Tuesday, 18 June 2024

Housing

Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (22:01): (957) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Housing. A hallmark of this Labor government is mismanagement and waste, and Victorians are paying the price. The action I seek from the minister is to take immediate action to prioritise, expedite, construct and increase public housing stock in South Gippsland to help vulnerable families at risk of homelessness. A constituent of mine is in a dire situation and facing a lack of affordable housing. This constituent has lived in Korumburra all her life. She loves the area and is close to her family, but there are very slim pickings in the rental property market. She has three children, and she is facing a dire circumstance. There is only limited housing stock there, and the rental prices are out of her range. She is going to be forced to vacate the property that she is renting due to extensive mould, and it is less than two weeks before she has to leave that property. She is at risk of homelessness, and she is exhausting all opportunities. She has been on the public housing waitlist in that area for eight years. The perverse outcome is that she has to become homeless in order for fabulous entities like St Vinnies and the Salvation Army to try and help her.

Over the past nine years there has been no net increase in South Gippsland under this government’s big build –

Georgie Crozier interjected.

Melina BATH: ‘Big bill’, absolutely. We see from the government’s website that there have been six houses or dwellings built, but an equivalent number has been removed from stock. This is so sad and so dire for people who want to bring up their family, who want to provide and have a roof over their heads.

We hear the rhetoric from government and from the minister time and time again – well, she has swallowed her microphone at the moment. They are trying to divert it off to local government. These people have real needs. This government has wasted $4 billion and there are virtually no net new houses. We also see that the waitlist has increased – 3000 families over the last six years on the waiting list, and it is doubling all the time. Again, I call on the minister to increase the public housing stock in South Gippsland so that my constituent can look after her family and put a roof over her head.