Housing
Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (12:19): (337) My question is to the Minister for Housing. In the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing annual report Victorians are at last given a glimpse of the results of the Big Housing Build. Minister, since 2019 your government has demolished or sold on average 26 homes a week. Since the $5 billion spend on the Big Housing Build began you have only added 12 extra homes a week to the public housing stock. Minister, when will you deliver the 8200 extra homes your predecessor promised in May?
Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:19): Thank you, Mr Mulholland, again for your interest in the Big Housing Build and the investment of $6.3 billion to provide at least 13,300 social homes around the state. One of the things, again, that I indicated in an answer to a previous question that you asked me is the work that has happened to date. In the course of delivering on those new homes we have got 7600 homes either completed or underway, with 3000 families living in them or getting ready to move in, and we are also continuing to provide new and upgraded housing to people in regional Victoria, including those in flood-affected areas and people who need those additional housing programs to come on line.
Mr Mulholland, we have also got a really significant partnership with the federal government, and it was just this morning that I joined the Premier and federal housing minister Julie Collins in Prahran to talk about the way in which the ground lease model has taken sites, for example in Prahran, where there were previously 500 dwellings and moved them up to 1370 dwellings. We are talking about an uplift in some instances of around 20 per cent in social housing on those lots. It is also about providing opportunities for people to live in, to recreate and to enjoy community as part of broader community, and this is where when we talk about a mix of options being used for development of sites we are not only taking the needs of our social housing communities, residents, tenants and families into account but also working on private rental opportunities and on assistance for specialist disability accommodation and partnering with community housing providers, including those people who serve so well and work so hard, for example, in women’s property initiative work, in the Aboriginal housing space and for people who are living with and accommodating mental illness or addiction and victims and survivors of family violence.
We have got the largest collaborative effort ever between all levels of government, and that includes $497 million through the Commonwealth government’s social accelerator fund, and the Housing Australia Future Fund is a big part of that work too. I am looking forward to that work continuing and additional houses coming on line into the coming years.
Evan Mulholland: On a point of order, President, on relevance, I did ask when the minister will deliver the 8200 extra homes her predecessor promised in May. I am looking for when.
The PRESIDENT: I believe the minister was relevant to the question.
Harriet SHING: Every day, Mr Mulholland, we are investing in making sure that we are not only driving tens of thousands of jobs and not only driving investment in metropolitan, peri-urban, regional and rural communities but delivering housing that is fit for purpose, that is accessible, that is tenure blind. If only you and your colleagues had taken this issue as seriously, we would not be in this situation now.
Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (12:23): Minister, with all the Big Housing Build money now exhausted, when can families escaping domestic violence, who are now waiting two years for a home, expect to get a safe home of their own when you are only providing an extra 12 homes a week for a waiting list more than 65,000 families long?
Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:24): Thank you, Mr Mulholland. I appreciate the supplementary because, in relation to family violence victims and survivors, we know that is a key driver of demand for housing and for properties at short notice. In 2021–22, 46,045 Victorians were provided with homelessness assistance after experiencing family violence. That is an increase of 50 per cent since 2012–13, and the 2022–23 budget invested $69.1 million over four years to fund existing family violence refuges, build and staff two new core and cluster refuges, upgrade three existing partner agency operated facilities and purchase six new crisis accommodation properties. We have also got more than $40 million over four years in a range of targeted housing and support measures to meet critical demand. Again, the 7000 figure that I have just referred to you now has over 800 – it is around 809, to be specific – homes that are set aside for people who are living with and escaping family violence, and the priority part of the register plays a big role in that work.