Wednesday, 4 October 2023

Polwarth electorate public housing

Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (19:07): (355) My adjournment this evening is for the Minister for Housing in the other place, and the action I seek from the minister is for her and her entourage to come to Colac to talk to the community about the 50 houses that have been promised under the government’s housing strategy. We again in the Parliament heard today from the new Premier, Premier Allan, who reminded the chamber in question time that we are in fact going to receive 50 new houses in Colac. Welcoming 50 new social houses into the Colac Otway shire is a great thing. There can be no doubt about that – that is a great move. The problem is the land has not actually been identified, the work has not been done and the community has not been spoken to about where the 50 houses are going to go.

There is a parcel of land that I worked very hard for for our community to keep reserved next to the school. Our secondary school is a school in Victoria that really needs a lot of support and extra facilities and ongoing support from the Department of Education. It worries me greatly, Minister, that we are going to give away the last parcel of land around our school that will see it basically landlocked without any capacity for future development and growth of our school. There is no shortage of land, Minister, in a country town. In fact in a place like Colac I can take you for a tour of areas of land that you already own. In what were once the public housing areas of Colac there have been homes removed and demolished, and vacant blocks of land are sitting idle. They would be great places to redevelop and look after. There are new housing estates that have got parcels of land available everywhere. In fact the council has just released one and identified an area for social and public social housing. That would be a great spot for the 50 houses – or not 50 houses in one spot, but two or three homes.

We have also got the great community of Apollo Bay. Apollo Bay was again on the front page of the Colac Herald advocating for more public and social housing down there. There is a parcel of land that Homes Victoria has knocked back, owned by the local shire. It would easily accommodate three new homes for families and people wanting to live and work and survive and get on with life down in Apollo Bay. That would be a great location.

So, Minister, what I think my community wants is for you and your department to come down and engage with the community in a way that says, ‘Here’s this allocation – 50 homes. Let’s put them in the best spots. Let’s make sure best practice around social and affordable housing is not only applied in Melbourne, where a lot of time is spent, but also in our country and regional towns’. It is so important with this level of investment. Fifty homes is a lot – it is probably more than the whole supply of homes built in our town in any one year. It is a great investment potentially for the government, but our community wants it done well. It wants it done properly the first time, and we do not want to repeat the mistake of the past of cramming too much on too little a site.