Housing
Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (12:44): (350) My question is for the Minister for Housing. Minister, the Labor government made an election promise late last year to install air-conditioning units across Victoria’s public housing towers, with a $141 million budget earmarked for this in the budget. We have been talking to many residents since your government’s decision to demolish 44 public housing towers, and many residents are reporting that they are yet to see any sign of the air conditioners. For others, work seems to have begun in their homes and they have had holes in their walls for months but no units. With an El Niño event underway, residents are very concerned about unbearable summer heat without a way to cool down. Given Labor’s plan to demolish the public housing towers, many public housing renters are worried that this cooling initiative has been scrapped. Minister, will the government fulfil its promise to install air conditioning in the existing public housing towers across Victoria?
Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:45): Thank you very much for that question. I appreciate the opportunity to answer it, because it does link back directly to Dr Ratnam’s question to me earlier about the housing towers. I just want to point out the poor insulation and indeed thermal heat capturing qualities of the concrete slab prefabricated construction that typifies these towers. This means that invariably – and many residents have actually talked to me and also to you about the impact of this – it takes a while for these concrete structures to heat up, but once they do they do not lose heat quickly at all, which means that in summer, as you correctly identified with an El Niño having been declared with those hotter, drier conditions, we will see that those temperatures will hold for longer periods of time.
In our public housing stock it therefore becomes increasingly important to provide people with respite from the heat. We do have that investment of $141 million to install air conditioning throughout our high-rise estate, and we have begun work on that. As you may be aware, the electrical systems that are in place across these towers are not consistent with the energy required to develop and to deliver air conditioning across those entire stocks. That is where, again, those electrical upgrades are occurring at the same time that the air-conditioning installations are occurring, and we have got a number of areas where we have continued to develop and to deliver that air-conditioning pilot. You will note, when you go to those towers, that you can see those round vents in the sides of the buildings where those pilots are taking place and being rolled out progressively across towers.
Importantly, though, when we install air conditioning, it is subject in its success to the way in which we are also mitigating the loss of cooling from those areas. If you have got a vertical increase in heat throughout a tower and you do not have, for example, double glazing, that then means you are almost immediately going to lose any benefit that you would have through installation of, say, a split system. We are working through those issues around ventilated spaces for condensers, lower floor-to-ceiling heights and again making sure that we have got cabling and switchboard upgrades. That work is absolutely continuing. We want people to have a measure of comfort in public and social housing that they deserve, and that is another reason why the new buildings that we are delivering as we upgrade social housing as part of this record investment have the insulation, energy efficiency and split systems in place that will keep people comfortable, particularly people from vulnerable cohorts, such as those living with disability, people with little kids and indeed older residents.
Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (12:48): I thank the minister for the answer. Minister, we have heard elderly residents were told to purchase their own units and then that Homes Victoria would do the installation. Is this what your government is instructing residents to do?
Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:48): If you do have any specific examples of concern, I am always happy to talk about them. The work that we are doing, though, is about prioritising and installing air conditioners into towers. There may well be areas where priority cohorts are not identified but people still want to have an air conditioner in their home. I am not sure whether you are referring to installation of a split system, which would require a reconfiguration of the electrical and switchboard cabling capabilities, or indeed if you are talking about a portable air conditioner. I am very happy to talk with you further about that should you have specific examples. But we are in the process of continuing with that tender process for development of the revised air-conditioning installation program and making sure that that sits alongside the work we are doing with the housing statement. Again, this is why new development is so important across our social housing estates, for the comfort and the wellbeing of the people who will call them home.