Thursday, 2 November 2023

Questions without notice and ministers statements

Housing

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (12:11): (336) My question is to the Minister for Housing. Minister, your department has failed to present the Housing Assistance: Additional Service Delivery Data report for two years. This report provides a detailed stocktake of the state’s public housing. The most recently available report shows that there are 5298 fewer public housing bedrooms available to the more than 65,000 families waiting for a place to call home than were available in 2017. Back then there were 160,348 public housing bedrooms available. Can the minister update the house on how many public housing bedrooms are now available?

Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:12): Thank you, Mr Mulholland, for your interest in social housing. I have got to say it is in fact a refreshing thing to hear someone from those benches opposite take an interest in housing as it relates to providing secure, dignified, accessible and fit-for-purpose homes for people all over the state, whether they are interested in affordable housing, private rental or indeed the social housing space, as well as of course those private sector partnerships.

Mr Mulholland, you have quoted a number of figures. I want to perhaps give you some context for the total number of tenants that we have got in public housing. As at the end of October we have got 1331 properties either in the tenanting process or the pretenanting pipeline. We have got 716 in the process of being retenanted through normal operations; 219 being released to support priority departmental initiatives and 325 undergoing necessary pretenanting actions, such as inspections, VCAT action and safety checks and repairs in line with the Residential Tenancies Act. We have also got a total number of public housing properties at 64,743 as at 20 April 2023. The total number of social housing properties, which includes, as we know, public housing, is 86,322 properties as at 20 April 2023. This is, I think, probably something that provides you with a measure of specificity around what you are looking for.

I also just want to confirm that in the mix of social housing that we are bringing online there is a recognition of the importance of providing homes that are one-, two-, three- and indeed four-bedroom in their configuration. We want to make sure that we are reflecting the way in which people live, and it is often intergenerational housing that is needed. This morning, for example, in Prahran when we talked about the ground lease model 2 and the partnership that has been entered into there, of the new social housing being brought online there in fact 17 of that total volume are four-bedroom homes. The bedroom configuration is changing. We have also seen a number of homes in the public housing stock which have actually been combined, so two-bedroom properties have actually been combined into two two-bedroom homes for larger families.

That perhaps gives you an idea of some of the examples of what we are doing. But, as part of the Big Housing Build, making sure that those dwellings and those configurations are fit for purpose is a big part of that, and that indeed reflects the community’s desire to have homes in place that meet their needs now and into the future.

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (12:15): Minister, you and your predecessor have been promising since May to release the current housing assistance additional service delivery data. When will it be released so Victorians can judge for themselves the progress of the government’s Big Housing Build?

Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:15): Thank you very much, Mr Mulholland. I think I have answered a question that was not dissimilar to that from Ms Lovell. I have indicated it is my expectation that data be provided to bring all of that assessment and that analysis to the most current advice and record that we have. I also want to perhaps assure you that in the course of the $6.3 billion record investment – no other government in Victoria’s history has ever invested so much in social housing – we already have 7000 homes that are either completed or in the process of being completed, and that represents a record that we will continue to build upon as we deliver more than 13,300 social homes and affordable homes around the state.