Housing
Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (13:36): (462) My question is for the Minister for Housing. 26 Dunlop Avenue, Ascot Vale, forms part of the government’s public housing renewal program. This was public land where no public housing was rebuilt and where residents in the private housing are already starting to experience significant problems. Grace Bell, a resident, has found that her brand new affordable home has a plethora of problems, including mould growth, dampness, cracks in the roof and tap water that may be unsafe to drink. Grace’s housing provider has ignored every request for these issues to be rectified, and Homes Victoria made thinly veiled threats about Grace’s housing tenure. This has left Grace with no choice but to move to an Airbnb and pursue the matter in VCAT, creating significant stress for Grace, who lives with a disability. Grace reports that her neighbours are facing similar issues but are too afraid to raise the matter with their housing providers for fear of eviction. Minister, will you intervene and rectify the issues at 26 Dunlop Avenue, Ascot Vale?
Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (13:36): Thank you, Dr Ratnam, for that question. I am not familiar with the details of the matter that you have raised. Again, as I have invited members in this place and indeed your colleagues in the other place to do, I am very happy if you want to approach me directly. As the matter is before VCAT, I am not going to make any comments in relation to the progress of that matter. That should not come as a surprise to you, Dr Ratnam. For us to seek to intervene in a proceeding that you have brought to this place with what can only be an incomplete picture of events and assertions made by you and not directly by the person involved means that it would be at its highest irresponsible of me to be making commitments in the terms that you are seeking before the chamber today. Dr Ratnam, if you do have general matters that you wish to raise, rather than what appears to be a very broadbrush approach to concerns held for other residents, then please feel free to talk with me about them rather than saying that you are seeking an intervention in the legal process currently on foot.
Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (13:38): Thank you, Minister, for your response. I am surprised that you have not heard of the issues at Ascot Vale, because we have heard from a number of residents who are having very similar issues and I thought you would be monitoring the situation quite closely. Grace’s situation is showing us what happens when private developers are left in charge of housing vulnerable and low-income people. She was turned away from the housing registrar, who says affordable housing does not fall under their remit. Homes Victoria, the National Affordable Housing Consortium, the tenancy manager and the estate agent have all failed to support Grace. They have passed the buck or simply ignored her. We have already heard from many public and community housing residents about the dismal state they are being left in due to a backlog of maintenance requests, and now it seems these issues are plaguing affordable housing tenants too. If this is the future of affordable housing built around this state, we should all be very concerned. Minister, you have failed to release the social housing regulation review and the government’s response two years after it was completed, and while we wait, residents are falling through the cracks. Minister, which body is responsible for holding affordable housing providers to account?
Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (13:39): Dr Ratnam, I find it curious that the preamble to your supplementary question goes on to allude to an assertion that Homes Victoria is not responsible for the particular matter that you have raised here, and I would seek, out of an abundance of caution, that you are aware of the way in which the housing portfolio operates and the work that is undertaken within this portfolio. Again, I cannot speak to the matter that you have raised because you have not provided me with sufficient detail to be able to do so on my feet. It would perhaps have been a better use of your time to approach me before this particular process in question time to actually talk about the fact that affordable housing is covered by a range of different portfolios. There is an element of affordable housing within the social housing portfolio, for which I am responsible, but I cannot say whether it falls within this portfolio or not. Again, I am really happy to take this offline and to perhaps make a bit better use of the time that you have got here in the chamber.