in his capacity as the member for Ivanhoe, the member for Ashwood – many of us in this place work closely with our public housing and community housing tenants, and all of us who do know the nature of this particular problem.

In Preston and Reservoir we have over 3000 people who are living in community housing or public housing. The vast, vast majority are wonderful people who make a really positive contribution to our community, but unfortunately a small percentage – a very small percentage – less than a per cent, I would certainly say, are people who cause huge difficulties for other residents in their buildings and their areas by engaging in repeated violent, unlawful and anti-social behaviour. It is clear, I think, to anyone who engages with these issues that those individuals require a housing set-up that has more support and pays more attention to safety than some of our low-support housing provides.

Think, for instance, of the most recent Housing Australia Future Fund round from the federal government. We are very grateful to our federal Labor colleagues for their support for social housing, but social housing as they have recently provided for in round 2 is funded at a rate of $17,000 per apartment per year. We welcome that subsidy, but everyone in the sector knows that that subsidy is not enough for high-need residents, and we cannot therefore have the situation that high-need residents are left in low-support housing where they cause immense problems for what are often very vulnerable other residents. We see the tragic situation where people who have fled family violence are forced to flee it again and where refugees who have come to this country where their biggest priority is safety and security are not given safety and security in housing for which we are responsible. Tragically in Reservoir in Seston Street we had the death of Melonie McKay, and our thoughts of course are with her children and her family. But those were circumstances where complaints had been raised, as I understand it, on a repeated basis about the behaviour of an individual, and action was not taken.

I disagree very fundamentally with the notion that anyone has an unalienable right to just keep the housing they are in. I think it is something that our social housing review looked at and came to the right conclusion that further reform is needed. We have undertaken some reform in this area, but realistically it is still too hard and too slow to transfer out, with the appropriate supports, people who are genuinely making life difficult and indeed who are damaging the broader agenda of social housing that all of us in this place support by increasing the perception that social housing is not safe. I thank the minister and his team for their consideration of making those further changes to the Residential Tenancies Act.