Housing
Gabrielle DE VIETRI (Richmond) (10:02): Labor’s 44-tower demolition plan is a social, environmental, health and financial disaster. All year this government has contorted itself trying to justify demolishing homes in a housing crisis. They have just one PR line – the towers have to be demolished and privatised because they just cannot be upgraded – and they parrot this. Whenever they are pressed to give evidence though, not one single document can be produced. But then Labor announced that 13 low-rise buildings on Elizabeth Street in Richmond containing 78 homes would be razed to the ground next. The unexpected addition of these Richmond walk-up buildings proves that for Labor this is not actually about the towers, the building conditions or the best interests of the residents or even about providing any affordable housing. This is about the value of the land. This is Labor’s ideological retreat from public housing, and in the process they are willingly handing over prime public land to property developers, who will no doubt fund their next election campaign.