Housing
Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (12:10): (664) My question is to the Minister for Housing. Minister, in a deeply cynical move the Allan Labor government has removed nearly 10,000 vulnerable families from the official public housing waitlist, hiding them deep in Homes Victoria spreadsheets. Why are you deliberately misleading Victorians about the true scale of your government’s failure to deliver homes to vulnerable families?
Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:10): Thanks, Mr Mulholland. I am going to actually start by outlining the way in which the housing register works and the way in which it is distinguished by those people who are looking to enter the social housing system and to secure a home that is fit for their needs within the social housing system on the one hand and those people who are already in the social housing system on the other. The latter category relates to applications for transfer – that is, people within the system already who are looking to transfer to another social home within the system. This is something which again splits the list into two distinct categories. I do not accept the assertion that you have made that the latter category is in any way concealed. It is clearly outlined; it is publicly available data. I do want to be very clear that when we address the challenges of shortages in availability and affordability, not just in Victoria but around Australia, we need to understand what need it is that we are addressing, because the needs of people who are wishing to transfer are often very distinctly different from the needs of people who are in transitional housing, in crisis accommodation or indeed who are coming from homelessness.
One of the things that I have been very clear about is the interlinked nature of the housing system. At the moment we are seeing just under 40 per cent of people who are accessing homelessness services for the first time coming from private rentals. This is where when we have that measure of pressure on the system, we know that it takes all parts of the system to come together. When I talk about the Australian challenges being faced and the way in which data needs to be reported to reflect what that need looks like, I just want to perhaps provide you with a measure of comfort, Mr Mulholland, that goes directly to the tenor of your question. In New South Wales, its website reports the numbers of social housing applicant households excluding transfer applications. In Queensland –
Evan Mulholland: On a point of order, President, the question was quite clearly about Victoria and narrowly focused on Victoria.
The PRESIDENT: The minister is being relevant to the question.
Harriet SHING: Queensland, Mr Mulholland, reports individual social housing applications rather than summary information excluding transfer applications. The ACT reports the number of new applications and transfer list applications in separate tables. In Western Australia, the annual report publishes numbers of total rental –
David Davis: On a point of order, President, this is not merely a contextual matter, this is going around the states in different ways, giving an answer to a question about Victorian housing. It is not about housing all around Australia. It is clearly an abuse.
The PRESIDENT: Mr Davis, the minister answered the question early on in the 3-minute time span that she has. She has got 2 seconds left. I think we will just go to the supplementary now.
Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (12:14): Minister, public housing towers are being demolished and there are 446 fewer public homes available compared to this time last year. Given the Allan Labor government’s demolition of over 600 public housing units and its decision to remove nearly 10,000 families from the public housing waitlist, will the minister finally admit that the Big Housing Build is a complete sham?
Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:14): When we talk about the Big Housing Build, we will just go to the separate reporting and to the data that you have referred to. What we are doing here in Victoria is bringing our data into line with other parts of Australia around understanding what that need looks like. Since the Big Housing Build commenced we have seen 4800 additional homes come online and 9000 additional properties in total being added to the inventory. And if you look at the last 15 years, we have seen about 22 per cent more homes delivered here in Victoria than in New South Wales, and that is by far higher than other states when we talk about reference points. We have got about 3.4 million homes that have been delivered here in Victoria over the last 15 years, as distinct from about 2.8 million across New South Wales. The CoreLogic data that was released a couple of weeks ago, Mr Mulholland, is a useful starting point to get accurate data around that. You may wish to familiarise yourself with it.