Thursday, 30 October 2025

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (23:27): (2075) I raise this issue for the Minister for Disability because I am very concerned. Two constituents have raised with me concerns around their family members. It is not just my two constituents, that have raised this directly with me in the last few days – there are thousands of Victorians who will be facing eviction from their homes. These are some of the most vulnerable members of our community, members of the community with disabilities – Victorians with disabilities – and they are at risk of being evicted from their group homes and losing the carers who look after them.

Cheryl’s son Jeremy is in a group home operated by the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, which the minister is responsible for. They have pulled the transitional funding needed to keep it open and the third-party provider that operates the home on a day-to-day basis is exiting. This will leave Jeremy without an appropriate home because Cheryl has visited two dozen alternatives and none of them are suitable. Another constituent contacted me about her brother, who lives in a wonderful group home in Bayside with amazing staff that look after him. Both of these women are just beside themselves. They are so worried about where their loved ones are going to go.

There are thousands of Victorians that have essentially got nowhere to live. This is appalling. If we are thinking about vulnerable Victorians, these are some of the most vulnerable Victorians. They are people with disabilities. They need care and they need homes and they need support and they need that security, and I am telling the minister, who is shoving the blame to the federal government, that that is not good enough. There is an issue between the federal and the state governments, but it is up to the state to go and negotiate this and to give the assurance before the deadline of 31 December when all this is going to come to an end.

These families are beside themselves about what they can do for their family members. The action I seek is for the minister to immediately intervene in this crisis and get this issue sorted out so that people like Jeremy and Chrissy’s brother who I speak of have homes to live in and carers to look after them in their time of need.