Wednesday, 18 October 2023

Public housing

Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (19:19): (389) My adjournment today is to the Minister for Housing. Four weeks ago, without any notice or warning, the Victorian Labor government announced that they will tear down all 44 public housing towers across Victoria. Twelve of those 44 towers are in my electorate of Melbourne, including 33 Alfred Street in North Melbourne, the first to be demolished. Many residents found out their homes would be demolished in the news. Others heard rumours from family and friends after department staff turned up to their buildings with flyers but could not provide any answers about why, when, how, where people would move to or what their homes would be replaced with.

For residents living at the North Melbourne public housing estate, they were subjected to the government’s cruel, hard lockdown during COVID, so this experience brought up some really scary memories. I have heard of residents who started packing up their belongings straightaway because there was no translation of the information provided – many of them do not speak English as a first language – and they did not understand what was happening. The community have so many questions, but so far they have been told most details are still yet to be determined. The Premier at the time said the rationale for demolishing these towers was to increase the number of people living on public housing estates from 10,000 to 30,000, but does that mean those extra 20,000 people will be living in public homes – 20,000 new public homes? No. Actually the vast, vast majority will be private homes. This plan was cooked up in conjunction with property developers, with the Premier literally standing next to property developers and signing an agreement for the cameras. Two-thirds of this public housing land will be sold off to private developers to become private apartments on our public housing land.

Labor say they will rebuild the public housing plus more, but get this: since then we have learned that across all of Melbourne Labor have confirmed they will only build an extra 440 social homes over 28 years. So if you do the maths, that is15 social homes a year for a waitlist of 125,000 people – for 15 new homes. My Greens colleagues and I have been holding community meetings to hear from residents. The minister has not come and met with residents. And when Homes Victoria came to a community meeting in Carlton they could not actually give any answers to residents’ questions. Homes Victoria has not even held a public meeting with residents in North Melbourne where they want to demolish the first tower.

Community members deserve answers. These are their homes. Imagine if the government turned up on your doorstep, decided to demolish your home but would not give you any information about why, when or where you would go. Most of us would not put up with that. Public housing residents, our neighbours, will not, and they should not either. So tonight the action I am asking for is for the Minister for Housing, along with Homes Victoria, to come to North Melbourne, Kensington and Carlton, hold public meetings with residents in person, front up, talk to residents, explain, give them answers in person and explain why they have to move out so developers can build 20,000 private homes on their land.