Wednesday, 27 August 2025

Bills

Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Amendment (Right to Housing) Bill 2025

Second reading

Debate resumed.

Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:02): I will continue my speech. I want to read out some information about Sir Robert Menzies and the vision that he had and what he said about housing. In his landmark forgotten people speech in May 1942 Robert Menzies spoke about the importance of ‘homes material, homes human, homes spiritual.’ The big thing that he spoke about though was that:

The home is the foundation of sanity and sobriety; it is the indispensable condition of continuity; its health determines the health of society as a whole.

This government has clearly failed on the topic of housing. One only has to walk the streets of Melbourne during the daytime and at night to see the number of people that are sleeping out there on pavements, in shop doorways and under bridges, with cardboard boxes for homes. I can understand why the Greens have brought in a very short bill that talks about every person having the right to adequate housing and then to go on to talk about what that housing should be – it should be affordable, structurally sound, meet standards, provide personal safety, have sufficient space for the person, be close to public services and employment opportunities and be secure. It is a very basic and simple bill that has been put before the house, but the problem is that it is ideologically driven by the Greens.

The Greens have failed, as has been mentioned by others in this place, on issues of human rights, and there has been a definite inconsistency in what they stand up for. It is really disturbing, as I mentioned before, that two weeks ago I could go in and easily find information about the contribution of the Menzies government to housing for all Australians and Victorians, that I could read about it and learn about it. But now, because there are a number of fictitious or slightly slurred perspectives being provided with AI that have redetermined how AI writes about this, it is very difficult to find the right information and to seek the truth. This is how a failing government would behave. It wants to control its people with a narrative that honestly it cannot hide.

You cannot hide it when you come to the south-east. I dare you to go down to the Frankston foreshores. I dare you to go down to the soup kitchens. I dare you to go down to where people are having to find food and shelter. This has got nothing to do with affordable housing, appropriate housing, for any Australian. It is an absolute disgrace that in this state we have the lowest amount of public housing available, and yet I bet our housing numbers are at record highs in this state.

You cannot argue with it. You cannot lie about it. You can try to manipulate AI if you want to, but the reality is we walk down our streets, we see our empty shops and we see people finding nowhere to stay. When they go to places like Wayss in Dandenong, they are told there is no room in the inn. This is simply unacceptable in a country like Australia – the so-called lucky country that has become so incredibly unlucky because it has had more than 10 years of a Labor government that simply does not care, is so ideologically driven and yet at the same time is prepared to sell off some of our public housing to the private sector that is not going to be affordable housing. What that means, though, is that now more people cannot actually afford to buy a house. So if they only learned from Menzies and were actually able to sit down with us – and some of them obviously are, because they are trying to copy some of his ideas – they would learn from the Liberals how to actually make home ownership affordable. There needs to be dignity for every Australian so that they have a house with a roof over their head to live in and we are not trying to make it pie in the sky.

I have been to the social housing, the public housing that is being closed down and condemned, and I am telling you that I would live there. A bit of paint and a bit of new carpet, and maybe work out some air conditioning for some of them, but I am telling you they are acceptable dwelling places and they are far better than sleeping on the streets. They are far better than sleeping between two pieces of cardboard or in a sleeping bag that some charity has managed to give you, while you sleep on the pavement. And you do not have to go far from Parliament House to see these people at the end of every sitting week.

I want to speak on the crisis of affordable housing. It is devastating families across Melbourne’s South-Eastern Metropolitan Region. This government boasts of a Big Housing Build across Melbourne’s south-east and across the whole of Victoria. But the people in my community – the people in the City of Casey, in the City of Greater Dandenong, the City of Frankston, the City of Cardinia and the City of Monash – are all subject to this big lie. For too long the government has treated housing as a commodity, not a fundamental right. The south-east is a perfect storm of policy failure and market forces. They are not just numbers on a page when we say that it is $550 a week to rent a median house in Frankston. These are not just figures when people cannot even afford to rent without having to work in groups and put families together, and still they may not be able to get into the private rental market.

This government’s response has been woefully inadequate. Their much-vaunted Big Housing Build is little more than a drop in the ocean. The Victorian public housing waitlist now numbers over 65,000 households statewide. This is a significant proportion of people, and a number of them are in the south-east. People are waiting for years and years, not months, for a safe and secure place to live. The government’s own data from March 2022 shows that over 5000 households in southern Melbourne – and this includes the area of Dandenong where my office is – were on the public housing waiting list. This waitlist has only grown since then.

A failure of political means that the government’s strategy is fundamentally flawed. Instead of a proactive, long-term plan we have a reactive, short-sighted approach driven by headlines and press releases. They have handed control of our communities to developers, offering tax breaks and fast-tracking private projects, while the need for public and social housing is ignored. One cannot ignore the fact that a number of these housing projects are somehow integrated into the CFMEU, who we know have a track record of being involved in criminal activity. What other activity is going on in housing projects under this government?

We have seen reports by the Auditor-General revealing that the government’s ambitious targets for new homes are also falling behind schedule. What a surprise when they have got people that spend their whole time looking for ways to delay projects so they can have cost blowouts and put more money in their own pockets. The policies presented, such as the Homes Victoria Affordable program, are small-scale pilot programs that offer a token amount of affordable housing at a rate just 10 per cent below the market value. For a family in the south-east which is struggling to pay $550 a week, a 10 per cent discount is not a solution, it is a cruel joke.

The housing crisis has a profound human cost. It is the young professionals who have to choose between paying rent and starting a family. It is the single parent who has to move their children out of their school district because they have been priced out of their neighbourhood. It is the elderly couple living in constant fear of a rent increase that will make them homeless. It is the frontline nurse or teacher who cannot afford to live in the very community that they serve. We are witnessing the slow and painful unravelling of our social fabric under this Labor government.

The time for half-measures and empty promises is absolutely over. We need a government that will commit to a genuine, large-scale investment in public and social housing, not just the private sector with its bailouts. We need to implement strong renter protections, including rent caps, to give stability to those who are most vulnerable. We must reform our planning laws to ensure that a mandatory percentage of every new development is dedicated to truly affordable housing, not just lip service but allowing people to get into the market.

Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) incorporated the following:

I rise to speak on the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities (Right to Housing) Bill 2025 on behalf of Legalise Cannabis Victoria.

I would like to start by thanking my crossbench colleagues for bringing such an important issue forward for debate.

This bill amends what is, arguably, Victoria’s most important piece of legislation – our Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006.

The charter recognises that all people are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

As a member of the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulation Committee, I am acutely aware of the extra checks and balances proposed legislation faces thanks to the charter.

The charter enumerates some inherent rights, including:

• recognition and equality before the law

• protection from torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment

• peaceful assembly and freedom of association; and

• freedom of expression.

But these are not the only rights that we are obliged to uphold when passing new laws in Victoria.

Australia is a signatory to multiple international treaties concerning human rights, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Article 11 of the covenant maintains that people have a right to housing and a continuous improvement of their living conditions.

Acknowledging this, it is uncontentious to say that there is an established right to housing in Victoria that we are failing to uphold.

It is also uncontentious to say we are in the middle of a housing crisis.

We’ve all heard from constituents in desperate housing stress, reaching out to our offices because they don’t know where else they can go.

Former Victorian chief justice Kevin Bell says it is no longer a housing crisis, but a ‘disaster’.

He goes on to say: ‘now it is obviously not just a blip in an otherwise well-functioning system. It is chronic. It has become the system.’

According to the Salvation Army social justice stocktake 2025: ‘In Victoria, 68.5 per cent of people identified housing affordability and homelessness as an issue in the community and 35 per cent identified it as an issue for themselves.’

Thirty-five per cent of the Victorian population are stressed about being able to afford a roof over their heads. That’s almost 2.5 million people.

It gets worse. The best guess we have at how many Victorians are currently experiencing homelessness is from the 2021 census – four years ago.

30,635, that is one in 212 people experiencing homelessness when the data was collected four years ago.

As if that were not bad enough, there are over 65,000 people on the social housing waiting list. These include people fleeing domestic violence and unsafe homes with nowhere to go and people sleeping in their car because they can’t afford rent.

If the ever-increasing housing and rental prices are any indicator, I would feel confident assuming this crisis has only become worse.

I don’t know what you all think but I believe in a better, more just Victoria than this.

Something in the system is failing and we must do better.

This bill is a step in the right direction.

It would be a recognition of a right we are obliged to uphold and a declaration of our commitment to it.

While this bill will not structurally address our broken housing system, it would set a fundamental benchmark in our legislation which the government of the day must respect.

I want to briefly touch on some of the specifics of the bill before us.

Clause 3 of this bill inserts a new section 12A into the charter that states that every Victorian has the right to adequate housing.

This bill is not abstract in describing what adequate housing means.

It provides a clear framework that housing must be accessible, affordable, structurally sound, safe, secure in tenure and culturally sensitive among other things.

In short, this bill characterises housing as more than just a roof.

It characterises it as a foundation for belonging, stability, safety and opportunity.

It should be a basic dignity to allow people a place to call home, a shelter from Victoria’s winters and a safe place to rest, live and play.

If I could be so bold as to assume that none of us in this chamber are currently experiencing housing stress or homelessness.

Aren’t we the lucky ones?

Having experienced unstable housing as a teenager, I am endlessly grateful for the home I own with my partner Renee and our little fur babies.

For me, and many others, home is a grounding place, a place where I can belong, be safe, and loved and calm. Home is the foundation from which my life is lived.

But many Victorians are not as privileged as us to have somewhere to call home.

When you have a former chief justice of the Victorian Supreme Court stating that the government is not upholding an obligation under international law, something must be seriously wrong with the system.

In Kevin Bell’s words, this government is ‘bound to give effect to the right to a decent home’. But it does not.

Many government MPs are even on record in this place reaffirming housing as a human right.

So, what is the problem?

Is it that this government doesn’t support private members bills?

Or is it that this is a progressive bill designed to address our housing crisis?

Whichever it is, this government appears to be more comfortable politicising human rights than enshrining them in our law.

While passing this bill will not solve our housing crisis, it will create a legal obligation to act and bring Victoria in line with international human rights obligations.

We owe Victorians a right to housing that is immortalised in our law.

Accordingly, we will support this bill and encourage our colleagues to do the same.

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:13): I move:

That debate on this bill be adjourned until later this day.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned until later this day.