Wednesday, 21 June 2023

Social and affordable housing

Gabrielle DE VIETRI (Richmond) (16:59): I rise to grieve Victorian Labor’s complete and utter failure to address the housing crisis, leaving so many without a roof over their heads while funnelling public money and public land into developers’ pockets. In 2018, after a hard-fought campaign by locals, this Labor government promised a full 20 per cent of public, social and affordable housing on the 3.9 hectares of land – public land – known as Fitzroy gasworks. The plan for this land wholly owned by the state government was billed as an exemplar of urban design. But the Andrews Labor government has since, slowly but surely, turned their back on all the people who were relying on those homes, because after the election, when the development plan was written up, the public housing had been scrapped. Then in the next iteration of the plan the social housing, which is different to public housing, was revealed to be only guaranteed subject to funding. That funding has never materialised.

Quietly the Development Victoria website was changed, and now it only mentions so-called ‘affordable housing’– no more social housing, no more public housing. Last week the Deputy Premier confirmed Labor’s commitment to social housing has all but evaporated. This means that out of 1200 private market-rate apartments that developers will build on this public land, the best that Labor can do in a housing crisis is to subsidise the developers to give a 10 per cent discount on 240 of those apartments. That is a 10 per cent discount on rents that have gone up 23 per cent in the last year, and that is what they are calling affordable.

Perhaps at least these tenants can be assured of knowing that they have a stable home to rent for life – but wait, Labor deliberately removed the original part of the plan that ensured that this small portion of housing would be affordable in perpetuity. It has been struck out of existence. The government now will only guarantee a discount for up to 10 years, after which, and I quote the minister’s office, ‘the market decides’. As if this could not get any worse, last week the local council was informed that even this pathetic attempt at affordable housing has been abandoned.

Finally, all we can expect is a concrete jungle of investment properties and Airbnbs. This is 3.9 hectares of land purchased at taxpayers expense, public land meant for public good. As the Deputy Premier said, a massive decontamination process has been undertaken on this land. It has taken years and it has cost taxpayers millions of dollars. All this just to hand public land to private developers so they can accumulate wealth while families are living in tents and sleeping in cars. How can each member of this Labor government face up to their communities and say ‘We’re doing what matters’ when what matters is clearly funnelling money into property developers’ pockets, lining the pockets of the landlord class while the people of Victoria struggle to keep a roof over their heads? This is just the latest move from a government hell-bent on privatisation, a government obsessed with demolishing public housing, fixated on gifting valuable, scarce public land to developers for private housing. But let us get this right: housing is not an income stream; housing is a human right. It is a basic need, and right now there are 120,000 people on Victoria’s public housing waiting list and 30,000 on any given night sleeping rough.

With the new injection of cash for social housing from the federal government, thanks to the Greens, this Labor government has an opportunity to fix this mess and build new public housing at the vacant Fitzroy gasworks site. The City of Yarra, where Fitzroy gasworks is situated, is proud to have the highest density of public housing residents anywhere in the state, with 10 per cent of our residents living in public housing. Not only that, combined with Port Phillip and Melbourne the City of Yarra has accommodated 50 per cent of the new housing in Victoria in recent years, densifying rapidly. Nevertheless, the Greens enthusiastically welcome more public housing in our communities.

There are other sites as well as the Fitzroy gasworks, built-up, vacant or underutilised land that the state government owns that should be used for public housing. Yesterday in fact my colleagues at the City of Yarra passed a motion to advocate to the Labor state government for urgent public housing to be built in our municipality, including at the former Provans timber warehouse in Clifton Hill. This was acquired during the east–west toll road. It is a huge vacant warehouse across an entire block of land that could accommodate at least 150 families close to school, close to work, close to shops and close to transport.

The old police warehouse on Wellington Street in Collingwood – build secure, genuinely affordable public housing capped at 25 per cent of the tenants’ income for those who need it most. Others are calling out for genuinely social housing on private land. We know that Cohealth in Collingwood has a social housing project for 50 new homes that has been in the pipeline for five years. So far this government has refused to fund it. Why? They have a plan. It is a good plan. They are asking for $25 million for housing, co-located with an upgraded, fit-for-purpose community health facility. It makes sense.

A member: But not in my backyard.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Through the Chair, member for Melton.

Gabrielle DE VIETRI: It is actually directly in my backyard. It is in the block I live in. It makes sense. Fund this now. But Gasworks is by far the biggest failure in this government’s failing housing policy. In combination these projects could amount to 2000 new public homes in our municipality. With such obvious opportunities to stop thousands of Victorians facing homelessness, every member of this Victorian Labor Party should be ashamed to stand behind the decision to give this public land to property developers. But unfortunately this is nothing new. Labor has been in power for 18 of the last 22 years, and over that time the amount of public housing in Victoria has decreased. In the last decade alone the number has decreased by 600 homes. This government are so desperate to give away public land to developers they are actually demolishing existing public housing. They are evicting tenants. They are privatising land in the middle of a housing crisis.

Tomorrow the state government will take Margaret Kelly, a 68-year-old Port Melbourne public housing resident, to VCAT. They want to evict her. They want to give her home of 25 years to private developers. And Margaret is not alone. Thousands of others have been forced out of public housing by this Labor state government, forced to move far from their communities into inappropriate housing, and for what? Once these iconic public buildings in Port Melbourne have been demolished and their communities destroyed, will the Barak Beacon housing estate sit and languish like the other public housing estates across Victoria? Elizabeth Street in North Richmond – sitting vacant since 2012. Walker Street in Northcote – vacant for three years. They are everywhere – dank wastelands, tragic monuments to developer greed and Labor’s failure.

I know that right now those opposite are thinking up their retorts. They will say ‘The Greens this’ and ‘The Greens that’. According to the Andrews Labor government, we Greens are to blame for any and all problems that Victorians face. But the fact of the matter is that when it comes to housing, you are failing. We need this government to do better. Imagine having the power to fix the housing crisis and instead spending your time spinning bad-faith messages to shift the blame onto others and whip up public division. But the Andrews Labor government cannot keep shifting the blame, because this is their failure. The Greens have fought against Labor’s corrupt proposals to get rid of housing to privatise land for developer greed. But it does not matter how hard you spin it, private housing will never meet the needs of those who are struggling as long as the profits dictate the terms. That is why I am calling on the government not only to fulfil its promise for social and affordable housing at Gasworks as a matter of urgency but to review the entire Gasworks site for its potential to accommodate public housing and public facilities, not private development.

Never before has a government been so fixated on shirking their responsibility to provide public housing to those who need it. The Greens have been relentless in pushing this government further and faster on housing, and thanks to community pressure, state and federal Labor have been dragged kicking and screaming into action. Thanks to the Greens, the federal government announced $2 billion they said just did not exist for social housing, and the Victorian government this week has agreed to work on rent controls, regulating Airbnbs and the vacancy tax to make more homes available for renters and to first home buyers.

Members interjecting.

Gabrielle DE VIETRI: I am glad to hear those opposite saying that the Greens can solve everything – we seem aligned on that – because our growing movement to make housing affordable is working. But we will not give up until everyone has a secure, affordable place to call home, and this Andrews Labor government must stop demolishing public housing and they must stop giving away public land to private developers and instead maintain and build public housing, and they should start with the Fitzroy gasworks site.