Wednesday, 25 May 2022

Statements on reports, papers and petitions

Department of Treasury and Finance

Budget papers 2022–23

Ms LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (17:14): I rise to speak on the state budget 2022–23, which raises the budget for public housing, and in particular I want to talk about the public housing waiting lists. We hear a lot from this government about their big build and, you know, how over the next few years they are going to build 12 800 properties, but in reality they will house only a very small portion of the applicants on this list.

The minister recently released the March 2022 figures, and the waiting list has now blown out to 54 945 applications. That is not 54 945 individuals—that is households, that is applications. Invest Victoria says that an average household in Victoria is 2.7 people, so we know that some of those people will be individuals but some of them will be families with five children. If you actually multiply that number by the average household size of 2.7, that means there are nearly 150 000 Victorians on the public housing waiting list waiting to be housed.

But of even greater concern are the 30 508 families who are on the priority waiting list, and this has actually blown out by over 200 per cent since this government came to power. When I was the minister that figure was at 9990, and I thought that was way too high. I was trying to make sure that we housed those people and we drove those figures down. This government has allowed it to blow out to 30 508 applicants. That is a 205 per cent increase, which is an absolute disgrace. When we talk about priority housing we are talking about people who are homeless, people who are escaping domestic violence, people who are living with a disability and people who have special housing needs, and we know that in my electorate of Northern Victoria Shepparton has the most homeless people in the state, with 372 homeless people counted in the last census. In addition there are three other areas: the electorate of Mildura, 255; Benambra, 197; and Bendigo West, 192. Four out of the top 10 worst regional electorates for homelessness are in northern Victoria, but we are certainly not seeing enough investment in our area to house those people.

The priority list in Bendigo has blown out to 1839 applicants, which is a 360 per cent increase, and in Mildura to 359 families, which is a 259 per cent increase. In Swan Hill it has blown out to 158 families, which is a 37 per cent increase. In Seymour it has blown out to 314 families, which is a 369 per cent increase; in Shepparton, 904 families, an over 400 per cent increase; in Benalla and Wangaratta, 493 families, an over 300 per cent increase; and in Wodonga, 338 families, which is an over 122 per cent increase in the priority waiting list in that area. It is just an absolute disgrace that the government is not investing more to ensure that it houses people in northern Victoria. The big build will, as I said, house less than a quarter of the applicants on the list. The government needs to do much more, and they need to do it sooner.

They also need to invest in more youth foyers. We know that Wodonga and Wangaratta have had really good business cases with the minister for a very long time now, but we have seen no further movement from the government on announcing new youth foyers. At the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee last year the minister actually praised me and said how good those youth foyers are and that he looked forward to announcing more. Well, come on, Minister, announce more; change young people’s lives. We know that 85 per cent of the young people who go through a youth foyer leave engaged in further education and work. We know that people have gone on to build much better lives for themselves. We know that at least three participants from the Shepparton foyer alone have gone on to purchase their own home.

We need more investment from this government, and we need it now. We need it to help the people who are actually really struggling to get access to safe and affordable housing in northern Victoria, and we need to do much more to assist young people who are at risk of homelessness or who are actually couch surfing to allow them to continue their education to build a better life for themselves by having an education and going on to be self-sustaining for the rest of their lives.