Tuesday,20 September 2022
Adjournment
Social housing
Social housing
Ms LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (17:50): (2127) My adjournment matter is directed to the Minister for Housing and concerns the government’s continued failure regarding social housing policy and particularly their failure to release the current social housing waiting list figures. The action that I seek from the minister is for him to provide an explanation as to why he has failed to release the June quarter data for the social housing waiting list despite it now being September, and I call on him to release it immediately. I also ask him to provide an undertaking to Victorians that he will release the September quarter social housing waiting list figures within a week of the end of the quarter.
Members of the Andrews Labor government are quick to congratulate themselves regarding Labor’s social housing policy. However, the truth is that on every level Labor’s social housing policy has been an absolute disaster for those Victorians seeking assistance with housing. Applications on both the social housing waiting list and the priority waiting list have exploded in the eight years of the Andrews Labor government. Upon being elected in 2014, the Andrews Labor government inherited a social housing waiting list from the Liberals of 34 618 applications. As housing minister in the Baillieu and Napthine governments, my department and I had worked hard to house families and reduce that waiting list to that figure after inheriting a waiting list of 41 212 applications from the Brumby Labor government.
Over the last eight years of Labor the social housing waiting list has exploded to 55 097 applications, an increase of 59 per cent under the Andrews Labor government. Worse still, Labor do not want Victorians to know the true number of families languishing on the waiting list and are deliberately hiding the latest figures. The minister has refused to release the June quarter figures on the social housing waiting list despite us now being in late September and the September quarterly figures being due in 10 days time. Even more appalling is Labor’s treatment of those Victorians seeking priority housing, with applications going from 9990 families in September 2014 to 30 508 today, an increase of 207 per cent. These families are some of the most vulnerable Victorians, including those that are homeless, those escaping the trauma of domestic violence, those living with a disability and those that have special housing needs. But Labor is content to let them languish on the priority housing waiting list and wait while this government attempts to hide the truth from Victorians. These figures, we need to remember, are applications—they are full households. An average household size in Victoria is 2.54, so if you multiply those 55 097 applications by that figure, it is almost 140 000 Victorians languishing on Labor’s waiting list—more than we will see at the MCG this Saturday.