Commonwealth Games
Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:04): (282) My question is to the Minister for Housing. Minister, on 20 June you advised this house in relation to the building of housing for the Commonwealth Games that ‘construction is on track to commence later this year’. Given that documents prove that the government contracted legal services to help cancel the Commonwealth Games as early as 1 June, why did the minister say that the government remained on track to build Commonwealth Games housing across regional Victoria?
The PRESIDENT: I am concerned that it was the minister under a previous responsibility, but I will let the minister answer as she sees fit.
Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:05): This is an area where, again, as I have said repeatedly to this house – particularly on the question of housing, which is squarely within the remit of the question that you have asked – I am keen to provide information about the work to progress an increase in the volume of housing being made available. The pivot that I am trying to assist you here with, Ms Crozier, being mindful of the fact that the regional package is work that is being auspiced under regional development – and my colleague Ms Tierney is working on that $2 billion fund, which includes $1 billion of social and affordable housing – is that I am wanting to again provide assistance to you, Ms Crozier, and to the house about what that will mean, with more than 1300 social and affordable homes being delivered across regional Victoria. This is about making sure that those homes are located where they need to be, that the objective is to make sure that now we have the opportunity to put those homes immediately into their final locations and that this will also enable us to meet the needs of regional and rural communities as they have told us that those needs are present now and will be present into the future.
That has been part of a range of conversations over a long period of time now, including conversations attended by my predecessor Minister Brooks in the other place, who is now working on the private sector and precincts part of the government’s work on housing across the state, the housing statement and complementing the work of that $5.3 billion fund. There is $1.25 billion in regional housing as part of that fund and another $1 billion in the regional package. This is about being able to deploy resources, housing, in a range of configurations to the areas where it is needed, alongside initiatives like the $150 million Regional Workforce Accommodation Fund.
There is a fair bit in what you have asked that I am looking to provide you with assistance on. Again, I do not have the transcript you are quoting from, and I do not like to have anyone quote me out of context, so I am happy for you to perhaps put that on the record.
Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:08): I will just repeat those dates again. On 20 June – you can check Hansard, and I am pretty sure that we are correct in the quote – you told this house around the housing for the Commonwealth Games that ‘construction is on track to commence later this year’, yet the government contracted legal services to cancel the Commonwealth Games on 1 June, so 19 days prior to when you made that statement in this house. So my question is, Minister: will you admit that you have misled the house around what you stated on 20 June?
Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:08): Thank you, Ms Crozier, for that supplementary. Now we get to the nub of what you are after here. I did not mislead the house. The work that we are doing to deliver housing as part of the regional package within that $1 billion fund is as much about preplanning, about preconstruction and about master planning as it is about delivering greater volumes of housing stock to rural and regional Victoria.
Evan Mulholland interjected.
Harriet SHING: This is also about – to pick up what you have just raised, Mr Mulholland – being able to move immediately and directly to providing that fit-for-purpose housing, including across sites that have been identified in previous public announcements about those areas, particularly in Geelong and Bendigo. That work does go on, and I am really happy to continue to provide you with updates, Ms Crozier.