Wednesday, 20 March 2024

Committees

Legal and Social Issues Committee

Reference

Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (14:10): I am pleased to move:

That this house:

(1) notes the government’s housing statement outlines an intention to demolish and redevelop Melbourne’s 44 public housing high-rise buildings by 2051, including a plan to build a majority of private homes on these publicly owned sites;

(2) requires the Legal and Social Issues Committee to inquire into, consider and report by December 2025 on:

(a) the rationale and cost modelling for the decision to demolish and redevelop the 44 high-rise public housing buildings and associated sites (‘the plan’), including alternatives to demolition, such as refurbishment and renovation;

(b) the impact of the plan, including the compulsory relocation and displacement of public housing residents on the future net availability of public community housing and the existing decanting plans and the department estimates on the number of people who will permanently leave the area being developed;

(c) the findings and adequacy of consultations with:

(i) public housing tower residents and their representatives;

(ii) relevant local stakeholders, such as health, community and education service providers, residents and councils;

(iii) state and federal government departments and agencies;

(d) the efficacy of the proposed financial, legal and project delivery models (including the ground lease model) to be used for the plan, versus alternative models to improve and increase the number of public and community homes on the sites in question and in Victoria;

(e) building standards for the developments, including whether there will be the same standards for public, community and private housing;

(f) how different development and ownership models will be integrated within each site to enhance community integration and achieve a diversity of tenants;

(g) the likely impacts of the plan on:

(i) the number of bedrooms currently at each location versus the proposed number of new bedrooms per site;

(ii) the number of public and community housing homes at each location and how remaining public land will be used;

(iii) the Victorian Housing Register and homelessness while the plan is being delivered;

(iv) the future of public housing in Victoria; and

(h) any other related matters.

The motion calls for an inquiry into what is happening with public housing in Victoria and particularly the government’s recent announcement on public housing towers. I was proud to join with public housing residents and advocates this morning at Parliament, all united in their support for us to pass this motion for a parliamentary inquiry today to investigate Labor’s plans for public housing in Victoria. Labor has been walking away from public housing for years, and its latest plan could be the nail in the coffin. We are urging this Parliament to not let that happen. We are urging everyone to support this inquiry.

The Victorian Labor government’s housing statement released late last year notifies the public that it will demolish all 44 public housing towers in Victoria. This significant decision was made with no consultation of residents, the broader community or even the government’s own housing authority, Homes Victoria. The government has since failed to release any information about whether feasibility investigations were done to scope out alternative options to demolition, such as renovation or refurbishment. Residents still do not have much information about their futures, and Homes Victoria have been left scrambling to legitimise this negligently undercooked plan.

The Greens have spent months doorknocking residents in these public housing towers because we wanted to understand how residents are feeling about this sudden announcement and what they actually want. Many people we have spoken to had not heard a word from the government about the fate of their homes and their communities. They were shocked to hear it from us. Those who did know about it felt powerless. They expressed that they had no choice but to leave and that they had been offered houses in suburbs far from the inner city where the public transport is limited, schools are limited and social services are scarce. They are worried that they will lose the communities they have built over many years. This was particularly a concern for those who are new migrants or refugees, for whom community is everything. This might be their first stable place they have ever had in their lives.

Some residents have already signed paperwork to move away. Several people said they felt pressured to sign these documents. They did not have interpreters or lawyers to help them understand their rights or what they were signing on to. Others said they had been offered short-term three- to five-year contracts in community housing where rents are higher and the renewal of tenancy is not guaranteed. We are hearing that many residents are deeply dissatisfied with these offers because they know their rights are stronger in public housing than in community housing. Some have rejected these offers, but others felt they had to accept them for fear of becoming homeless. Housing agencies are reporting that they are now having to support clients with a form of post-traumatic stress disorder because the announcement has hurtled many back to the feelings of despair that they experienced when they were homeless. Many public housing residents experienced homelessness before they accessed public housing, and they are petrified they will face that again. The government can do as much PR as they like, but the reality is there are not enough homes to move these 10,000 people to. You – Labor – have traumatised people with this announcement.

We have brought this motion for an inquiry into the demolition of the towers because we are deeply concerned about the Labor government’s lack of consultation, communication and planning. We bring this motion to Parliament on behalf of residents so they can finally get some answers and we can get better outcomes for residents. My colleagues and I have consistently risen in this chamber to get answers from this government about the details of its plan ever since it was announced over six months ago. We have only come up against brick walls, obfuscation, evasiveness, petty insults and outright contempt. This is what we have been met with when we have tried to get more information on behalf of residents. The government is hiding behind commercial in confidence to avoid accountability to its constituents and to this Parliament.

It is becoming clearer and clearer with each day passing that this government is avoiding questions because it simply does not have the answers due to a lack of planning for this policy. A project of this magnitude, a 28-year shape-changing project for Victoria, requires scrutiny. It is commensurate to the city-shaping projects that we have seen already embarked upon by this government, many of them running into significant hurdles, especially when it is hugely unpopular with the people it will impact the most. We think enough is enough. This policy is overseeing the wholesale destruction of public housing across Victoria. It will destabilise tens of thousands of people. It will tear apart strong communities, and it will change the diversity and the very fabric of the areas it affects. Residents in the community want answers. This inquiry has to happen if we are to hold this government to account, get answers and ultimately, and most importantly, get better outcomes for residents.

Members will see that the terms of reference being proposed for the inquiry are fulsome. This is necessary to combat the government’s reticence to inform the public of its plans. The devil is in the details, as they say, and we have seen this government hide behind vague policies before. In the public housing renewal program, the predecessor to this policy proposal, the government handed over 11 inner-city public housing sites to private developers at well below market rate to build predominantly private housing. The government justified this decision by claiming that 30 per cent of the units would be social housing, a 10 per cent uplift, and this would represent an uplift in the amount of housing available for people on the housing register across the sites. Upon further inquiry we saw that despite there being more community housing units overall, there would actually be fewer bedrooms, so in reality there will be fewer social housing tenants and less public housing – no public housing, actually – on these sites than there were before.

These are the deceptive tactics being used by this government to facilitate the wholescale privatisation of our state’s public housing stock and its outsourcing. The terms of reference have been drafted to extract details so that government cannot continue to hide behind its vague housing statement. They reflect the questions that residents have been asking, to which they have received no responses. The government must answer these questions so that people are not left in the dark about the security of their homes and the future of their community and so that we get a stronger outcome.

We hold deeper concerns about the impact that destroying these towers will have. Not only will it cause enormous distress to the residents who are displaced but we see this policy as the harbinger of the end of public housing as we know it in this state and potentially across this country. We are seeing time and time again that where the government demolishes public housing, private property developers are the main beneficiaries. The government’s public housing renewal and ground lease model programs were spruiked as private-public partnership models for increasing Victoria’s housing stock. In reality these models are just a handover of valuable public land to private developers, with little or no public housing being built and the government’s responsibility for affordable housing being outsourced to non-government providers – not to mention that we are forgoing huge swathes of land that could be used to build more housing. When you consider the skyrocketing waiting list of over 120,000 people and the 30,000 people on any given night in Victoria experiencing homelessness, why are we giving away public land that we could build public housing on?

An example of this is the Barak Beacon public housing estate in Port Melbourne. Imagine right before Christmas being doorknocked by a stranger from the department telling you that you had to leave your home of 25 years. This is what happened to Margaret Kelly and her neighbours. An entire community was put through this deeply distressing situation just so that private developers could have access to waterfront views. We have seen the proposed plans for Barak Beacon. You will find 278 new private homes and only 130 community homes; not a single public home will be built at this site.

Other public housing sites lay empty – public homes with no residents and vacant plots with no construction – for years at a time, sometimes upwards of six to seven years since demolition. For example, the Bell Bardia public housing estate in Heidelberg West, which hosted public housing on public land, has been given to private developers for development. In 2017 they promised 430 new houses and a right of return to residents. Almost eight years later not a single house has been built. That lot lies empty, as do the red-brick public housing flats in Carlton, which have sat unoccupied and derelict for years. It has recently been announced that these flats will be rebuilt as public housing, which we welcome and which is a huge relief, but the only reason this will be possible is federal government funding – money which was won by the Greens during negotiations for the Housing Australia Future Fund. Beyond this the government has not made a promise for even a single public home for any of the other tower development sites – not a single public home – all this in the middle of an escalating housing crisis, while the housing waitlist continues to grow. Why has nothing been built on these lots for years? Because, in some cases, developers are sitting on the land waiting for it to go up in value, because developers are trying to weasel their way out of building social and affordable housing wherever they can and because this program has been grossly mismanaged by government.

We are also seeing examples of promises broken around the number of social and affordable homes being delivered. At the Abbotsford Street public housing site in North Melbourne the government and a private developer, MAB, cancelled contracts for affordable housing. In place of the cancelled contracts government and MAB are now offering people options to buy other housing at market rates – higher prices – and walking back on the promise of delivering any affordable private housing at the North Melbourne site. When asked why these contracts were cancelled, the government and MAB only cited increased construction costs. People who were promised affordable housing are now left without hope of a new home, as they cannot afford to buy at a market rate. The government promised housing and a diversity of dwellings. They said, ‘Let’s knock this public housing down. We’re going to get dwelling diversity.’ That is what they said. People cannot move in there now. When broken promises abound, how can we trust this Labor government to deliver on the housing it has promised in place of the 44 towers?

Even where affordable and social housing is being built, we are hearing of major issues from tenants. At a new affordable housing build in Dunlop Avenue, Ascot Vale, a resident is dealing with a plethora of problems, including mould growth, dampness, rust puddles, cracks in the roof and tap water that may be unsafe to drink. The resident’s housing provider has ignored every request for these issues to be rectified, and Homes Victoria have made thinly veiled threats about the resident’s housing tenure. This has left her with no choice but to move to an Airbnb and pursue the matter at VCAT, creating a huge financial burden and undue stress for Grace, who lives with a disability. The resident reports that her neighbours are facing similar issues but are too afraid to raise the matter with their housing providers for fear of eviction.

This is why we are also asking for the inquiry to look at consistent and high building standards for all residents. When this is the fate befalling tenants at public housing redevelopment sites already, how can the public and the Parliament have any confidence in the government to deliver what it is promising for these public housing tower sites across 28 years? These stories are the canary in the coal mine. Victorians who are vulnerable or on low incomes are already facing the consequences of this government’s pernicious privatisation agenda. The plan to demolish Victoria’s 44 public housing towers must be scrutinised. The government has not put forward an iota of evidence showing that these towers cannot be renovated or refurbished. Ultimately the government must not abdicate its responsibility to provide public housing in the middle of the housing crisis. At times like these we need more public housing, not less.

We are hearing now that the government is speeding up its tender process for demolition contracts so that it can evict residents from towers imminently. They are doing this despite not having any discernible plans for homes on these sites. Has any contract been signed with a developer? ‘No, we are going to demolish the homes first and get the residents out – those pesky residents who can organise together and fight back against the government. Well, let’s destroy that community.’ We see this for what it is because we have seen it before. This is exactly what happened to residents at Walker Street in Northcote. Seven years later, there is not a single home on that site, but they said, ‘Sorry, we have got to demolish immediately. Get out.’ Residents were evicted from their homes in 2019, and not a single home has been built on that site. The Labor government wants to evict tenants as quickly as possible so they face the least possible resistance to this abysmal plan. This tactic is truly reprehensible. The government wants residents to go quietly, and this is what they expect to happen.

Residents in public housing are often vulnerable, from marginalised communities, or speak English as a second or third or fourth language. But residents are fighting back. They are organising, they are speaking up and they are suing this government for the right to stay in their homes. We in this chamber must do what we can to help. This inquiry is about creating accountability and getting some real answers and better outcomes for residents. We are going to hear a lot from this government this afternoon about why we should not have this inquiry. ‘It’s just going to slow us down,’ they will say. If they have done the work, it will not slow them down. But what we fear, and what we know, is that they have not done the work, because after six months of questioning not a single document has been furnished to us that justifies this reprehensible plan.

It is a 28-year program. A six- to 12-month parliamentary inquiry will not slow that down. In fact it only has the chance of improving the outcomes. We saw this happen in 2017 and 2018 when we had the first parliamentary inquiry into the original iteration of the public housing renewal program. The government was finally under pressure because once again they had put a plan before us without any justification or rationale, and they were forced to deliver better outcomes for residents and walk back some of the worst parts of the plan they put on the table. We know parliamentary inquiries are an important and critical tool of this Parliament and this chamber, and we must exercise that power when we have an opportunity.

The government has had more than six months to furnish what they are suddenly promising today to everyone. ‘Oh, we’ll consult. We’ll give you documents.’ Suddenly today is the day. Not last week, not two months ago – today, suddenly, they have had a turnabout: ‘We can do everything. You don’t need to have this inquiry. We’re going to do everything. We’re going to talk to residents.’ Finally, after six months. That is what they are promising people in this chamber today. How can you believe them? Isn’t it convenient that today they have had a change of heart? Suddenly it is going to be open and transparent. But how can we trust them when they have held this Parliament in contempt for the last six months, they have held Victoria in contempt for the last six months and, most critically and unforgivably, they have held public housing residents in contempt? We have spoken to hundreds of residents who are distraught. None of the PR about ‘Oh, everyone is happy. They’ve signed their documents’ is going to work with us, because we have talked to them directly, and we encourage you to do the same.

Why is this inquiry important today, before we take a break for nearly two months before we come back into this chamber? The government is working very hard to get some delay and buy themselves more time. Well, they have had six months – isn’t that enough time? It is because the government is trying to issue demolition contracts with not a single contract signed with a developer. They are trying to break up those communities, flatten the ground and hold those sites for however many years – if Walker estate is anything to go by, five, six, seven years, and then we add the others. Is that what we are going to accept in this Parliament: a government knocking down housing that people are living in in the midst of one of the worst housing crises we have ever experienced and leaving that land vacant, with nothing, while people sleep rough, while people are told by housing providers, ‘We can only give you a tent or a sleeping bag. We’re really sorry. There’s not enough homes’? When there is a big event in town like a Taylor Swift concert, all the motels and hotels get booked up and we are hearing from people about how more people are homeless during that time because our city cannot cope. Is that what we are going to agree to, or is this Parliament going to do its job today and say, ‘No, we’re going to do our job and we’re going to get better outcomes for residents’?

Every parliamentary inquiry that we have had in this place has improved outcomes for the community. That is why we have this lever. That is why we have this power. It will apply pressure from day one. Residents will know finally they will be able to tell their story to someone and they will be able to tell their stories to decision-makers who can make a difference. We can make a difference for those residents. You and I know we are having those residents walk through our doors – so many people who are experiencing distress because they cannot live in their homes because the government will not fix their ailing homes at times because maintenance is so backlogged, or people who are experiencing homelessness because they do not know where else to go. They have nowhere else to go and then come to an MP’s office, because where else do they turn when even housing services cannot find a home anymore for them and their kids? I know I have heard from this chamber and the other chamber too that our MPs are hearing these stories more and more every day. It is now our responsibility to do something about it.

Do not fall for the tactic the government is going to use today: ‘Oh, it’s going to delay things.’ No, it is not going to delay things, it is going to improve things. The last time we had a parliamentary inquiry suddenly the government came with answers. They talked to residents; we started getting outcomes from day one. We got that for the waste and recycling inquiry too, and I can name so many more. It is an important tool. We have it at our disposal today. Let us use it and not let them get off the hook for what they have been trying to do to us for six months, which is to deny, to delay, to avoid. This is our opportunity to get something constructive happening, starting now. These residents need this action from us today. If we are thinking about these residents who are at the coalface of this government’s decision, please keep them at the heart of everything you do today, because they need some relief. It is the reason there is a class action. There are extraordinary things happening in this community because people are distraught about what the government is putting on the table. Let us take up that responsibility and do our job – no delay; it should start today.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:28): I rise to speak on the motion put before us today by Dr Ratnam. I am given pause to reflect on a contribution I made in this chamber late last year following the Legal and Social Issues Committee’s previous inquiry into the rental and housing crisis in Victoria. I will touch back on that particular inquiry in a moment, but I am given pause to reflect because I remarked in that contribution that I had always, growing up, found the Greens to be above all rational and principled. With this particular issue, it was the first time that I could seriously look at myself and say that they are actually defying logic. They are defying the evidence that is before them, and they are wilfully pursuing something that I could only presume they know to be illogical. I am given pause to think about that again today because we have heard from Dr Ratnam quite passionately about the need for information. I know that Minister Shing has been available to all members of this place and all members of the other place to give briefings on this subject at any time – from the very get-go Minister Shing has made herself available. The Greens decided not to take that up, to walk out of the room, as it were. If they are not going to take that up, that is on them. But that does not give them the right to then turn around in this place and say, ‘You’ve not actually given us a fair crack.’

If you are going to engage on this, I actually ask you to seriously engage on it. I know Minister Shing has made herself available throughout from the start on this – from when we first announced that these 44 ageing, increasingly uninhabitable towers are going to be fully replaced and redeveloped to provide thousands more social homes in the process and thousands more homes still in total. That offer has been available to all members of this place, including Dr Ratnam, including all the members of the Greens and including what I would refer to as the Greens’ self-appointed housing spokesman Mr McGowan. I note that he has not taken up the opportunity of a briefing either, and I am surprised to not see him in the chamber today, to be honest, because I know how passionate he is about this subject.

Evan Mulholland: He’s on the list.

Michael GALEA: Well, again, I would ask Mr Mulholland: if he is on the list to speak, why has he not even bothered to seek advice from Minister Shing at any point? If he has got that interest in the issue, he should have genuinely engaged in it. It makes me wonder whether this is just a cynical political ploy to attract votes. Perhaps you are worried about the Victorian Socialists edging into your territory. That is the only conclusion I can make, because of the absolute evidence that you are completely ignoring.

I will come back to a few things, but we know that our older public housing high-rise buildings are coming to the end of their life. It is no longer feasible or cost-effective to continue to repair these buildings to the standards that the renters actually deserve. We want to provide high-quality housing to all Victorians. I do not want to be standing here and saying that if you are in public housing, you deserve a lesser standard than anyone else. That is unacceptable. If you are in public housing, you deserve the exact same standards. You deserve the best standards of accessibility, of safety – of all things. You deserve for your buildings not to have sewage flood them whenever there is a big rain event. You deserve not to have your lifts thrown out of action, so you do not have to climb 20 or more flights of stairs on a regular basis. You deserve to be able to access these apartments if you are in a wheelchair. This should not be a controversial thing.

I keep coming back to this: what this policy is already doing is delivering modern, accessible, better quality apartments and better quality social housing for people that need it the most, and that is something that we should support. I know and I will acknowledge that the Greens have a particular passion on this issue, but that makes it all the more confounding to me as to why you would not support this. It really does. These towers were built using a unique concrete construction method, with structural internal walls and very low ceiling heights. This restricts the alterations. You cannot just renovate and change a ceiling height. In a similar situation, it is very difficult to make the walls, doorways, corridors, lifts and stairwells comply with current standards.

There have been a number of programs over the past 20 years to upgrade these towers to provide them with the best services and facilities possible, but it is not possible to make them what they need to be. In fact if we were to do nothing and if we were to spend the next 20 years just letting these towers be as they are, it would cost $2.3 billion – just to keep them at the level that they are. That is before you can even look at doing anything that is going to improve them, and as I say, how do you actually improve a ceiling height on a multistorey building? How do you do all of these things? It is going to be so costly.

I know that in the Legal and Social Issues Committee when we did have a detailed discussion in a hearing on this issue we heard from Mr Simon Newport from Homes Victoria. It was put to him by one of the Greens members – it may have even been you, Mr Puglielli – ‘Why don’t you just renovate the towers?’ He explained in great detail as to why it simply is not possible. But more so, he said that if you were to renovate them to anything close to the standard that we would expect, whatever the cost, you would still have to temporarily relocate people out of those buildings to do it. So the very thing which you say is the issue – and you are saying ‘It’s fine, just renovate them’ – would actually have the exact same impact as what you are accusing us of doing. I genuinely have tried to look at it from a different perspective, and I keep coming back to this: if you think that all Victorians deserve the quality of housing that we should all be entitled to, then I do not see why you would so vigorously oppose the redevelopment of these 44 towers.

I heard Dr Ratnam’s commentary that we would accuse her of trying to slow it down and that a parliamentary committee would provide better oversight, but that is not what this is about. This is about a political campaign and using the resources of the Parliament to continue to promote and grandstand her campaign in the face of all evidence. I can well imagine, as a member of this committee myself, we are going to go through the exact same thing that we went through last year – sure, it will be in more detail as there will be more days devoted to this, absolutely. But we are going to get the exact same answers and the exact same issues. Having a parliamentary committee inquiry is not going to make it easier to increase the ceiling heights and to remove all these fire and other hazards that are in these buildings. It is not going to change that. It is not going to change the facts. All it is going to do is give a platform to grandstand and, as I say, to run a campaign. Whether it is running and trying to stop the Victorian Socialists from encroaching on your turf or whether it is something else, I do not know. I really, really would love to believe there is still a genuine reason behind this because I just cannot see any logical rationale for supporting this particular campaign that is being run by the Greens. Accordingly I cannot see any rationale to support the inquiry that is before us today.

A huge amount of work has been undertaken, and I know that Minister Shing has been earnestly trying to engage with colleagues across the chamber on this issue and other aspects of the housing statement, as has Minister Kilkenny from the other place. I know she will have some remarks to make shortly about that as well, because this is a government that genuinely is trying to make this situation better for people who are in public housing. Public and social housing is an important part of the welfare net, the social support that we provide to vulnerable Victorians. As I say, just because you are in it does not mean that you should be treated worse than anyone else in this state. I find that offensive.

There has already been significant investment into this space, as I touched on before, by the state government. We know it is part of a broader package, and that is where the housing statement comes in. That is why we also must have sensible discussions about how we grow our city. We cannot continue to have the vast bulk of our new homes being built in the outer suburbs. We must be more sensible than that. We must be more sensible than the Greens-led Yarra City Council, which, as reported in the Age just this morning, has opposed a six-storey development on a tramline in Fitzroy. That is outrageous. I am all for appropriate and sensible development, and I am sure in this case my colleague Mr Mulholland will agree with me, but that is outrageous. I commend the actions of YIMBY Melbourne, a group I have had the pleasure of getting to know over the past few months, in challenging that and in challenging the entitlement that says, ‘I’ve got mine; I’ve got my services nearby. Stuff anyone else having them.’

I could continue talking about this for quite some time, but for the reasons I have outlined, I do not commend this motion to the house.

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (14:38): It is a delight to speak on this motion moved by Dr Ratnam that this house:

(1) notes the government’s housing statement outlines an intention to demolish and redevelop Melbourne’s 44 public housing high-rise buildings by 2051, including a plan to build a majority of private homes on these publicly owned sites;

(2) requires the Legal and Social Issues Committee to inquire into, consider and report by December 2025 on:

(a) the rationale and cost modelling for the decision to demolish and redevelop the 44 high-rise public housing buildings and associated sites … including alternatives to demolition, such as refurbishment and renovation;

(b) the impact of the plan, including the compulsory relocation and displacement of public housing residents on the future net availability of public community housing and the existing decanting plans and the department estimates on the number of people who will permanently leave the area being developed;

(c) the findings and adequacy of consultations with:

(i) public housing tower residents and their representatives;

(ii) relevant local stakeholders, such as health, community and education service providers, residents and councils;

(iii) state … government departments and agencies;

(d) the efficacy of the proposed financial, legal and project delivery models (including the ground lease model) to be used for the plan, versus alternative models to improve and increase the number of public and community homes on the sites in question and in Victoria;

(e) building standards for the developments, including whether there will be the same standards for public, community and private housing;

(f) how different development and ownership models will be integrated within each site to enhance community integration and achieve a diversity of tenants;

(g) the likely impacts of the plan on:

(i) the number of bedrooms currently at each location versus the proposed number of new bedrooms per site;

(ii) the number of public and community housing homes at each location and how remaining public land will be used;

(iii) the Victorian Housing Register and homelessness while the plan is being delivered;

(iv) the future of public housing in Victoria; and

(h) any other related matters.

I was listening intently to both Mr Galea and Dr Ratnam. It is important to remember the promises that were made as part of the government’s Big Housing Build. Through government incompetence – and we have seen government incompetence on display today through the Auditor-General’s report that just dropped, so I think it is important to look into these things – we have seen a mismanagement of a huge spend. Nearly $4 billion has been spent so far on the Big Housing Build, and the total number of new homes promised to Victorians was to be in excess of 12,000. During his last Public Accounts and Estimates Committee hearing the then minister Richard Wynne declared that the build was going so well it would likely be 15,000 homes. That has not really eventuated at all. Let us look at some of the facts in this case. The priority housing waitlist in June 2018 was 45,509 families – September 2023, 60,708 families, an increase of 15,199 families. There has been an increase of 3040 families per year since 2018. As of December 2023, wait times for a home are at record highs. It is an absolute mess.

We have got I think a lack of transparency in regard to the government’s plans. For example, in my electorate and Dr Ratnam’s electorate in the North Melbourne tower there is actually a language school at the bottom who are facing an enormous amount of uncertainty as to what will happen. I have been contacted by many constituents who are very concerned about the government’s plans, and I found it quite amusing that the government sought to assure consultation in the lead-up to this motion. As often happens with many motions that come from non-government members in the upper house, the government scurries around trying in any way to stop non-government members working together to find answers. We have not received answers, yet we are meant to believe we are going to receive answers and get consultation because we moved this motion. I think it is much better to use the tools of the Parliament that we have available to us, one of which is that of parliamentary inquiry, to get the answers ourselves, because clearly the government cannot be trusted. Even the Auditor-General pointed out today that the government could not be trusted on their ridiculous figures of $6.9 billion for the Commonwealth Games, which they said was unfounded. But these are the consequences that we get really. When the government torches $600 million on the Commonwealth Games, that means less money for public housing in my electorate. It is sheer incompetence that we are seeing.

I will just go through a couple of other things. I want to go through total bedrooms, because the inquiry will be looking into that as well. The total bedrooms available in 2018 was 160,348. In June 2023 the total number of bedrooms was 157,615. That is a reduction of 2733 bedrooms. At the end of 2017, close to when the government made its new commitment, there were 161,153 bedrooms. There are now 157,615 bedrooms. So a $4 billion Big Housing Build was announced but we have gone backwards, and the number of homes has also not improved very much.

We had the promise to build 12,000 homes, and Victoria’s public housing stock has increased by just 394 homes since 2018. The government launched a $5.3 billion program in 2020. We all heard the pledge – 12,000 homes by 2024. Well, we know the government has only spent $4 billion of that and it has only achieved 394 new homes – an incredible amount of money for not a whole lot done. The former minister – I do not think the current one would make that mistake – said they would actually go forward on that and achieve 15,000 new homes. You can check the Hansard transcript on PAEC for that one. So we are seeing announcements before elections, and the reality is different afterwards. We will be supporting this motion.

Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (14:48): I rise today to address an issue of significant importance to so many communities and so many families around the areas of Melbourne where public housing towers have been a feature of the landscape for decades. These towers are of enormous significance to many families and people who have called them home, who have connected to their communities and who have based themselves, their daily activities, their passions and the milestones of their lives in and around them. These are buildings which were constructed between the 1950s and the 1970s. At the time that they were built using a very unique method of concrete construction, they complied with all of the relevant standards relating to dwelling size, ceiling height, accessibility, ventilation, natural light and broader connection to community. They also met the needs of residents as they related to use of electrical appliances and to the development and use and deployment of water and essential infrastructure services.

Times have changed, and since times have changed we see now that these towers no longer comply with the standards that apply for minimum amenity. These buildings no longer fit the standards for fire, flood, seismic activity, resistance and resilience. These towers do not have the electrical systems and circuitry in place to support larger air-conditioning units to be installed within them at large scale. These buildings without significant upgrade and maintenance through double glazing and through energy-efficiency upgrades will remain noisy, cold in winter and hot in summer. Due to the concrete construction they warm up and they stay hot during periods of persistent warm weather. In winter the air whistles through them and people live in cold environments. It is expensive to heat and to maintain a measure of comfort in these homes because we do not have the structural design in place to enable them to remain at and to meet and to comply with what we expect as minimum standards of amenity in the homes that we call our own.

Things need to change, and change is difficult. We are embarking upon the largest investment in social housing in the history of this state. It was a $5.3 billion investment into social housing announced in 2021 that has set us on the path to not just delivering new social housing but upgrading existing stock. The average life span of social housing dwellings is about 45 years. We have reached the end of that life span for much of our stock. What we are doing is investing in maintenance, upgrades and improvements that can make sure that to the best extent possible a measure of amenity is created and sustained for people who call them home. But the towers need to be developed. As others have pointed out, we are talking about billions of dollars simply to make them habitable. But when the very DNA of these towers themselves does not enable, through electrical circuitry, through construction methodology, through a range of other issues around insulation and around the flow of air through these structures – those sorts of improvements that are at the heart of making sure that people live well – then we need to effect change.

Since the announcements as part of the housing statement were made last September, government has spoken to around 5800 households across the towers. This has occurred directly with the housing officers and through faith-based organisations, through hosting community events and pop-up stalls, doorknocking on homes to listen to feedback and answer questions and setting up a dedicated 1800 phone line connected to a three-way translation service. There have been almost 150 interpreters, who have ensured that residents could be heard in their primary languages: Arabic, Cantonese, Hakka Chinese, Mandarin, Oromo, Russian, Somali, Tigrinya, Turkish, Vietnamese – the list goes on.

Certainty is important. Discussions with renters about priority areas determined by renters based on their circumstances are important. To this end it does not depart significantly from what happens with any social housing development. This is an order of magnitude, however, that means that more people are immediately affected by this multidecade process than would otherwise occur in decentralised sites around the state. This requires an enormous measure of logistical expertise to plan and to deliver. But at the heart of this is the impact on people. The impact on people of this change is not underestimated, nor is it ignored. It requires that longstanding engagement, that longstanding commitment, not just between here and December 2025, the end point at which this inquiry seeks to stop a discussion and examination of these issues. It requires years of work to make sure that as we move from the first tranche into further work, as site-specific concerns and questions and inquiries and aspirations of residents are better understood, that we can tailor the approaches that we take in finding solutions to the problems, which are not solved by any delay to this particular project.

We know that it will be time consuming, that it will be expensive and that it will involve all sorts of enormous change and disruption to the lives of renters and to their communities. We also know that to continue on the path that we are continuing on ignores the reality that these buildings no longer afford the level of amenity and dignity and connection and standard that everybody else seeks in the places they call home. This is not easy work. Nobody for a second is underestimating that. It is also not work that has occurred under a veil of secrecy. We have seen Homes Victoria representatives and housing officers appear at a range of different public hearings, inquiries, events and discussions. I have been approached on numerous occasions by members of the crossbench and by members of the opposition in this place and in the other seeking information about the way in which this program will be delivered and the processes involved. Never once has the Leader of the Greens gotten in touch with me to ask for a briefing or for detail on this development pipeline.

What I said when I was first appointed to this portfolio to every member of the crossbench was that I was available to provide information on this because it is multidecade engagement. Other members of the crossbench have sought briefings. Other members of the crossbench have asked questions. I welcome that. I welcome the opportunity to be able to provide that information and to make sure that we can correct misinformation and disinformation. Dr Ratnam has never once – never once – sought a briefing or a breakdown of the issues now sought to be ventilated in the Parliament. It is somewhat extraordinary that the very first time that Dr Ratnam engages in this process in a wholesale way here, seeking this information in the consolidated way that is set out in this motion of inquiry, is in a public forum where in fact there is so much lost time that has occurred as a result of a –

Samantha Ratnam: On a point of order, Acting President, I just want to query how we can hold accuracy to account. There are some assertions being made that reflect on my character.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (John Berger): There is no point of order, Dr Ratnam.

Samantha Ratnam: I believe the member –

The ACTING PRESIDENT (John Berger): There is no point of order.

Harriet SHING: To the Greens I would say: if you are acting for a proper purpose –

Samantha Ratnam: On a point of order, Acting President, I believe the member is reflecting on me by asserting that I have not sought briefings – that I have not brought this to her before. I have brought it multiple times through this chamber before.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (John Berger): I do not consider that a reflection.

Harriet SHING: I am just waiting for further points of order to waste the time that I have left available to me, but let us keep going. I continue to offer and make myself available to provide information to everyone who wants to know about it. We have dozens and hundreds of people working every single day to provide the very information that is sought through this motion. What a disappointment we do not see the Greens engaging in good faith. (Time expired)

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:58): I also rise to speak on this motion to form an inquiry into, among other things, the redevelopment of the 44 public housing high-rise buildings by 2051, brought forward by the Greens. I will not be supporting this motion, for a number of reasons. The first reason is I do not really take what the Greens say about housing seriously. There are so many instances of the Greens in councils and in other places that oppose housing at every opportunity. I will give you an example. Steph Hodgins-May in the campaign for Macnamara – the headline campaign was to oppose a development of housing towers.

Samantha Ratnam: Was she on council?

David LIMBRICK: No. She was a candidate, running to say, ‘I will stop housing being built.’ That was the platform that they were running on. This is the campaign poster that they were using on social media.

Members interjecting.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (John Berger): Order!

David LIMBRICK: Thank you. I do not buy it. Secondly, as a great economist once said, you must judge policy not by its intention but by its consequences. Many of the things proposed in this place by the Greens, like rental caps – again we are talking about price controls – could result in disastrous consequences. Whether or not the Greens believe that these consequences will happen is like believing whether or not gravity exists. This just defies the laws of economics.

On another matter, when we are talking about housing and human rights, firstly, I would state that in the charter of human rights in Victoria – although I have got many problems with the charter in Victoria; I have spoken about the charter many times and I am sure the members of the government are sick of hearing me talk about the charter – one of the things that the charter does get right is it focuses on negative rights, so it focuses on restrictions on what the government can do rather than things that the government should be compelled to do, which is a very wise thing which was also taken into account in the American constitution and the American bill of rights.

But in the last term of Parliament I seem to recall there were some very big issues around human rights and the housing towers. In fact during one of the lockdowns, this abysmal and dark episode in Victoria’s history, one that was confirmed by the Ombudsman as a gross breach of human rights, at one point in time at one housing tower people were locked in their homes. They were not allowed outside to get fresh air and exercise. They were given culturally inappropriate food. All sorts of horrible things happened. What was the Greens’ response when the government came back and wanted to extend the emergency powers? The Greens came back and greenlighted the emergency powers. They did not say, ‘Well, the government might’ve abused human rights and did awful things in the housing towers.’ No, they did not do any of that. They just went ahead and greenlighted the government to keep going with the emergency powers.

At the time, if I can jog this Parliament’s memory, I tried to insert an amendment into the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008, which was recommendation 2 of the Ombudsman’s report. She recommended that the Public Health and Wellbeing Act be amended to allow fresh air and exercise to anyone detained under the Public Health and Wellbeing Act in line with common prisoners, because prisoners get better rights than people detained under the Public Health and Wellbeing Act. In fact the Ombudsman thought it was so important that the term ‘fresh air’ can be found over 90 times in the report. This was a big deal, and when I put forward this amendment, the Greens voted against fresh air and exercise for people detained in public housing towers, who might have been detained again if there had been another lockdown in the towers. Thankfully that did not happen. But the Greens voted against fresh air and exercise as a human right. I will not be lectured to on human rights by the Greens, and I will not be supporting this political agenda here. That is all I have to say on this.

Trung LUU (Western Metropolitan) (15:03): I am pleased to rise to speak on this motion 340 moved by Dr Ratnam that this house:

(1) notes the government’s housing statement outlines an intention to demolish and redevelop Melbourne’s 44 public housing high-rise buildings by 2051, including a plan to build a majority of private homes on these publicly owned sites …

I will not detail all of the motion, but I will outline (2)(a), the cost modelling; (2)(b), the compulsory relocation and displacement of public housing residents; (2)(c), the adequacy of consultations with stakeholders, including councils and residents in these communities; and (2)(d), the efficacy of the proposed financial, legal and project delivery models.

In supporting in this motion I want to say that families in Victoria at the moment are suffering from the cost-of-living crisis and the housing affordability issues. Unfortunately, under this government the delay when it comes to building new homes includes social housing, and our most vulnerable Victorians are being left out in the cold. We recognise and support the need for Victoria’s most vulnerable to have access to public housing. If those from various low socioeconomic backgrounds do not have access to safe and secure housing, then the ladder of equal opportunities is taken from under their feet.

This is not the Australian way, nor is it the Victorian way. In speaking to this motion, I want to note the current state of Victoria at the moment. Victoria’s population is around 6.9 million people, and it is projected to be 8.8 million by 2041. By 2051 the population is expected to be around 11.2 million, with greater Melbourne having 9 million people and there being 2.2 million in the outer regions. Looking at Victorian building rates, from 2010 to 2014 approximately 30,000 properties were built per year, and between 2017 and 2021 that grew to about 65,000 per year on average. The number of new properties proportional to the increase in population growth was roughly about 0.4 in 2016 and 0.6 in 2019. This basically means that the number of newly built homes is less than the population increase every year. Basically, housing developments are not meeting our population growth.

On social housing, on the other hand, Victoria has the lowest ratio of social housing stock in Australia. We are looking at 2.9 per cent of the total housing stock. The Victorian government says that when the Big Housing Build ends in 2051 social housing will make up about 3.5 per cent of housing stock – homes – only 3.5 per cent. The Grattan Institute states:

Victoria’s housing crisis has been building for a long time. Within living memory, Victoria was a place where housing costs were manageable, and people of all ages and incomes had a reasonable chance to own a home …

But now:

Home ownership is falling, renter poverty is rising, and more people are becoming homeless.

That is just the reality of the moment that we are facing. Social housing is more important than ever with our situation. The current housing statement tends to conflate social and affordable housing as a single category without distinguishing between construction targets for each housing type. The proposal to increase the government’s investment in social housing begs the question: how are they going to pay for those commitments?

The recent report of the public inquiry into the rental and housing affordability crisis conducted by the Legal and Social Issues Committee included 23 findings and 34 recommendations. I want to outline one recommendation I quietly recall, and that is recommendation 30:

That the Victorian Government commit to building 60,000 new social housing dwellings by 2034, with 40,000 completed by 2028.

I believe the estimate of 60,000 new homes to be built by the government over the next 10 years underestimates the need and what is required. Regardless of the recommendation in the report of 40,000 homes needing to be built by 2028, the government must demonstrate they can meet the target in 10 years time.

Unfortunately, under this government many promises have been broken. Under the Big Housing Build from 2021 to 2023 public housing was supposed to include sales and demolitions totalling 3180 homes. In the same period only 4621 homes have been completely built as part of the big build. That is an increase of 1441 homes. In that amount of time only 1400 homes have been built. I have got a note that there has been a decrease in the number of public housing bedrooms available since 2017, when there were about 161,150 bedrooms. As at June 2023 there were only about 157,600 bedrooms. That is due to the demolition of properties in the public housing market.

When it comes to the management and delivery of social housing, under this government the management and delivery of big major projects is always an issue. When it comes to managing the public housing crisis for vulnerable Victorians, Victoria is in dire straits, and unfortunately they are the ones being left out in the cold. The rent tax introduced by this government has restricted supply and increased the cost of private rental, driving more vulnerable Victorians onto a record public housing waiting list.

Since 2018 the government has wasted $4 billion on public housing but only delivered an extra 221 homes, as stated earlier, you may have heard, in this chamber. Victorians who have been pushed out of our private housing market need to go into a Victorian government public housing option. More than 3000 homes have been added to the waiting list since 2018, and the wait time on the waiting list to secure a safe home has doubled. With cuts to housing flagged by this government in the upcoming budget, it is clear that the situation is going to get worse.

On this side of the chamber we understand the importance of delivering public housing so the vulnerable are not forced onto the street. Besides the issue of delivering social housing, this inquiry would give clear indications and answer some very important questions. I know that people have spoken quite a bit on the actual 44 public housing high rises, but it is about more than that. This inquiry would help establish how this government is going to deliver all the social housing, not just the flats, and provide transparency on how they will deliver it, whether they will meet the targets and how they will commit to delivering those targets – basically the standards versus transparency in relation to what they are saying.

The inquiry would answer some of the questions in relation to the 44 public housing towers, our state’s most vulnerable assets, worth billions of dollars. Taxpayers have got a right to understand what is happening to them. Only 1300 homes have been built over the last six years, including in the alleged big build. It would ask those questions. The 60,000 families waiting on the waiting list: where are they going to go? The relocation plan for the tens of thousands of people from the towers: where are they going to go? What will be the impact on government services currently operating from the towers? What services are going to go? What is the modelling?

Before finishing off, we have looked at and mentioned various estates we have tried to refurbish over the years. I understand that, but this government are not delivering what they promised. This inquiry would give us some transparency about how they are going to meet their promises. I will conclude there. My time is about finished. I will support the member’s motion.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (15:13): The motion before us seeks to set up an inquiry into the planned redevelopment and rebuilding of the 44 public housing towers across inner Melbourne. It sits in an important context of a debate that we have been having for a while both in this chamber and in the broader community about the housing crisis. We know there is an acute housing crisis in this state, partly because the Legislative Council Legal and Social Issues Committee published a report on it in November last year called The Rental and Housing Affordability Crisis in Victoria. We have had a parliamentary committee look at the matters substantively to be dealt with by this motion – calling for a parliamentary committee to look at these matters – within the term of this Parliament, in the last 12 months.

Another parliamentary committee is not going to fix the housing crisis. Building more houses will fix the housing crisis. Opposing building housing condemns more people to living in housing insecurity, it locks people out of home ownership and it makes the social housing waiting list grow longer. Every time people stand up and condemn social housing developments, every time people stand up and say ‘We shouldn’t do it in this particular place’ – as members of this house do regularly – they are condemning people to living in insecure housing for longer and they are condemning the social housing waiting list to grow longer. Those are only actions of people who do not care about solving the housing crisis but only care about perpetuating it, and that is exactly what is motivating those who oppose the building of more social housing in this state. There are two different questions that we need to address in the context of this debate in my view. One is a question of substance: do we need to redevelop the towers? The second is a question of process: do we need this inquiry? Hopefully in the course of the next 7 minutes and 45 seconds I will be able to get through some of those issues.

The first issue is, as I have mentioned, we do need to build more houses. That is what this Labor government is doing: $9.2 billion in new housing construction since 2014; $5.3 billion in the Big Housing Build, 12,000 new dwellings; $1 billion in regional Victoria; $1.2 billion to upgrade existing stock; and $1.1 billion for homelessness services. I cannot count the number of times I have stood up in this chamber in the last 15 months and talked about the social housing development being built in Southern Metropolitan in Melbourne. I think last week I was up twice talking about it – the new houses that we have built and opened and residents have moved back into. There is New Street in Brighton. There is Centre Road, Brighton. There is the Markham estate in Ashburton. There is the block in Cheltenham that we visited a few weeks ago. Labor is building houses and tenants are moving back into them. We are doing them.

Secondly, do these towers need redevelopment? That is at the crux of the debate. The position that the Greens have put before us is that in their view we do not need to redevelop these towers, that somehow the inherent problems that exist with the structure, design and condition of this public housing stock is acceptable. They think it is acceptable. I do want to just quote a little bit from evidence that the CEO of Homes Victoria gave to the Legislative Council Legal and Social Issues Committee last year. We have already had evidence that this motion calls for delivered before the Parliament’s committee that this motion seeks to send an inquiry to. On the first two towers to be rebuilt as part of the 44 in Carlton, known as the red bricks, he said:

The sewer stacks – the sewer system – completely failed on them; I know there was a lot of publicity about that. Those two towers in particular, as I said, are uninhabitable, not viable in any way and certainly have to come down … Of course they are going to be part of the housing accelerator fund of nearly half a billion dollars that the Commonwealth … has paid to the Victorian government, and they are the first announcement. They will be the first cab off the rank. I think, from memory, there are 98 in each block, so 196 … we will be converting those into 236.

The red-brick towers are condemned because their sewer stacks are broken. They are uninhabitable, and they need to be replaced. That is the first piece of evidence as to whether we need them. Maybe it is a problem with just those two is what some may suggest. The CEO of Homes Victoria, again in evidence to the committee, went on to say:

The other towers are prone to a number of issues, certainly inadequate elevators in terms of just not enough realistically for people to use. They have been retrofitted with sprinkler systems. Obviously when they were first designed they did not have sprinkler systems – fire suppression systems. They have been put in, but the nature of the building is that … the elevator pit fills with water, short-circuits the control board and then the elevators are out of action for some time – 24 to 48 hours – and then you have got the situation where you have got people having to use stairs, sometimes up to 20 and 22 storeys. The elevators are an issue, heating and cooling are an issue in particular, but just generally, those properties were designed in the 50s and built in the late 50s and early 60s and 70s. Having been through a number of them, I think it is fair to say that their time is well past what we would expect for modern standards for Victorians to live in.

That was the independent evidence of the CEO of Homes Victoria to the Legislative Council Legal and Social Issues Committee about why it is important to do them. Then we get the question: couldn’t we just refurbish them? Couldn’t we just go in and try and fix some of these problems? This was a question in fact that Mr Puglielli asked of the CEO of Homes Victoria at the Legal and Social Issues Committee on 10 October 2023, so not a long time ago. Mr Puglielli, amongst other things, asked:

… has there been an effort to explore alternatives like refurbishment and renovation?

Mr Newport:

I think first of all the program from start to end at this stage is predicted to run somewhere around 27, 28 years, so by the point you are doing that you are talking some of the towers could well be 80 years of age. The particular construction methodology – effectively concrete panels, ceiling heights that do not permit services to run between floors, some of the issues I talked about with regard to elevators, no heating, no cooling, no verandahs, it is very difficult to even clean windows, it is hot in summer, cold in winter – all of those factors were taken into account. Also just purely from the point of view of basic maintenance being able to be done over those properties, it would be something in the order of about $2.3 billion over 20 years just to keep them in the condition that they are now …

This is not to improve them, not to make them more accessible, not to make them comply with disability access standards and not to enable someone who has a walker to use a shower, because of the construction of the concrete hobs in the bathrooms. $2.3 billion just for basic maintenance – new paint and the like. That is what it would cost just to keep them in the condition they are in now, which fails disability access standards and which condemns the residents who have mobility issues to have inaccessible showers in their homes. That is what those who oppose these redevelopments are condemning their residents to.

The other point that was made in the course of the inquiry was concerns about dislocating residents – fair comment – but in the process of renovating, because of the nature of the concrete and the amount of noise that is generated from using basic drills in those environments you have got to relocate residents if you want to do any refurbishments. So even if we accept that it was possible to fix the problems in these towers, the process of doing it would result in resident relocation.

I do not have enough time to go through all of the evidence that was presented to the Legal and Social Issues Committee in October of last year. The committee has examined these issues. It is on the public record. I suggest people read it; it is very, very illuminating. This whole motion is not about giving people more housing. It is not about giving people housing that meets basic accessibility standards that comply with the Disability Discrimination Act 1992. It is about something else altogether. Sadly I do not have time to go into all of those issues, but I hope this contribution has illuminated some of the issues that a committee of this Parliament has already examined in the last 12 months.

David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan) (15:23): I rise to speak on behalf of Legalise Cannabis on the proposal to establish an inquiry into the demolition and redevelopment of, well, not simply 44 towers but really multiple estates. I come to this with a deep sense of engagement. Personally, I worked on the Kensington estate redevelopment on the community reference group and also on the building standards committee for about eight years, and I was intimately involved in that project. Of course that was the first government PPP – public–private partnership – to explore this process of redevelopment. It also came after Jeff Kennett had I think nuked the first tower. Then the incoming Labor government decided to refurbish the remaining two towers at Kensington, and I will come back to that. In thinking about this motion, the first thing is that this is not about buildings, it is about people. It is about the people who are living in these towers, and it is about the people that need to be able to access affordable, safe housing, whether it is public or whether it is community based. Unfortunately, I think much of the debate that has occurred in this place has all too often either broken on partisan grounds or broken on rhetorical semantics that have not allowed for a really fulsome discussion of the issues.

I do come to this with very strongly held views, and I also know really well a lot of the people who live in these places. I have lived in Kensington for 30 years. I am a couple of hundred metres from the Kensington estate, I am about 500 metres as the crow flies from the North Melbourne estate and probably 700 metres from the Flemington estate, and I have relationships with all of those people. Those people, particularly the ones in the towers, are very vulnerable. They are people who have a precarious hold on life in terms of financials as well as accommodation as well as social relations. There are lots of problems with these buildings, and I will come back to that.

In the case of the Flemington estate these people went through a process in 2017 under the then housing minister – I am disassociating this from the current housing minister absolutely on this point – and the exercise that went on in the Flemington estate in 2017 was absolutely atrocious. The government simply ignored all of the lessons that came out of the Kensington redevelopment and basically told both resident representatives and local community representatives to just stay out of the way. It was really an atrocious approach, and of course it imploded. Then many of these residents were further traumatised by the effects of the lockdown during COVID, and I do not think there is any debate about how terrible it was for those people. In coming to the process of demolition and relocation that is being proposed through this project – and I am not saying that this is without merit as a project – we are dealing with people who have been through hell and back, and I think that needs to be more important than what sometimes might be political pointscoring.

We have sought to work with government and with the sponsors of this motion to find common ground. I thank the minister and the minister’s staff for their time, and I am disappointed that we could not find middle ground between the sponsors and the government.

Returning to the Kensington estate, one of the outworkings of the Kensington estate redevelopment was a report by Swinburne University that critically evaluated the processes that had been undertaken through the development process. There were valuable learnings for how future projects were to be potentially rolled out, and in the 2017 rollout those were completely ignored. From talking to the minister, I understand that in fact the government has a far more sympathetic approach than that, and I welcome that. That includes things like consultation not only with the residents but also with other neighbourhood stakeholders, with service providers, with schools and with health services, because when you close down these buildings you profoundly – profoundly – impact the whole ecosystem that exists around them, and that is a really big issue.

I take it from Minister Shing’s private discussions with us, if I may say that, that she is concerned to make sure that there is not a replication of that. But at the same time we are also hearing that multiple towers will be demolished in the very, very near future, and clearly central to what is in the Swinburne report is that you do not just knock down the buildings. You actually need to do a lot of work prior to that, and it is not just about consulting with the residents concerned.

There are obviously different views, depending on who you speak to, about whether or not the consultation has been good or otherwise. Certainly in terms of the people I speak to – and these are the people that grab me when I am on the street going to the supermarket or into the local shops – they are deeply traumatised. It is not a product of being told this by the Greens or whatever. These are people who are genuinely distressed, and the communications with these people, the consultations with their representatives and the consultations with other stakeholders in the neighbourhoods have not been adequate.

In terms of the motion itself, it seeks to address a number of things. Clearly this motion comes after, for want of a better term, a failed documents motion. That documents motion could be critiqued as having been a bit of a shopping list, but the fact of the matter is that there was a lot of information that was sought which would have informed this debate. Rather than simply taking this position or that position, there is hard data that could have been presented any time over the last six months that would have addressed questions like what is the business case for the redevelopment.

Ten years ago, when the Kensington housing estate towers were being refurbished, there were two building realities. One building reality was that these buildings are hugely overengineered. They are incredibly robust structures, but within them the services had profoundly decayed. If you look at the towers now, they are pretty much fully occupied. In many cases they have been retrofitted and converted. There are a whole lot of things that can be done in these buildings because they are simply so robust. So to suggest, I think, that there is $2.3 billion which will be bandaids – I would really like to see the evidence of that. If it was fine to do it a decade ago, what has changed on a 50-year-old building? I live in a 148-year-old house. There are various colloquialisms I could apply, but I think the Acting President would take umbrage with the descriptions I might use. But these are very robust buildings, and they are retrofittable. You can double-glaze them, you can ventilate them, you can sprinkler them. Again, none of the data that has been presented would change that.

I guess in that sense if you are going to take out 44 towers – take the government’s own numbers – we are looking at about 10,000 people being decanted. If you do a basic back-of-the-envelope on what is being built, it would seem to me that what the government is proposing to build and roll out will be fully absorbed just by that relocation process. If we allow, say, four to five years to get these projects rolling, and that is how long these things take to get to commissioning, we are basically going to see a situation where the government will be rolling out replacements equivalent to those high-rise towers at about two per annum for 20 years. I just cannot see how the numbers currently stack up.

We have a whole range of other issues. We would welcome disclosure from the government as to the sorts of issues that have been identified, and that does not need to await an inquiry. Obviously terms of reference can be amended if those documents are provided and the rationale is provided, and I hope that the government will avail itself of that. I know that is not as good as what we have been discussing, but that may be a way forward. I would just conclude by thanking the minister again for her time and the Greens for their time, and we will be supporting the motion.

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (15:33): There is only a minute to go. I think I will just leave it, because it is not worth speaking for a minute on this. My colleagues have probably canvassed the issues very thoroughly, and I will leave it at that.

Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (15:34): Firstly, thanks to everyone for their really thoughtful contributions to this difficult, challenging but really important debate for this Parliament. I want to thank some members, particularly from the government, for sharing some information with us about some of the details that had not been furnished formally beyond an inquiry that the Greens helped establish. It does highlight how important it is for parliamentary inquiries to be conducted, because we do get information, we do get expert witnesses and we get the department before parliamentarians. That is more information than we have got to date from any other source from the government – that parliamentary inquiry the Greens helped initiate into the rental housing crisis. If we got that much information through that inquiry, just imagine how much more information we could get from this inquiry and how we could improve residents’ outcomes because of it. Responding to the minister’s assertion that we have not sought briefings and that we have not brought this matter to the Parliament and to her prior to today, we have relentlessly pursued this within the chamber for six months without pause, the government has not offered us a single briefing and the minister did not reach out to us to discuss this motion today.

I think it is most important to understand, as I explained at the start, that this motion and the need for this inquiry has come directly from feedback we have had from residents. From day one of the government’s announcement we wanted to be informed by the community, so we went out doorknocking. We have doorknocked all of the Flemington and the North Melbourne towers, we are making headway in the Richmond towers, we are beginning in Prahran and more, and our aim is to doorknock and talk to every resident in all of those towers over the coming months and years. They have told us that they are really worried about what is happening. They want more assurances, they want more answers and more justifications, they want better outcomes and they want housing certainty.

In terms of responding to some of the assertions that have been made by some government members that there is no heating and cooling and that is why the towers have to be redeveloped, well, there is heating. The issue has been cooling, which we have been pursuing. The government actually made an announcement at the last election promising cooling, but we are yet to see how that is being rolled out across the towers. If you want to talk about accessibility, you might want to look at the new community housing you built at Ascot Vale, where in one of the community homes the residents have had to move out for a number of issues already within months of moving in. If you look at the rail up the stairs to get into the apartment, because it is not accessible, the rail has been put on the wrong side. There is a big drop to the garden, and the residents said ‘We could fall off these stairs into the garden.’ The builders said, ‘We’ll just put more mulch up to get the garden a bit higher so you fall less,’ and they are not moving the rail. That is what is happening at the new community build at one of these estates that they redeveloped.

It is really important we get to the bottom of what is going on and how we improve these standards and outcomes for residents and how we save and protect public housing, because public housing is for all of us. It is the bedrock of good housing policy, and we cannot make housing affordable in Victoria and across Australia if we do not build more public housing. What the government is planning to do is demolish the public housing that we have and not recommit to public housing at 42, at this stage, of those 44 sites. It has been canvassed during this debate the needs of public housing residents and the importance of thinking about how we treat people. How we treat people matters. How much information, how they are consulted and how they are involved in the decision-making about their lives with something as fundamental as housing are just so important.

In conclusion, I was just reflecting yesterday, which was World Social Work Day – happy World Social Work Day to all the social workers out there – on my journey as a social worker. One of the first things I did when I was studying was to volunteer at the Margaret Oats Collingwood soup van in Richmond, where we visited the towers weekly for five years. That was my stint; it is still going 25 years later. That was the relationship that a number of us had built with residents in public housing. We saw the condition of those homes then. We heard from the residents directly, and we have continued that work today. So for all those public housing residents who have been speaking to us, thank you for informing this debate today. We brought this to the Parliament on your behalf. We do this work for all of you. We are on your side, and I promise you we will never give up.

Council divided on motion:

Ayes (19): Melina Bath, Gaelle Broad, Katherine Copsey, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, David Ettershank, Renee Heath, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Sarah Mansfield, Bev McArthur, Joe McCracken, Nick McGowan, Evan Mulholland, Rachel Payne, Aiv Puglielli, Georgie Purcell, Samantha Ratnam, Richard Welch

Noes (16): Ryan Batchelor, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Jeff Bourman, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, Michael Galea, Shaun Leane, David Limbrick, Tom McIntosh, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Gayle Tierney, Sheena Watt

Motion agreed to.