Tuesday, 31 March 2026

 Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (13:41): Over the past two weeks Victorians should have been enjoying the Commonwealth Games and proudly cheering on our Australian athletes. Instead we were shaking our heads at the utter embarrassment of the Allan Labor government’s shambolic planning and eventual cancellation of the Commonwealth Games, wasting $600 million of Victorian taxpayers money. Labor promised to redirect their games budget to investments in regional Victoria, but residents of Bendigo will be waiting years before they see any concrete results. The former Bendigo Teachers’ College in Flora Hill was supposed to be an athlete’s village for 160 residents during the Comm Games. After Labor cancelled the games in July 2023 the government promised that that housing project would still be delivered as social housing, which is desperately needed. But construction of homes at the Flora Hill site will not start until 2027. If the games had gone ahead the village would not have been ready for the athletes and they would have been sleeping in tents, just like many Victorians who do not have a roof over their head because of Labor’s failed housing policies. The Flora Hill site is currently surrounded by hoarding, and the department’s webpage says that staged construction of the project will not be fully complete until 2030. Meanwhile there are over 3000 families on the social housing waiting list in Bendigo, and rising regional rents under Labor are pushing even more families out of stable housing.