Wednesday, 11 September 2024

Bills

Protecting Public Assets and Services Bill 2024

Statement of compatibility

Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (09:52): I lay on the table a statement of compatibility with the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006:

In accordance with section 28 of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (the Charter), I make this statement of compatibility with respect to the Protecting Public Assets and Services Bill 2024 (the bill).

In my opinion, the bill, as introduced to the Legislative Council, is compatible with, promotes, and strengthens, the human rights protected by the Charter.

I base my opinion on the reasons outlined in this statement.

The main purpose of the bill is to protect several public assets and services from privatisation. This bill vests power in the Parliament to stop the privatisation of Victoria’s public housing estates as well as the Registry of Births, Death and Marriages. Parliament would also have the power to stop the sale of public land that is suitable for housing to private interests and return critical assets and services that have already been sold off – housing, VicRoads Licensing and Registration, the Port of Melbourne and the Land Titles Office – back to public ownership and control.

Section 12 – Freedom of movement

Section 12 of the Charter protects Victorians’ freedom of movement which includes the right to choose where to live. In my opinion, this Bill strengthens the Charter by protecting this freedom. The Bill would give Parliament the power to stop the demolition of Victoria’s public housing towers which would otherwise displace over 10,000 residents from their homes and communities.

Section 13 – Privacy and reputation

Section 13 of the Charter protects people’s privacy from unlawfully or arbitrary interference.

The Bill would allow Parliament to protect the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages from privatisation. This means it can continue to be run with the primary purpose of serving the public to access their own private and sensitive information, rather than for private profit. In recent years, many major private companies have been breached and people have had their private information stolen, or these companies have outright sold that information for profit. Keeping profit incentives out of the Registry is the best way to protect the sensitive information which is housed there from unlawful and arbitrary interference.

Therefore, in my opinion this Bill strengthens the Charter. For these reasons I consider that the Bill is compatible with the Charter.

Second reading

Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (09:52): I move:

That the bill be now read a second time.

On behalf of the Greens, I’m pleased to introduce the Protecting Public Assets and Services Bill 2024 to this place.

This bill could save public housing in Victoria and stop the demolition and privatisation of Victoria’s remaining 44 public housing towers if passed.

The Victorian Labor government’s agenda of privatisation is threatening too many public services and the infrastructure that Victorians need to build a good life. Public assets and services keep being sold off and leased in the chase for short-term boosts in cash flow. It is this agenda driving the mass privatisation of Victoria’s 44 public housing tower estates which will result in the displacement of over 10,000 residents in the middle of a housing crisis.

When public assets and services are privatised through sale or long-term lease, they are turned into profit-making schemes that end up delivering worse outcomes at higher prices.

They have already privatised VicRoads, the port, the land titles office and now public housing – what’s next?

Labor’s privatisation agenda is akin to what the Liberals did under Kennett. Victoria is being sold off, piece by piece. Even the very core work of government – policy development and advice – is being privatised and handed over to private consulting firms. If this doesn’t stop, we will be left with hollowed-out public services, at the mercy of large private monopolies whose only duty is to private asset managers in investment funds.

Labor’s history of privatisation

Labor should know that privatisation policies are not only harmful but deeply unpopular. Elections are lost by governments who are seen to be selling off the state to the highest bidder. Despite this, Victoria is the most privatised state in the nation. Successive governments have privatised well over 100 assets and services in the last 30 years alone.

In the 1990s the Kennett government privatised $30 billion worth of state assets. The Andrews–Allan Labor government has continued this legacy, privatising upwards of $20 billion of state assets and services. A further $30 billion has been spent on public–private partnerships. This includes multi-billion-dollar toll roads like the West Gate Tunnel and North East Link, and Victoria’s overpriced and unreliable tram and train networks.

To avoid scrutiny, Labor has dressed up all its privatisations using meaningless jargon in order to distort what it is doing: private–public partnerships, joint ventures, asset recycling, commercialisation, the ground lease model. Call it what you want. It’s non-government and private companies, profiteering at the cost of the public and delivering poorer quality services for Victorians in the process.

When you stop and take stock of all these privatisations may they be via sale or lease, it is impossible to deny what the Labor Party has become – a party for big businesses and for private profit at public expense.

What the bill does

This bill would stop the privatisation of key assets and services, including public housing, without the explicit permission of both houses of Parliament. New privatisations would need to be reviewed by the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee and be approved by both houses of Parliament to proceed. Existing public housing sites that have been privatised would be returned to the government to be used as public housing by 2030 and currently privatised services like VicRoads, the Port of Melbourne and the land titles office would return to public operation at the expiry of their current private leases.

Labor has been carrying out its privatisation agenda without a mandate.

The Victorian people have made it clear time and time again that they do not want their public assets and services sold off. And this Parliament has passed several motions about protecting the public housing tower estates. Despite this, Labor has been forging ahead with its plans.

In fact they got an investment bank to look into all the government agencies to figure out how they can be gutted for short-term cash. Labor does not have the mandate to be doing any of this. It’s not just terrible policy, it is an erosion of our democracy.

This bill would vest power in the Parliament to stop the privatisation of Victoria’s public housing estates as well as the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. It would stop the rampant sale of public land. And it would return critical assets and services that have already been sold off, back to public hands.

Public housing and land

The 44 towers

We already know why this is important. Our country and this state are facing the worst housing crisis in decades. 120,000 people are on the waiting list for public housing here in Victoria, and some 30,000 people are experiencing homelessness on any given night. More and more people are being turfed out of the private rental market. Where are they meant to go when the wait time for public housing is decades long?

Why is the government demolishing and privatising thousands of public homes when so many people need a place to live? When questioned, Labor has refused to release any supporting documents that detail the reasoning and plans behind this policy. They obfuscate and gaslight, leaving the community in the dark.

They are doing this because their plans are unjustifiable. Labor plans to knock down these towers and replace them with predominantly private housing and a smattering of community housing, which we know is more expensive to rent than public housing. Tenants also have fewer rights and are not assured tenure.

The government won’t even guarantee that any public housing will be built on the majority of these sites. We have seen the Allan Labor government repeatedly abandon public and community housing projects, opting instead to give public land over to private developers. What confidence can Victorians have that these towers will not be razed to the ground and the land handed to developers, who would never build an iota of public or community housing if the government doesn’t make them do it? The only promise that Premier Allan seems willing to keep is the promise to demolish thousands of public homes in the midst of a housing crisis.

If this is allowed to happen, there will be disastrous outcomes for many vulnerable people. If this mass privatisation is allowed to continue, longstanding communities will be torn apart. Vulnerable people will be shipped to outer suburbs where support services and public transport are sparse. From extensive experience and research, we know the devastating effects of this kind of displacement – economic hardship, poor mental health and physical health, social isolation, homelessness and, for some, incarceration.

It is unacceptable that Victoria has spent the least of any state on the maintenance of public housing. Under Labor, our public housing stock has been run into the ground and now this is being used as an excuse to tear it all down and hand it over to the private sector. Mind you, most of these towers are actually in great shape and a strong community movement has been building to advocate for their refurbishment, because this is a cheaper alternative that does not displace thousands.

Ground lease model

The Labor government has tried to hide its privatisation agenda using slick marketing and jargon but nothing can hide its agenda. The ground lease model is a privatisation project via long-term lease of public land where public housing estates are demolished and replaced with some community housing and a majority of private housing.

Community housing has an important role to play in the continuum of affordable housing options; however, it should not be used to replace public housing.

This is what has already happened on the public housing renewal program and ground lease model sites and what is planned for the 44 towers. And that is why this bill is needed so that already privatised sites can be returned to public hands for use as public housing in the year 2030. Any proprietors who have incurred costs will be reimbursed.

There have already been some significant delays in the construction and establishment of the public housing renewal program and ground lease model sites, which means only a small number of sites have occupants. The return of these sites to public ownership and control that this bill achieves would mean that all of these privatised housing sites would become public housing and result in a net gain of public housing homes. It would also mean that existing residents, particularly in the community and affordable homes, would have the opportunity to convert their tenancies to public housing without the need to move. For those who are residing in market rate housing, the Greens would advocate for these tenants to remain in their homes but as public housing tenants, paying 25 per cent of their household income in rent. We think that public housing should ultimately be for everyone.

Land sales

To stop Labor from continuing down the warpath against public housing, our bill also protects public land that is suitable for housing from sale to private property developers. The Department of Families, Fairness and Housing admits that the biggest barrier to more public and community housing is the availability of land. Yet Labor has been selling off swathes of valuable public land to private developers. No less than 16 hectares of public land worth $54 million has been sold off by this Labor government in recent years. A further 148 sites of public land, 2500 hectares, are currently being prepared for sale. Not a single public home will be built on any of that land – only private housing that generates enormous revenue for investors. This is simply deplorable.

I would also remind Labor that this is not their land to be selling off. While they might think public land is an asset to be disposed of because they hold the title to it, this land actually belongs to our First Peoples, who have never ceded sovereignty over the lands that were violently taken away from them during colonisation. In the middle of a treaty process in Victoria which recognises the harms of the past and the present and moves towards true self-determination and justice for First Peoples, any attempt to further dispossess First Peoples of their land risks undermining the whole process. To honour the treaty process, public land should be kept in public hands until treaties are completed. Our bill would allow Parliament to protect this land from privatisation.

Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages

This bill would also protect the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages from privatisation, because our private records should not be for sale. Privatisation of our personal records is a terrible idea. Have we learned nothing from all the recent leaks of personal data from private companies which have now left people vulnerable to scammers, not to mention all the private companies who sell off our data for profit?

It’s already absurd that we should have to pay anything to access our own personal records. If this privatisation goes ahead, we’ll probably end up paying even more in third-party booking fees – all on a dodgy website that has been slapped together hastily, if the state of VicRoads licensing and registration is anything to go by.

Births, deaths and marriages currently brings in $10 million to the government every year. If it gets sold off or leased commercially, none of this money will be returned to the public. Instead, the new proprietors will be seeking to skim off as much profit as they can manage. And how have they done this historically? By slashing the wages of workers, putting up prices and investing nothing in improving the service.

The ASU are already fighting an ugly battle against the VicRoads privateer to retain workers rights. The CPSU has come out strongly against privatising births, deaths and marriages for fear of the same.

Jaclyn Symes: On a point of order, President, I am reluctant to interrupt second-reading speeches – I do not think I have ever done it – but Dr Ratnam is misleading the house. Yesterday in question time, Ms Payne specifically asked the government a question in relation to the privatisation of births, deaths and marriages, to which I categorically informed the house that that was not something the government was intending to do. She has not had the view –

Members interjecting.

Jaclyn Symes: No, the claims in her second-reading speech – she has not taken the time overnight to update her prepared second-reading speech. I think it is important for me to put it on record that she is misleading the house.

The PRESIDENT: I do not think that is a point of order. Dr Ratnam to continue her speech.

Samantha RATNAM: They are mobilising their members against this anti-worker policy, firmly stating that the registry should remain in public hands as it is in every other state.

This bill supports these efforts by ensuring that already privatised services, such as VicRoads licensing, the Port of Melbourne and the land titles office, will be returned to public hands after the end of their lease.

It is a national shame that the Labor Party has fallen so far from its values. This is a party that once aspired to nationalise the banks, the natural resources sector and health services. But now, any principles once held have eroded away, and Labor is resorting to privatising even the most basic functions of the state.

The truth is none of these privatisations were ever a good idea for Victoria.

The consortium that bought licensing and registration agreed to pay $7.9 billion up-front, but there was never an understanding of how it would recoup its investments. It’s now becoming clearer that the plan for this consortium was always to cut corners, cut costs, raise prices and deliver a substandard service.

The Essential Services Commission found that the privatised Port of Melbourne overstated the revenue it needed to operate by as much as $650 million and warned consumers could be forced to pay prices that are higher than they should be for imported products, because the private operator has run the port in a way that is not consistent with prudent or efficient service provision.

The rot goes deep in each of these privatisation sell-offs and leases. We probably do not even know the extent of it.

This bill gives the Parliament the power to protect Victorians from Labor’s reckless privatisation agenda.

Conclusion

Enough is enough. It’s time for the Labor Party to stop riding roughshod over the Victorian people, especially the future generations who will be left to deal with the failures of these policies.

Passing this bill would give the Parliament the power to ensure our public housing estates and other critical assets and services are not lost to private interest. This bill is about stopping the demolition and privatisation of Victoria’s public housing estates, its essential public services, and creating oversight to stop Labor’s unchecked misuse of power.

The Greens believe that public services should be run by the government in the interest of the people. We know that the neoliberal project, which centres privatisation, has failed across the globe. The community suffers when public services are turned into profit-making ventures.

We see a future where everyone has access to essential services, where everyone who needs a home can access public housing and where secure public sector jobs bolster good working conditions for the labour market. Passing this bill is an important step in that direction.

I commend the bill to the house.

Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (10:08): I move:

That the debate be adjourned for two weeks.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned for two weeks.