Wednesday, 4 October 2023

Ministers statements: housing

Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:28): It is an honour today to rise to give my first ministers statement as the Minister for Housing and to share how our landmark housing statement will bring the biggest shake-up to planning and housing reform in generations. This is about acknowledging the reality that Victoria is growing. We are the fastest growing state in Australia, with our population set to hit 10.3 million people by 2051. To ease the housing pressure that Victorians are facing, we need to build 2.24 million homes in that time, and that includes a target of 425,600 homes across rural and regional Victoria.

Victoria’s Housing Statement: The Decade Ahead 2024–2034 sets a really bold target to build 800,000 new homes – that is, 80,000 a year – across the state in the next 10 years. This will be delivered through an affordability partnership with the housing industry and will complement the $5.3 billion already invested as part of the Big Housing Build and a range of other investments that we have made and will continue to make in program and service delivery.

The statement itself focuses on five key areas to tackle the root of the problem, being housing supply. We need good decisions and we need them to be made faster, so reforming our planning system and clearing the backlog of planning permits, cheaper housing closer to where people work and need to access transportation and health care, protecting renters rights, more social housing and a long-term housing plan are all components of this plan that will come together to deliver real reform to boost our housing supply.