Wednesday, 3 December 2025

 Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop, Minister for Housing and Building, Minister for Development Victoria and Precincts) (12:27): This year an additional 1000 Victorian families have moved into or are getting ready to move into their brand new social and affordable homes, all thanks to our $6.3 billion Big Housing Build and Regional Housing Fund. While those opposite are still really focused on leaking and undermining their own colleagues, we have been building new homes, like those I visited in Ballarat last week with the member for Wendouree, the member for Eureka and of course the member for Ripon. But sadly, not every community can count on their local member to support the delivery of new homes. Who could forget the Liberal who opposes building 50 new homes in their community because they are too close to a cemetery? Oh, that is right, people could forget that member because he is no longer the shadow minister for housing. When we look at the new shadow frontbench, we see a collection of Liberals who are opposing new homes across key suburbs, like Brighton, Elsternwick and Camberwell. We see the member for Brighton in the other place urging protesters to sacrifice one $150 dinner that they might otherwise buy on Church Street and instead put that money towards advertising against building more housing in his electorate.

You say that you support more housing in Victoria, but we all know what you really mean, and that is housing, just not in your backyard. So when the new Liberal shadow minister for housing affordability says ‘the Liberal–National parties are not against social housing, but’, we know what that means. When they say government ‘will impose public housing on your community’, we know what they mean. When the new shadow minister said, as recently as yesterday, that the Liberals would pause the redevelopment of the 44 social housing towers to treble the density across 39 hectares of land in the inner city and inner suburbs, Victorians know that means cutting 30,000 new opportunities for Victorians. That is not an anti-housing dog whistle; it is as subtle as the MCG sirens.

Let us not forget the member for Caulfield, our new Shadow Minister for Housing and Building. He has an interest in 18 homes – sorry, 16; I overshot the mark. He says nobody should be smashing up people that work really hard. I think we can all agree hard work should be rewarded – (Time expired)