Wednesday, 5 February 2025

Housing

Katie HALL (Footscray) (17:46): Yes – all of the men of the opposition can depart.

Members interjecting.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Eureka can leave the chamber for 15 minutes.

Member for Eureka withdrew from chamber.

Katie HALL: All of the dudes on the dance floor over there can head off now that they have had their moment for video.

Look, I am shocked, actually, that the member for Malvern provided me with such a good segue for my grievance debate contribution, because it is about housing. In 2024 the member for Malvern tried to block 60 new apartments in Glen Iris, including 10 per cent affordable housing, close to a school, a medical centre, shops and local parks, built alongside a new supermarket within 500 metres of a tram stop, because heaven forbid anyone else should aspire to live in his electorate.

I also grieve that the Liberal Party and their friends in the Greens should ever have any more control over housing approvals in this state because the Greens – and in particular the member for Richmond, who was elected on Liberal Party preferences, has done a great deal in her power as mayor of the City of Yarra to block public housing development and social and affordable housing developments. All too often, bizarrely, the Liberal Party and the Greens are on this unity ticket to block, block, block when it comes to social and affordable housing.

Obviously the hour is a bit late, so I thought we could have a bit of a guessing game around who made this quote in this place:

There is no point putting a very low income, probably welfare-dependent family in the best street in Brighton where the children cannot mix with others or go to the school with other children or where they do not have the same ability to have the latest in sneakers and iPhones et cetera.

We have got to make sure that people can actually fit into a neighbourhood …

That was the former housing minister Ms Lovell in the other place, and she made those comments in 2022. I think that speaks to how sometimes members of the Liberal Party say accidentally what they actually mean, which is that they do not want people living in affluent communities of Melbourne who might have a lower income. They do not want social or affordable housing in their communities because fundamentally they do not believe in it. They have never funded it. The Greens have never funded it – they have never built anything. But I am very proud to be part of a government where 10,000 new homes are already underway or complete as part of this government’s Big Housing Build.

There is nothing more important than the dignity of a warm and safe place to call home, and we are on track to deliver more than 13,300 new homes right now across Victoria through the Big Housing Build and the Regional Housing Fund.

On this side of the house we believe in building, not blocking. We are building homes that people want to live in in places that they want to live in, and we are getting on with the job of delivering more homes for more Victorians right across Victoria despite the relentless opposition from the coalition and their friends in the Greens. They block, we build. The former Leader of the Opposition, who is in the chamber, has even stood on a ute in front of a housing site on Bills Street in Hawthorn campaigning against new homes for vulnerable Victorians, and hundreds of families have moved in, or are getting ready to move in, to Markham Avenue in Ashburton – I believe, Deputy Speaker, you would be very familiar with this fantastic development, delivering more social and affordable homes for people in your community – or to Dunlop Avenue in Ascot Vale or Tarakan Street in Heidelberg West. These developments provide a further 304 new social homes and 204 affordable homes.

The Allan Labor government is a government for all Victorians, which is why we are delivering 1300 new homes across regional Victoria. These new homes will include a mix of social and affordable housing, and this is on top of the $1.25 billion we are already investing in our regions through the Big Housing Build, taking the total investment into regional housing by this government to $2.25 billion, because building is what we do best.

I am very proud to be a part of the Elgin Street consultative committee for the public housing redevelopment, the largest urban renewal project in the nation’s history, redeveloping the out-of-date towers that many people call home – many of our most vulnerable Victorians. The Greens seek to represent them but instead run around the towers scaring people, telling mistruths like that they will be evicted, which is incorrect. If only they listened to the people at the Elgin Street consultative committee, because these are people who are helping to shape the new homes that they are going to live in directly with the department that is designing them, and already their feedback has had an impact. A lot of the feedback related to needing some larger apartments for multigenerational families to live in, and the department has been able to come back to them and say, ‘Yes, we can incorporate this into the design.’ That is actually listening to people who are living in public housing, unlike the abhorrent behaviour of the Greens political party, who are scaremongering in the public housing estates, and then of course the coalition, who have never supported public housing. But we are getting on and delivering more homes through the renewal of 44 ageing high-rise towers and delivering thousands more modern, secure and accessible social homes.

The existing towers are reaching the end of their useful lives, and we know that they no longer meet the modern standards that the tenants should expect, particularly for families with kids or Victorians living with a disability. We know that it would cost $2.3 billion over 20 years to reform the towers into a habitable condition, and that does not include improving building compliance with the modern standards that people should expect.

So I am very proud to be working on the public housing renewal project, and I am concerned about and I grieve for the fact that we know what those opposite have said. In fact the member for Malvern just 10 minutes ago opposed more housing in his electorate. It is unbelievable to me –

Richard Riordan interjected.

Katie HALL: having the interjections of, again, the member for Polwarth constantly bellowing across the chamber at people. It is like that episode of The Simpsons with the old man shouting at a cloud.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume her seat.

Bridget Vallence: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, I think for the benefit of the house it would be good to be factual. It was actually this Labor government –

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The point of order is?

Bridget Vallence: that extended the economic life –

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Succinctly, please.

Bridget Vallence: of the public housing towers, which is precisely why we have the problem today, under Labor.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is not a point of order, Manager of Opposition Business. I would encourage the member to debate through the chair without assistance.

Katie HALL: Look, I am also excited that we have announced our reforms – something I know that those opposite will also block – which is the 50 activity centres that are well served by public transport, to get more homes built in places where Victorians want to live. Those opposite cannot quite comprehend that more people, perhaps the children or grandchildren of their constituents, may want to live close to the place where they grew up. That is why the activity centre program and indeed the Suburban Rail Loop are really important as a housing project, because for too long unprecedented growth has gone on in places like my electorate of Footscray, where the former planning minister, Matthew Guy –

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Correct titles.

Katie HALL: demonstrated exactly what he would do –

Bridget Vallence: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, members should use proper titles.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. As I just said, yes.

Katie HALL: The now member for Bulleen, the former planning minister, approved thousands of apartments without requiring developer contributions, and the new residents in Footscray still have dirt roads as a result. The Labor government had to take the developers, the member for Bulleen’s mates, to court so that we could recoup some developer contributions to pay for infrastructure like roads, footpaths and parks – all of the important things that make a community great and which were completely ignored by the member for Bulleen. So we know exactly what happens when the Liberal Party are in charge of development and planning approvals: thousands of apartments with no basic infrastructure like roads at the bottom. That was something that was opposed by the Victorian Government Architect at the time, who appealed to the planning minister not to approve it, yet he went on and approved it, and we are continuing to retrospectively bring in the infrastructure that my community needs and deserves and that the people in my community who have bought into these apartments are now crying out for and desperately need. There is a way to do planning and there is a way to build more homes, or there is the Liberal Party way, which is you get your developer mates to give you a call, maybe you go out for lunch for lobster, and you make some approvals. We have seen it in Fishermans Bend, we have seen it in Footscray and we saw it in Phillip Island. We know exactly what happens when the Liberal Party are in charge of planning and housing and let us hope that the good people of Victoria are never subjected to it again.

Members interjecting.

Katie HALL: Although it is hard for me to hear myself speak –

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Katie HALL: Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I am very proud to be a part of a government that is making more approvals for homes than any other jurisdiction in the country, but we are doing it without allowing developers to let rip, as the previous Liberal government allowed in my community of Footscray, where we have apartment towers that are built so close to the river that they are overshadowing the river. They are encroaching on the Maribyrnong River.

Roma Britnell interjected.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for South-West Coast!

The approvals were made for thousands and thousands of apartments without any consideration of the requisite infrastructure that might need to go in and without any consideration of overshadowing or other impacts. This is not what the Labor Party does, and this is not what the Labor government will do, because we are committed to creating precincts that are livable, that people want to live in, but also ensuring that the middle ring of suburbs is a place where we can accommodate more homes. That is something that the Suburban Rail Loop, a transformational housing and transport project connecting two major universities and a health precinct, will deliver. We know that is something that the Liberal Party will scrap if they have the opportunity, because that is how they roll.

It has been a bit of an eye-opener reading through some of the comments. We know that they want to cut services, but we also know that they will make cuts to infrastructure and to the building of the housing and the precincts that Victorians deserve.

Question agreed to.