Tuesday, 2 August 2022

Ombudsman

Investigation into Complaint Handling in the Victorian Social Housing Sector

Dr RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (19:30): I rise to speak to the report on the Ombudsman’s investigation into complaint handling in the Victorian social housing sector. It is apt that I have the opportunity to speak to this during Homelessness Week. It is a week to reflect on the dire state of housing in our state and to call on governments to develop a plan to end homelessness as a matter of urgency.

On any given night over 25 000 people experience homelessness in Victoria, and we have 125 000 people on the state waiting list for public housing. Yet not only aren’t we building the amount of housing we know is needed to end homelessness, as the Ombudsman’s report confirms, we are running our existing stock into the ground, with inadequate maintenance, and treating our public housing residents like second-class citizens. This investigation has been the result of years of advocacy by public housing residents, who have been demanding better from the state government, their landlord. I want to thank those residents who have contacted my office and the offices of my Greens colleagues when they have had nowhere else to turn. I also want to acknowledge the work of our electorate staff, who have worked tirelessly for years to support residents to get even the most basic of maintenance support from the department.

A good government would be a model landlord to its public housing tenants, but this report has highlighted what we have known for years: that this government is completely failing its public and social housing residents. Residents struggle to get basic maintenance requests met, safety fears are dismissed and too many concerns are delayed or ignored altogether. The report describes the complaint system as broken and as complex, confusing, under-resourced and in many places ineffective and inconsistent. It also points out that while the complaint system was broken across the board, for community housing tenants the system was particularly dire. The quality of the complaint system depended on the individual housing provider, and community housing tenants had few opportunities for escalation and even less certainty that they would have their complaints resolved.

I was pleased see the Ombudsman recommend a new social housing ombudsman to act as an external review point for all social housing complaints, public and community housing alike. Public housing residents have been calling for a new specialist public housing ombudsman for years, and the Greens have helped to amplify their advocacy, including by introducing a bill to create a public housing ombudsman back in 2020. I would encourage the new Minister for Housing to act on these recommendations as a matter of urgency.

I think it is quite stark that while the government was quick to respond to the Ombudsman’s joint investigation with the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission into Operation Watts and to accept all recommendations, it has been completely silent on the social housing complaints investigation. It is not surprising, though, as this government takes every opportunity to avoid criticism of its failure to act on our housing crisis, particularly its complete neglect of our public housing system and its steady privatisation of public housing.

We know that publicly owned, publicly managed housing is more affordable and more secure than community housing and that it offers its tenants greater protections. This is clearly demonstrated by this investigation, which found that while both the public and community housing complaint systems were inadequate, the latter was especially poor. If anything, this report should sound an alarm about what happens when you outsource what should be a core responsibility of governments.

Public housing residents are afforded some rights and protections through established legislation and regulations, but instead of doing the work to strengthen that framework and prevent the scenario that the Ombudsman uncovered, this government is going in the opposite direction and abandoning public housing in favour of community housing. It is embarking on a mass privatisation agenda, transferring public homes into private management and demolishing existing public housing estates to replace the homes with community housing and privately owned homes.

At estates like Barak Beacon, where the public homes are still in good condition and where residents have formed a tight-knit community, the decision to demolish the homes and evict residents makes little sense. The question now is: where will these residents go? The government wants them to enter community housing, but as the Ombudsman found, they would have even weaker protections and fewer rights than they would have as public housing residents. No wonder residents continue to tell me that they feel completely let down by this government.

Victoria is in a housing crisis. This government should be massively investing in our public housing system, creating tens of thousands of new public homes. That is the way we can create a Victoria where everyone has access to a safe and secure place to call home. That is the way we can end homelessness. I urge the government to heed the Ombudsman’s recommendations immediately and invest in our public housing system.