Tuesday, 3 March 2026

 Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (13:40): I rise today to speak about the urgent need to protect and expand public housing in Victoria. Our state is in the grip of a housing crisis, with around 120,000 Victorians on the public housing waitlist and around 30,000 people experiencing homelessness on any given night. Yet instead of treating public housing as essential infrastructure, Labor keep making decisions that put public homes at risk, including their current scheme, which hands off public land and public assets to private developers. At a recent community forum held in my region residents and advocates spoke powerfully about what public housing means to them: stability, safety and dignity. One elderly resident told us, ‘I was told I was able to retire here.’ That statement should shame this government. People have built their lives around their public homes and their communities around their public homes and the promise of secure public housing, not short-term redevelopment deals and uncertainty. The Greens are standing with campaigns like 44 Flats United and with public housing tenants across the state. We are calling on the government to stop undermining public housing and instead build more public homes, refurbish their existing stock and guarantee tenants’ rights and security, because housing is a human right and public housing must be protected.