Thursday, 1 June 2023

Port Melbourne public housing

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (09:53): Public housing is a human right, just like public health and public education. Governments have a responsibility to make sure everyone has a safe and secure place to call home. On Saturday I joined with residents like Margaret from the Barak Beacon public housing estate, community supporters and my Greens colleagues to protest the demolition of this public housing estate. This place has been Margaret’s home for 25 years, and as one of the few remaining residents she was there fighting to keep her home. It was wonderful to be there with Margaret and the community to fight for public housing.

Over the weekend we saw Labor government ministers try to use smokescreens and misinformation to attack the Greens on Twitter over this protest and ignore the voices of residents and their own actions to destroy this estate. Make no mistake: the Andrews Labor government is planning to privatise Barak Beacon and turn this public housing land over to private developers. We need to keep public homes in public hands. I call on the government to abandon their privatisation agenda and invest in public homes for all who need them.