Thursday, 15 August 2024

Housing

Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (01:52): (1063) My adjournment tonight is for the Minister for Housing, and the action I seek is that she stop the demolition of public housing and the fire sale of public land to private developers. We are in the midst of the worst housing crisis in living memory, with 120,000 people on the public housing waitlist. We should be building more public housing on public land, yet it seems that all this government wants to do is tear down our existing public housing and sell off the land to private developers. The recent revelations that Labor have signed a $100 million contract with John Holland to demolish public housing towers in North Melbourne and Flemington, towers with residents still living in them and with a class action lawsuit underway, show Labor’s utter contempt for those public housing residents and exposes their intention to use the contracts being signed as legal grounds to force evictions – to force vulnerable people from their homes. Many of these people have lived in the towers for decades and have built communities and support networks there. I was at a community barbecue at another public housing tower in my electorate of Southern Metro and residents there told a similar story. As I understand it, they wrote to you, Minister, in an open letter and said:

These high-rise buildings are not just structures; they are the heart of our lives where we have forged friendships, built support networks, and cultivated a sense of belonging.

This is a common experience across Melbourne’s public housing towers, and it is a common message we hear when we speak to residents. They have got no certainty now about their future, where they will go or whether they will be separated from the neighbours they have formed that community with. Labor’s approach is steamrolling ahead and selling off public land to private developers for massive profits, and it is completely heartless. Minister, the action I seek is that you stop the demolition of public housing and the sale of public land to private developers and instead urgently build more public housing for the people of Victoria.