Thursday, 4 May 2023

Southern Metropolitan Region

Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (12:44): (149) My question is to the Minister for Housing in the other place. One of my constituents Margaret is one of the few tenants left at the Barak Beacon public housing estate in Port Melbourne, and it is one of the many housing estates being subjected to the government’s renewal process, which actually involves a tenant eviction, demolition and rebuild approach, with public housing land being converted to private use. Margaret has written to Minister Brooks to ask why the community-backed alternative – a repair, retain and reinvest model – is not being utilised and has received only a perfunctory reply. Tenants such as Margaret are being asked to take it purely on trust that the Andrews Labor government’s ground lease model is a better investment of public funds and worth being evicted for from their homes. Will the minister commit to putting the feasibility study and the cost-benefit analysis for the Barak Beacon demolition and conversion project on the public record and on what date?