Housing
Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (12:11): (678) My question is for the Minister for Housing. This week OFFICE released a report outlining a feasible alternative to your government’s plans to demolish the public housing estate at 120 Racecourse Road, Flemington. Their report outlines a repair, retain and reinvestment approach which would achieve the same uplift in the number of dwellings on that estate as the government’s current plan, avoid the displacement of the estate’s residents, build even more public housing and save the government $364 million in costs at one site alone. The government made its decision to demolish, redevelop and privatise Victoria’s 44 high-rise public housing estates without releasing a shred of evidence to support it over the last 12 months. Minister, will you now stop the planned demolition of these towers and commit to refurbishment and retrofitting instead?
Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:12): Thanks, Dr Ratnam, for that question. I am surprised and delighted to see that you are still here after your successor was here on 5 September, waiting in the wings for you to perhaps take your tilt at Canberra.
I would like to address the OFFICE report. OFFICE is an organisation – I think they have actually participated in Greens party fundraising events, so therefore it should be viewed against that particular context. What I would like to do perhaps, Dr Ratnam, is take you through a number of components of the OFFICE report that address, in part, the issues that we are presented with when it comes to ageing high-rise towers and the need for development.
Dr Ratnam, one of the things that I know and that I would hope that you know – that communities know – is that the public housing towers, built between the 1950s and the 1970s, do not reflect the pride, the vibrancy, the histories and the identities of the people who have called them home. They are no longer fit for purpose. They are, Dr Ratnam, as I would hope that you know, freezing cold in winter and incredibly hot in summer. The concrete slab construction which was used – and it was built by Holmesglen at the time – was able to deliver a large volume of housing in a relatively short period of time, but in doing so it worked through a number of elements of construction that are no longer able to keep pace with contemporary standards.
As I have said on a number of occasions and as the CEO of Homes Victoria Simon Newport has said on a number of occasions, including at a parliamentary inquiry hearing which, Dr Ratnam, I think you were at when he gave his evidence – I think it is extracted pretty comprehensively in the Parliament’s inquiry and the report in relation to those matters – that to retrofit the towers would merely accommodate habitability, not amenity or livability to the standard that I would imagine you would expect and that I would imagine that people would quite rightly expect around energy efficiency, around ventilation, cross-breeze and the issues of insulation. It is about making sure that people have somewhere to call home that meets their needs and aspirations.
What I would say is that the OFFICE report itself is based on really limited studies and extrapolations. They have not properly quantified and they have not estimated properly the costs. They do not include all upgrades, they do not allow for relocation costs and they do not include the impacts upon people who are affected by this. And it is not additional housing, it is from 2000 down to about 1200, Dr Ratnam. Have a read of the report.
Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (12:15): Minister, for the last 12 months this Parliament has pursued you at every turn for a shred of evidence – a single piece of paper – that can provide any backing to the claims you are making. We are tired of your words: we want evidence to back up your false claims. OFFICE’s Retain, Repair, Reinvest report demonstrates that it is possible to actually maintain and increase the number of public housing dwellings on the Flemington public housing estate without displacing residents, whereas this Labor government wants to demolish these towers and refuses to commit to building any public housing at Flemington or North Melbourne or any of the other sites, which are the first sites to go. Minister, why doesn’t the government have plans to build more public housing at Flemington and North Melbourne?
Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:16): You are wrong. And I would give you the example, when you say ‘at any of the other sites’, to again have a think about Carlton. Carlton and the red-brick towers – they have been empty for some time, notwithstanding claims by a number of your counterparts that they should be made available for people to occupy and to live in. They have sewerage in the walls, frankly. They are not fit for purpose. They are all going to be rebuilt. They are all going to be public housing. Dr Ratnam, I have explained this to you on a number of occasions. Dr Ratnam, for about a year now I have been offering you a briefing on social housing, and not once have you taken me or my office up on this offer. So do not dare come into this place and talk about how you have not received information that you have been asking for. If we were to retrofit these towers, every resident would need to be relocated – every single resident.
Samantha Ratnam: On a point of order, President, I asked a specific question about two sites. I ask the minister to stay relevant to the question that I asked.
Harriet SHING: On the point of order, President, Dr Ratnam did refer to ‘at any of the other sites’. If there is a question with the public record on this, perhaps Mr Southwick in the other place has recorded it.
The PRESIDENT: The minister’s time has expired anyway.