Altona Meadows community safety
Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) (17:51): (1941) I wish to raise a matter for the attention of the Minister for Housing. Last week I attended a meeting with a number of constituents along with Cr Daria Kellander from the Hobsons Bay council. These were residents of the Altona Meadows public housing estates, and they expressed to me their horror and their deep, deep distress at some of the things that they have witnessed in some of the homes in those estates. The overwhelming majority of people who live in public housing are decent, honourable, good people, but unfortunately, as I suppose everywhere, there is a section of the community that does not meet that criteria. Unfortunately these ladies told me about what they have been going through: the fact that a 79-year-old woman has been terrorised in her own home by her neighbours for three years; the substance abuse that has created havoc right through many of these streets and suburbs; and the woman who walks down their street swinging a golf club destroying everything as she goes. Imagine having to put up with that every day. I do not think that anybody should have to put up with that sort of thing. There are major drug issues. There is no question there are major drug issues in the Altona Meadows public housing estates.
This is having a major impact on mental health. One of the women that I met with last week was in tears at the meeting just recalling what she has to go through and what her relatives have to go through. It is not fair, it is not right, and it is just beyond comprehension that we could have this situation allowed to happen in Melbourne in 2022. I suspect that the housing department is not doing its job. I suspect that the housing department is allowing these abuses to occur, allowing the great majority of people in these housing estates to be terrorised and to have their lives ruined without a second thought—without inspections, without any of the precautions that one would normally expect to see from a government department. So what I am asking the minister to do this evening is to hold a ministerial inquiry into the Altona Meadows public housing estate and to find out exactly what is wrong, to find out who is doing it, to find out who is responsible for allowing it to happen and to ensure that it stops, and that it stops now.