Wednesday, 30 October 2024

Motions

Housing

Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (14:09): I move:

That this house acknowledges:

(1) the release of OFFICE’s report, Retain, Repair, Reinvest: Flemington Estate – Feasibility Study and Alternative Design Proposal;

(2) that this report outlines a feasible alternative to the government’s current plan to demolish and privatise the high-rise public housing estate at the site of 120 Racecourse Road, Flemington;

(3) the repair, retain, reinvest approach outlined in the report could achieve a complete refurbishment of all homes, match the number of total dwellings proposed by the government’s plan, increase the net number of public homes, avoid the displacement of the estate’s residents and save the government $364 million in costs at one site alone;

(4) that the government has refused to provide any public evidence or justification in over 12 months about why Victoria’s 44 high-rise public housing estates need to be demolished;

and calls on the Labor government to consider OFFICE’s report and thoroughly consider all refurbishment and renovation options prior to any decisions about demolition and make the findings public.

I am pleased to speak to this motion, moved by the Greens, calling for the government to consider OFFICE’s report and thoroughly consider all refurbishment and renovation options prior to any decisions about the demolition of the public housing towers across Victoria and make these findings public. OFFICE are a highly reputable, not-for-profit, design and research practice who have released a report outlining the feasibility of refurbishing 120 Racecourse Road in Flemington. They worked with experts in the field, including architects, engineers, surveyors, urban designers and researchers, to undertake this feasibility study. As this motion notes, this report outlines a feasible alternative to the government’s current plans to demolish and privatise high-rise public housing estates, including the one at 120 Racecourse Road, Flemington. It notes that the retain, repair, reinvest approach outlined in the report could achieve a complete refurbishment of all homes, match the number of total dwellings proposed by the government’s plan, increase the net number of public homes, avoid the displacement of the estate’s residents and save the government $364 million in costs at one site alone.

The report further notes that the government has refused to provide any public evidence or justification in over 12 months about why Victoria’s 44 high-rise public housing estates need to be demolished. OFFICE found that refurbishing this housing estate and building more public housing not only is feasible but would help keep residents in their communities and save the state $364 million when compared to the government’s plans to demolish and privatise these estates. Across hundreds of pages OFFICE meticulously details how these towers can in fact be refurbished and brought up to contemporary standards. Some of the features of this refurbishment include double-glazed windows, new heating and cooling systems, balconies, solar panels, renovated kitchens and bathrooms, increased accessibility and improved community spaces. Retrofitting also means significantly lower carbon emissions compared to the demolition and redevelopment. All of this is possible at a lower cost than the government’s current plan while still building just as many extra homes and keeping these sites for public housing. This groundbreaking report refutes every one of the government’s claims to date that they have used to justify their unconscionable plans to demolish public housing in the midst of a housing crisis. It looks at structural reinforcement to protect against seismic risk. It offers solutions for full modernisation, open balcony space, energy efficiency and sustainability. But perhaps most remarkably it has been able to offer this alternative while keeping the welfare and rights of public housing residents at the centre of every consideration.

Housing is a human right. Public housing is the answer to the housing crisis. It is the policy intervention good governments use when faced with housing shortfalls. Even the once great Labor Party built public housing, but not anymore. These neoliberals trashing the Labor Party brand are now intent on retreating fully from public housing in Victoria. You have transferred thousands of homes, you have demolished hundreds, soon to be thousands, and you are handing public housing land to private developers. This is called privatisation.

Labor have, shamefully, tried to discredit OFFICE because they have no other way of defending their plans for redevelopment and privatisation of Victoria’s 44 public housing estates, but OFFICE are not alone in pointing out the enormous flaws in Labor’s plans. Other experts across the field have also come out against the government’s plan. Another group has recently released a report about the feasibility of refurbishing Fitzroy’s Atherton Gardens public housing estate. The University of Melbourne School of Design architecture group even had a whole set of assessments dedicated to helping students learn about the feasibility and benefits of retrofitting Victoria’s public housing estates. Across the globe there are countless examples of similar housing estates being retrofitted up to modern standards. These projects are often lauded for their financial and environmental efficiency while at the same time allowing residents to stay connected to their communities. America, Scotland, France, England and Canada – the list goes on. Let us hope it includes Australia very soon.

When the human rights of residents and common sense win out over property developer interests, governments turn to the retrofitting option because it is plainly the better one. The once great Labor Party, however, has been captured by neoliberal interests and will stop at nothing until every element of our public services has been privatised. To date Labor have not produced a shred of evidence to show that they undertook any feasibility studies before making this disastrous decision to demolish all of Victoria’s high-rise public housing estates, and they continue to refuse to justify their decision. But OFFICE’s report cuts across Labor’s lies. If Labor are not lying about their decision-making process, why won’t they release any of the supposed feasibility studies they undertook? Why do they continue to hide these documents from the public despite countless requests in Parliament, through the FOI process and even in the courts? It is becoming clearer with every passing day that the Labor Party does not have any evidence to justify these privatisation plans. Instead the government only thought about getting out of the responsibility of providing public housing and handing over public land to private developers so they can turn enormous profits at the expense of everyday Victorians.

Labor keep parroting the same lines about how the estates are not fit for habitation or that refurbishment is not possible, but this is just one more instance of Labor trying to rewrite the narrative to give them cover from retreating from public housing. The truth is Labor have been running these towers into the ground for years and emptying them slowly, apparently so they can sell them off to developers.

According to the Productivity Commission, Victorian Labor has spent the least per capita of any state in the country on the maintenance of public housing, and we have the highest vacancy rate of public housing in the nation too. These figures do not lie; the government has been driving residents out. The Age reported in May this year:

Victoria has thousands of vacant public housing dwellings and continues to have the worst occupancy rate in the nation …

The proportion of public housing dwellings occupied across the state as of June 30, 2023, was 93.7 per cent, according to the Commonwealth’s mid-year report on government services.

The Council to Homeless Persons stated in January this year:

The Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services, released today, reveals public and community housing residents make up just 2.8 per cent of Victoria’s households.

This is the lowest percentage in Australia, which has a national average of 4.1 per cent.

As this Labor government attempt to erase public housing and public housing residents from our state, in fact they have recently started to refer to public housing residents as ‘renters’ in their official departmental communication. It is a naked attempt to diminish the status of residents and to assert their power as the landlord – and might I add the Victorian Labor government is in the running for being the worst landlord in Victoria. We see what Labor are doing: they are trying to dehumanise residents so they are easier to evict and so that they can erase public housing from our language and our policy solutions altogether. This is the language of capitalism. The language of profit making has seeped into the way the government talk about the people they serve. What starts with objectifying and commodifying language ends with objectified and commodified treatment.

I implore the once great Labor Party to return to their roots as a party that serves the people, not corporate interests, and builds rather than destroys public housing. As a first step the Labor government can start with actually reading OFFICE’s feasibility study, not treating it with contempt and dismissing and minimising it, and considering all refurbishment and renovation options prior to making any decisions about demolition.

I would like to further add that over the past few weeks and months we have seen this Labor government try to minimise genuine community feedback and opposition to their plans. They have tried to minimise genuine attempts to consult the community and hear directly about how residents are feeling about this plan. We have been at the estates week in, week out, wanting to offer support to residents, and I can tell you firsthand about the devastating stories we are hearing from residents. Residents are telling us they are being harassed by Homes Victoria with persistent, often menacing phone calls pressuring them to leave, and some are threatened with legal action. Most often they are unaware of what is contained in the documentation they feel so pressured to sign. Not enough interpreters, if any at times, are being offered so that residents can adequately understand the documentation in front of them. Just yesterday I raised in this chamber that at Richmond residents are reporting that they are only being shown one page of the documentation, feeling pressure to sign and not being given access and proper time to consider the rest of the documentation in the contract. We have heard from residents who are telling us Homes Victoria are giving them only one option, of community housing with rent that they cannot afford, and they are being told that Homes Victoria are not giving them any other alternatives. What are these public housing residents supposed to do? Do they accept a house that they cannot afford the rent for, or do they go homeless? Because that is what Homes Victoria and Labor are currently offering public housing residents.

Even the former housing minister in the Labor Party a number of years ago recognised the immorality of putting residents in that position. Then housing minister Wynne, after considerable community pressure and outcry from residents, made a commitment that no public housing resident could be worse off and forced to pay rents higher than what they were paying, especially if they could not afford it. He guaranteed public housing conditions, and I implore this Minister for Housing at the very least to do the same. To not do the same is to consign thousands of public housing residents to community housing with rents they cannot afford or face homelessness. Residents are telling us they are being told if they do not accept the measly offerings offered by Homes Victoria, they will be given no other housing options and they will be taken off the public housing register. That is how Labor is treating public housing residents in this state right now – with absolute contempt.

That contempt is then brought into the chamber when the minister and others on the backbench have the gall to say that genuine consultation is somehow misinformation. Well, name the misinformation. What we are doing is much more than Labor has done in the 12 months since announcing this disastrous plan and imposing it on residents. We are actually furnishing residents with information about their rights and what they can ask for. The information we provide to residents is that they can ask for an interpreter if they cannot understand the documents in front of them. If that is misinformation, this Labor government does not deserve to govern. But that is what is happening right now. If you want to look at the privatisation of this Labor government, look no further than what it plans for public housing in this state. You cannot claim to be a government that is thinking about affordability and the future of housing in Victoria for all Victorians when you are about to, in the face of the worst housing crisis we have experienced in decades – with over 120,000 people on the state’s housing list, with 30,000 people experiencing homelessness on any given night – announce a plan that demolishes the homes of 10,000 people with a plan to gift two-thirds of the land to private developers.

We know this is going to happen because they have done it before. They created this template about 10 years ago with the so-called public housing renewal program (PHRP), which then morphed into the ground lease model. I know we have heard Labor MPs decry that there is no privatisation, but if you take a public housing estate that is fully publicly owned, you demolish the homes, you replace some community housing on about a third of the estate and the rest of the land is given to private developers for private housing, that is called privatisation. If you look at what former Premier Andrews announced last year, he announced that exact template, which they have already tried at the lower rise estates.

They announced that 10,000 residents at these estates would become 30,000 residents, so two-thirds are going to be private, one-third are going to be community – no public housing at those estates. The only exception is the Carlton towers. Let us talk about what is happening at Carlton. The Carlton privatisation project in fact started many years before the PHRP, if not one of the first templates for privatisation. When Labor got away with that, they thought, ‘What else can we get away with across this state?’ You just have to go across the Carlton estate to understand how that estate has been steadily eroded by private development, some community housing and all that was remaining were the two red-brick towers that Labor had systematically moved residents out of over a number of months and years. It was inevitable that those towers were being earmarked for demolition and the land further privatised until –

A member interjected.

Samantha RATNAM: You are right. I just heard a call from Labor that the Greens are helping to negotiate extra billions of dollars for public housing across this country, and I credit my federal colleagues Max Chandler-Mather and Adam Bandt –

Harriet Shing: On a point of order, Acting President, the outgoing member has indicated something that is fundamentally not true. ‘The Greens cannot take credit for this’ is what we were saying, so I would suggest that confected delight in this is misplaced.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (John Berger): It is not a point of order.

Samantha RATNAM: Save it for your contribution. It was inevitable that the full privatisation was about to be complete at Carlton. I had watched that estate being steadily eroded over many, many years and watched aghast as all the community amenity was taken away from those residents and the residents were taken away from that estate. The Prime Minister and the former Premier stood upon those towers on the day before making the announcement about the rest of the towers across Victoria and announced the red brick towers would come down and would be replaced by buildings funded by this new funding that had been boosted by the Greens negotiations. After significant pressure over weeks when the community said that rebuild must be public housing, we managed to eke out of the government a response through an article in the media. They did not even have the gall to come and announce it or make any separate press release. After significant pressure and the media saying to the government, ‘Will it be public housing? You’re about to take these first towers down,’ finally the government relented after pressure, thanks to the extra funding boost that the Greens secured, to rebuild those houses as public housing.

So we take those two and we look at what is going to happen at the remaining 42. The remaining 42 estates have not a single commitment from this Labor government to rebuild a single public home. It is only community housing that is being offered. Not a single public statement or confirmation from this government can allude to any public housing being rebuilt at this estate. No resident is being told they can come back to public housing. Yes, they are told they might be able to return in six to eight or 10 years, when the refurbishment is complete, but not one of them is being promised that they can return to public housing.

Can I end with this, the words of residents who have told us they do not want to be shifted into outsourced community housing and they do not want their estates privatised. They do not want to be torn away from communities that they have built bonds and ties with over many years – for many of them, the first communities they got to know after arriving in Australia as refugees and asylum seekers. They do not want to be torn away from their schools, they do not want to be torn away from their health services, they do not want to be torn away from their transport options and they do not want to be torn away from each other. And we do not want you to tear them away from us, but that is what Labor is currently proposing to do.

These residents are telling us firsthand, and if Labor had the courage to actually speak to residents and go down to those estates like we have, week in, week out, they would hear directly from them the devastation in their voices, in their eyes and in their hearts when they say, ‘We don’t want to be moved out of public housing. We need to stay in public housing.’ Because do you know what public housing means to them? It is their safety, and it is their lifeline. It is their escape from homelessness. It is fixed housing costs for tenure that is guaranteed. They do not have to worry about being turfed out, pushed out or forced out. They do not have to worry about their lives falling apart, and that is what residents are terrified about right now – about what happens to their lives when they are moved to community or other housing. They are already hearing horror stories of residents who have been moved out only to be told a year or two later they have to move again because there is some sort of commercial arrangement the government has got into about their house. We have so-called affordable housing that has been offered to many residents over many years who are only told five or 10 years later that, sorry, the agreement always was that this housing returns to market housing after a period of time. These residents are saying, ‘I built my life here. I didn’t know that after 10 years the government was going to give it back to the private market.’ That is what is being offered right now. That is what is proposed at the Kangan TAFE site that the government wants to redevelop. That is public land. They are offering a paltry 10 per cent affordable housing with a fixed time limit of 10 years until they can give it back to the private market.

This is privatisation writ large by this Victorian Labor government, the once great Labor Party. We are urging them to listen to residents, keep communities together, stop this mass privatisation and sell-off of public housing land, stop the demolitions and, as a starting point, just consider the alternative evidence. There are so many people right now who are pleading with you just to look at the evidence and consider it deeply before you make this disastrous decision and devastate thousands of lives.

Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:28): I rise to make a contribution on motion 628 in Dr Ratnam’s name, which calls on the house to do a number of things. It is always a pleasure to stand in this chamber and talk about what we are actually doing when it comes to housing, because we are doing a lot, despite the contribution that the Greens might make. I have had the benefit of listening to the contribution of the Greens just earlier, and it is really quite sad to hear some of that contribution, which is clearly wrong, inaccurate and designed to manipulate vulnerable communities, with no care or thought for those communities whatsoever. It is really interesting that those who profess to advocate for better housing for our most vulnerable and in-need Victorians are actually doing the opposite. I am going to take great delight in going to a lot of detail about what the government is actually doing, despite what the Greens are saying that we are doing. There is a whole world of difference. I might just point out, and I owe a debt of thanks to Minister Shing for pointing this out as I was listening to the contribution, that there was a slight change to the Greens’ motion, I believe.

A member interjected.

Sonja TERPSTRA: Yes, well, it is a slight change, but it has a significant effect. It is almost like you would not notice it if it were not actually pointed out. The motion calls on the house to acknowledge the release of OFFICE’s report and then it talks about the report, which they say outlines a feasible alternative to the government’s current plan on housing with regard to 120 Racecourse Road, Flemington. It calls on us to acknowledge the retain, repair, reinvest approach outlined in the OFFICE report, and then it says:

… the Government has refused to provide any public evidence or justification in over 12 months about why … 44 high-rise public housing estates need to be demolished …

Well, we have. That is kind of hilarious. But it is the changes in the last bit. The original version of the motion that the Greens proposed to move called on the Labor government to heed the advice of OFFICE’s report to stop the demolition and privatisation of Victoria’s public housing towers, but the new words just call on us to:

… consider all refurbishment and renovation options prior to any decisions …

So they walked away. The contribution that was just made heavily focused on – and again, this is completely untrue – privatisation, demolition, displacing residents and all that kind of rubbish. But to get a deal with those opposite, the Liberals, they have decided to change their wording so that they could water it down and just call for ‘refurbishment and renovation options’. The best disinfectant is sunlight, and the Greens deserve to be really pilloried for their absolutely disgraceful conduct when it comes to our most vulnerable Victorians, who look to government to have safe, secure housing provided for them and housing that is modern and fit for purpose.

Our government has done a lot of work looking at and getting expert reports and advice about the state of the towers. I myself have gone to the Homes Victoria website to look at the state of the towers, and there is lots of expert evidence. I know this was something that Minister Shing talked about yesterday. Unfortunately, because Dr Ratnam refuses to take up the offer of a briefing she does not know these sorts of things, but that suits their narrative, because they are not interested in learning about the facts. All they want to do is keep using this issue to manipulate people. It is actually very tragic and sad. But what we are about over here is providing housing that is modern and fit for purpose. We know the difference. What we want to do is make sure that people have the housing that they need and deserve.

I am going to take a little bit of time to dispel some of the lies, misinformation and myths that are peddled by the Greens. Let us talk about the high-rise development plan for a moment. The high-rise development plan will triple the number of people who call these sites home. It will take capacity from 10,000 to 30,000 people in popular Melbourne suburbs we know Victorians want to live in. People should have a right to choose where they live. Unfortunately, if you look at the Greens’ inner-city goats cheese curtain, you have got to be pretty wealthy and drive an EV to get in there. What we want to do is make sure that people can have homes that they want to live in and that are where they need to live and that they do not have to be a wealthy inner-city elite to actually live in them. So we will also increase housing for vulnerable Victorians, and that includes not-for-profit community housing and public housing, across the sites by 10 per cent.

Now, the problem with the report that the Greens seek to rely on – again, it is a dud proposal. Like with everything, they just say it is not feasible and it is not based in fact. But the thing is, this is what happens when you are a minor political party; you can say whatever you like and not have to face scrutiny for it. So they just make stuff up. We only have to look to the recent Queensland election, where the Greens got an absolute thumping because people have worked out how embarrassing they are and the complete rubbish and rhetoric that get peddled by the Greens. They got a thumping. We are actually looking at what is happening in the council elections, and we are seeing that the Greens are getting a thumping in the council elections as well because people have worked it out.

Members interjecting.

Sonja TERPSTRA: What millennials want is housing, and we are working to increase affordable housing. But on the public housing front what we know is that the cost of refurbishment in the Greens’ dud proposal is not properly quantified and is underestimated to suit the Greens’ NIMBY-like approach to the redevelopment of housing in Melbourne. I mean, we just hear their contributions: ‘It’s oh so easy. If only Labor would listen, because Labor are so silly they need to be lectured to because they’re just so inept.’ But, again, the Greens will never have the opportunity to stump up.

You can just imagine what would happen if the Greens were in charge. It would be an absolute debacle. Again, the Greens say, ‘Oh, it’s so easy to structurally retrofit the homes of thousands of Victorians while not relocating them.’ I do not know how that would work. How do you embark upon major renovations of anyone’s home, particularly if you have got a bathroom that is outdated, if the plumbing is broken and it has got to the point where you need to replace the plumbing so you do not have running water? How do you have a shower? You have got that. Then if you have got to replace the kitchen, how do you replace the kitchen? If you have got no kitchen, you need to have alternatives to be able to cook. These are completely delusional proposals. They are not grounded in reality.

Their report proposes $560,000 to upgrade lifts. The lifts would also be used for trades to work on upgrades, and it is not possible to live in towers while the lifts are out of use. If you have a disability, you rely on lifts to get up and down. What are you meant to do? Again, they do not address that point. They just want to lecture the government with these stupid platitudes which bear no relationship to reality. They clearly have not spent a lot of time with people who live in these towers, because they do not know what their needs are. We know what their needs are. That is why it has been worked out that these people need access to lifts to get up and down and in and out of their homes. If you take the lifts out of action to fix them, that might take a long period of time, so what do you do with people? Do you just leave them up in their houses? That is why the approach the Greens are taking is completely delusional. There is that issue. There are structural deficiencies in the report. It proposes significant invasive structural penetration that is not able to be done safely with residents in place.

The other thing that the Greens’ proposal also did not address is this. Their proposal would be non-compliant with fire resistance level ratings between apartments, the size of lifts to allow for ambulance stretchers, waste chute sizes, distances from apartment entries to fire stairs, the provision of hobless showers, the width of communal corridors to allow for wheelchairs passing and floor-to-ceiling heights. Those things are lost on the Greens. It is the detail that they do not understand. They just want to make it so easy to be dismissive. Again, it is the detail that they are not across, and it shows in the way that they prosecute this issue. What they are about is manipulating vulnerable communities, and they should be absolutely condemned for it.

Since November 2020 more than 15,500 homes have been completed or are underway as part of our capital programs, including the Big Housing Build, the Regional Housing Fund, our ground lease model, the public housing renewal program and the Social Housing Growth Fund. This includes more than 10,000 homes which have been completed or are underway as part of the Big Housing Build and more than 5000 households have either moved or are getting ready to move into their brand new homes.

I have only got a minute left on the clock. I know Mr Batchelor will go to a lot of these issues as well, because this is a good opportunity to stand in this chamber and talk about the things we are doing that are grounded in facts and not disinformation and lies. I know Mr Batchelor will also go to many things that are happening in his electorate. Our state budget in 2024–25 invested $216 million extra in the housing portfolio. You can see that our government is getting on with investing and making sure Victorians who are vulnerable have the housing that they need and deserve to live in, which is modern and contemporary, up to modern standards and is safe, and that there are wraparound supports for people who need them when they need them. I will conclude my contribution there.

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (14:38): I rise to speak on Dr Ratnam’s motion. I think it is an okay motion that we are not going to oppose. It is something we have spoken about, and I thank the member for her willingness to reach out to the opposition in quite a constructive way. I understand the Minister for Housing has also reached out to the Shadow Minister for Housing, possibly in an unconstructive way.

It is important to be transparent about these things, and what we are asking for is transparency. I just want to start off with that in our four years in government whenever there was even the slightest peep or review or public service movement regarding public housing, we would hear a big tremor – basically an earthquake – from that side yelling at us for decisions not even made. You would have Martin Foley on that side – remember him? – literally talking about privatisation and running a scare campaign saying the Liberals wanted to privatise public housing in St Kilda. We remember that. Could you imagine if the Liberal Party in government were to put out a plan with as little transparency as the Labor government’s? Could you imagine not providing documents that we have requested to the opposition? And could you imagine what the Labor Party would do in opposition? There would be protests, from the union movement as well, as far as the eye could see all the way down Bourke Street. There would be CFMEU green bans. There would be an absolute tremor from that side yelling at us. But this is the thing: the government have not been transparent, and conversations could be had if the government were to consider releasing the OFFICE report and being transparent about what they are doing, because let me be clear, no budgets or plans have been made public on the government’s plan for the 44-tower redevelopment. The government should be transparent about what they are doing.

I know many in the community are watching what is going on in the Supreme Court at the moment, and I think the Premier ought to apologise to the lead plaintiff Barry Berih and the 479 families. For some people, maybe not others, it does seem a bit disparaging to describe them all and paint them all as Greens. Some people would take more offence to that than others, but clearly not all 479 of these families are Greens supporters. I know this because I have met them. I speak to them, and I have been down at Flemington a couple of times and met many families, many public housing residents. I know I and my colleagues interact very well with the Somali community down there. In fact I was at the Somali day celebrations down there. I think Dr Ratnam may have been there as well. Not one Labor MP responded to their invitation – isn’t that interesting – because they knew what the conversations were going to be about. There was not even one Labor councillor – they RSVP’d but did not turn up. It was very interesting because those Labor MPs, particularly the Labor MPs for the Northern Metropolitan Region – they wanted them there to celebrate Somali day – knew every second person they chatted to would be speaking about what was happening, how poor the consultation was and how many families were concerned about having to move very far away.

I think it is important that we have a level of transparency about this. Again, there have been no budgets and no plans made public. These families have been tarred by the Premier as Greens, and they are not. They are people with families that want to go about their everyday life, and it is a really concerning time for them – concerning enough for them to initiate a class action. Housing is a basic right for citizens and a clear obligation for a responsible government. The community is fighting a David and Goliath battle in the Supreme Court, and the Davids of this world have been tarred as Greens. They just want to understand why they are being evicted from their homes. The Labor government is failing public housing residents, with waiting lists ballooning, promises not being kept and the bedrooms available plummeting through mismanagement. It is time to lift the veil of secrecy from Victoria’s public housing projects. Public housing residents are being sent from their long-time communities for up to 10 years with no real understanding of when they will be able to return.

I believe there might have even been a state government contribution, but the Somali community, particularly in Flemington, has advocated for a very long time for a brand new community centre down there. I have had a tour through. It is fantastic. It has got rooms where people can study; it has got a community meeting space. How are people meant to get there if they are being relocated to suburbs that are quite far away? It is splitting up the community, splitting up family and friends from their communities.

I just say: if this was a Liberal government doing this and we were being as opaque as the Labor Party are, you could imagine the roars of outrage on that side. You could just imagine it. If the government were transparent about the needs and the reasons, we would be up for that conversation, but they are not. I think this is a sensible motion. We want more transparency, we are for more transparency, and so for that reason I believe that this motion should be supported.

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:47): I also rise to speak on this motion brought forward by the Greens to do with the Flemington estate. One of the points in this motion, point (2), says:

that this report outlines a feasible alternative to the government’s current plan to demolish and privatise the high-rise public housing estate at the site of 120 Racecourse Road, Flemington …

My team has had a bit of a chance to go through this report, and one thing that I will point out is that it uses lots of publicly available information. It is effectively what I would call a desktop analysis, and I have had exposure to another desktop analysis and the government making a decision based on that desktop analysis. The last one that I came across was actually to do with the Commonwealth Games, and we know how that turned out. I think even the government has learned from that particular scenario that it was a very, very bad idea.

I will point out a couple of other things. I am sure Dr Ratnam would be aware of the concept of precision. The estimates given in this report, despite being based on publicly available information and estimates, nonetheless seem to indicate a precision down to the absolute dollar. For example, on page 50 they have tried to estimate total construction costs. They estimated it at $650,670,482. Anyone familiar with financial modelling or scientific measurements or any of this sort of thing will be familiar with the concept of precision. This is where if you claim higher levels of precision than you should be able to claim – and in this case I think any reasonable person would think estimating down to the dollar is unreasonable – then you are actually being deceptive and misleading by claiming that level of precision. Even in the budget papers the government does not claim down to the dollar. In fact they round it to the nearest million in the budget papers. In this as well they should have attempted to at least come up with some sort of factor of uncertainty, and they did not do that. They seemed very certain, down to the dollar in fact, which is incredible.

There are some real practical issues with refurbishment. If you are going to refurbish a tower, that means that you need to have trades men and women, I suppose – tradespeople – going in and out of the towers, taking down plaster, fixing things, doing electronics and doing all of the work. If they have to replace the lifts, they will have to shut down the lifts. During this entire time people will have to be disrupted and relocated, regardless of whether you knock the tower down or not. You cannot have a situation where you have got armies of workers going in and out of a building while people are still living there. It simply cannot work that way. What you are going to end up with in the end is an inferior product. You are going to end up with something that is rebuilt, attempting to slap a new coat of paint on something that was built decades and decades ago and has reached its end of life. Every infrastructure asset has an end of life, has a useful lifetime. Sometimes you can extend them. You can repair things. You can fix things. But ultimately buildings have a lifespan and they have to come to an end, and I think it is very clear that these housing towers have reached their end of life and that they need to be demolished. I do not see why the Greens think that they can just slap a new coat of paint on it and keep it going forever. It does not seem like a technically feasible thing to do.

Members interjecting.

David LIMBRICK: I do not have a report. I am looking at a report that is estimating down to the dollar, and I do not believe it. No-one should believe it, because it is unreasonable.

Members interjecting.

David LIMBRICK: I think it is my turn to speak. Making decisions like this based on desktop analysis is a terrible idea. I do not think that this is a feasible alternative, and therefore the Libertarian Party will not be supporting this motion.

Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (14:52): I rise to speak on this motion in relation to the Flemington public housing towers today. I want to start by saying that I find the handling of this issue – the way the Greens are handling this issue – distressing, and I find it distressing for three reasons. The distortion of the facts, the untruths and the misnaming and misdescribing of our government strategy are just frustrating. I feel like I am being spun a yarn by the Greens when I listen, knowing what our actual strategy is. The second reason is that if I feel this way, I know residents must also be receiving more than one message, more than one story, about what is going on where they live. The third reason why I find it distressing is that it feels like the Homes Victoria staff are being demonised for the work that they are doing, and that really upsets me.

When I was a university student – I was studying social work at the time – you had to do a fieldwork placement every year, and I did my final one with the Office of Housing. It is the only time I have ever had any direct relationship with them. It was a community project where the next batch of 20 residents – it was a pilot project – were going to be consulted. They were on the top of the list. They were going to get into these units in Brunswick somewhere, and they were being consulted by the Office of Housing, now Homes Victoria, to ask them what some of the details of their new accommodation were that they would like. It was a participative kind of decision-making process, and the Office of Housing staff did an awesome job. My job and my colleagues’ job as students was to write that up and to describe how much the residents appreciated being asked about what colour paint they wanted and knowing that in a year’s time, in six months time, they would be moving into this particular unit and these certain things would be happening.

I know just how much confidence we can have and how much depth of experience there is in Homes Victoria and how dedicated they are. They often belong to the same community as the people they are working with; for instance, in the Flemington towers. I just want to give a vote of confidence to the Homes Vic staff for the work that they are doing and express my deep disappointment that the Greens have chosen to politicise something as basic as the roof over your head for political gain and to do so in such a distorting, negative and political way while working with a group of people a high proportion of whom are new arrivals. For generations, including my grandparents and so on, new arrivals have come to this country from conflict zones – from areas where there are cultural differences and sometimes significantly where there are language barriers. There is an increased vulnerability from their misunderstanding of the information that they are being given. When you have got a party running a muck-up game for the work that Homes Victoria are doing, that is incredibly distressing for the residents involved. What should they believe? That is what I find really concerning.

If I go specifically to the dilemma – and there has been a bit of discourse about this here in the last half an hour – about whether or not to refurbish or to demolish and build new, I acknowledge Mr Limbrick’s contribution. I think he put it very clearly. Refurbishment always has regulatory obligations that sometimes cost extra or just as much. Let us have a look. Let us go through these rules. Refurbishment would not be able to provide an adequate fire resistance rating between the apartments, lifts big enough to allow an ambulance, waste chutes big enough for the building, fire stairs close enough to apartment entries, and hobless showers and communal corridors wide enough to allow – you just need to look up the regulatory standards. Anybody renovating a public building will have to meet modern standards for safety. You would be the first to criticise us if we were not meeting those standards. Floor-to-ceiling heights do not even meet the standards now. Renovation is out of the question just from looking at the regulatory standards.

Members interjecting.

Jacinta ERMACORA: That is right.

A member interjected.

Jacinta ERMACORA: Exactly. As has been said and argued very well by others so far, there would always be displacement in any process. Whether it is a renovation or a demolition and rebuild, there would be displacement.

In my last couple of minutes, I just want to close by acknowledging very much that this process is an honourable process that is going to result in not only better accommodation for those that are currently residing in those places but also more accommodation. This will actually increase the number of houses when the project is complete. We can say it over and over again and you can choose not to believe it if you want, but do not peddle untruths about our strategies.

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

Jacinta ERMACORA: I take up Mr Batchelor’s interjection that if you do not care about these people, then you are going to play a muck-up game and you are going to exploit them and use them for your own political gain.

In closing, I want to say that this really is distressing and the untruths are distressing. The dignity and rights of residents are being cut across and undermined and it is causing confusion, and that is even without language and cultural barriers. Many people that come from conflict zones in other parts of the world where there are authorities that are corrupt are very fearful about authority in this country, and it takes a generation to understand it. Then to have government parties playing a game with them can be retraumatising, absolutely adding to the trauma of these communities.

I want to finish up by saying thank you to the Homes Victoria staff, who I am confident are doing an absolutely awesome job and must be getting incredibly sick of being run down in this chamber.

Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:02): I do not really know where to begin here. I suppose at the beginning; that is the logical place. I have heard a lot of fanciful stories in this place in my time. Not since we had the last change in WorkCover legislation have I seen something so ridiculous. We all remember that, don’t we? That is right. That is when the Labor Party abandoned the workers of Victoria. In one fell swoop they determined that even though you have a mental health injury and even though you have got a substantiated claim, they are going to cut you off at the knees: ‘Workers, there you go. Sorry about your mental health, but due to the Minister for Mental Health in this state of Victoria, we’re going to cut you off at the knees.’ Well, they have finished with the good –

Ryan Batchelor: On a point of order, Acting President, I am sure Mr McGowan has a great contribution to make on the motion. This is not it.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Bev McArthur): There is no point of order, but keep to the script, Mr McGowan.

Nick McGOWAN: That is fine, Acting President McArthur. I accept the point of order because I think he has foreshadowed a great contribution. That is what I intend to give. There are no two ways about that. But not since that time have we seen the Labor Party abandon the workers of this state in such an unfathomable and despicable way. Do not leave us now, Mr Erdogan: this will be of great interest to your constituents. Now of course they are turning their backs on renters, and not any old normal renters, no – the most vulnerable renters in this state. I have a great deal of respect for Minister Shing; she knows this already. But Minister Shing, you and I both know that all I want, all I am asking for –

Harriet Shing: Is a toilet in Ringwood.

Nick McGOWAN: I would love a toilet, but that is Minister Pearson’s. We will talk about him at some point in this speech; I will find some space for him in the next 8 minutes. All I want for the people of Victoria is just a couple of bits of paperwork; just some bits of paperwork is all I am asking for – just something that says to us in some way, shape or form that this multibillion-dollar scheme to tear down 44 housing commission towers has some logic somewhere. Even the court right now cannot decide, and thank God the court is involved, because they are going to decide one way or the other what you asked for. Was the question to all of these construction companies and all these architects – or was there a question at all? Or was it simply, as is my experience with government from time to time, the ministerial way of making decisions? That is right – this way. It is the finger in the air. We will just see which way the wind is blowing. Well, sadly for renters in this state and sadly for those who are actually caught up in the midst of this crisis, they are finding themselves in an untenable situation.

You only need to look at today’s Age article by Rachael Dexter, and I will quote this – and I am sure all my colleagues across the way here have also seen the quotes. This is what they have said. This is a Victorian right now, a vulnerable Victorian who has been forced to live in the new housing provided – not the privatised housing; they have already sold that off for profit. We do not know for how much profit that was for.

But did we see the good news yesterday? A little tangent here, Acting President McArthur, if I may: they are going to drop some stamp duty for millionaires row. This is the Labor Party again. They are going to take stamp duty off the high-end apartments in this state, not even coming through on the planning provisions. I digress for just a second to make that salient point that yet again we have the modern Labor Party abandoning workers and abandoning investors, and now they are abandoning renters, the very people they profess to like. You can hear directly from them. Do not take my word for it – no, not at all, Minister. It is so fortunate you are here right now, Minister for Corrections; this is for you. It is a beautiful article:

Tenants packed a courtroom to watch the proceedings on Tuesday, including Alicia Lai –

I have not met Alicia, but I look forward to meeting her very soon –

who has turned down an offer to move from her two-bedroom flat in a tower for a one-bedroom apartment …

So she has been cut in half. I do not know where she puts her stuff. Presumably she puts it on top of herself. She has been forced to move into a one-bedroom apartment run by external agency.

My God. Why do governments do this when they get into government? They keep tendering it out to community organisations or other organisations. They divest themselves of responsibility and therefore accountability. It does my head in. We do it all the time. It does not matter who is in government. They keep doing it. Stop it. Have your department responsible to some direct line of accountability.

Minister, you will love this:

“It’s only very small,” Lai said of the apartment. “It’s like a prison.

A member interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: Yes, but your prison is probably bigger. I have seen them – yours is probably bigger. She went on:

There’s only one window in the bedroom. There’s no window in the lounge room.”

There is no window in the lounge room, Minister. I mean, I have backpacked. I have had my fair share of staying in Earl’s Court, London Bridge or Tower Hill in London. I even once shared accommodation with all these squatters called Australians, like me. We did not pay very much.

A member interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: Well, I call myself that.

Harriet Shing: That sounds like illegal activity, Mr McGowan.

Nick McGOWAN: No, it was not illegal; I do not think it was illegal. But we shared this house and the four bedrooms coming off it. There was a one combined lounge room and there were no windows. There were just the doors to the bedrooms and a shower, incidentally.

A member interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: There was a shower in the lounge room – it was insane. It was almost as insane as this apartment you are building. I do hope that you follow up with Alicia about her complaints in this respect.

I am looking for time, but there are some very serious points at play here. Housing towers are 10 per cent of the public housing stock. We know this. The minister knows this. I am not telling you anything she does not know. But here is perhaps what Victorians do not know in terms of the amount of rooms that are actually available for vulnerable Victorians: the big build so far has seen total public housing bedrooms reduce – that is right, ladies and gentlemen, reduce – from 160,348 to 157,342. They are the facts as of July 2023.

A member interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: ‘Why 2023?’ you ask. I heard that question. Well, it is 2023 because we actually do not have regular data. Minister, I know you are about to release some data, so I would only be too happy if you wanted to release that data early today. It would be like a Christmas present to me – a Halloween present, even earlier. But either which way, I would happily accept that data, as would the Greens and the crossbench.

Harriet Shing interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: I would think about trading you the toilet for lots of things but not for decent accommodation for Victorians. I could not do that to them. I would have to buy the toilet myself, construct it at Ringwood East train station and still leave Victorians with proper regional accommodation. That is what I would have to do.

That is just rooms. Basically what we have in the state of Victoria with the big build – I call it the ‘big fraud’, let us be honest – is a reduction of rooms by the order of 3006. For all the big build –

Harriet Shing interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: No wonder my hair looks like this, Minister – 3006 fewer rooms. A reduction in rooms by 3006 for the big build – the big fraud, sorry; my stumbling block. That is rooms. Let us go to homes, shall we?

The government had 64,725 public homes in June 2018. It sounds reasonable, sort of, but guess what, halfway through the big fraud, as of December 2023, they had 64,547. For those of you –

Harriet Shing interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: I cannot quite hear that interjection, but I will come back to you, Minister, because I do want to hear what you have to say – I love what you have to say. Again in terms of homes, we have a net reduction in the state of Victoria thanks to the big fraud. We have a net reduction in Victoria of 178 homes. What is going on here, Minister? You have built more prison cells than we have built homes in the state of Victoria. You can take pride in that in some respects. The sad thing is you are now actually diverting them. The sad thing is you are closing the courts that would actually put people in them. I mean, at this rate they would be more comfortable in some of your prisons than they would in what we are providing on the other hand. It is mind-boggling what is going on – mind-boggling.

I think it is well within the rights of every Victorian to understand that if we are going to have this multibillion-dollar spend, we just want a little bit of evidence that we are putting the money in the right place at the right time. I know, Minister, it sounds like too much to ask. I know it will require some bureaucrats to shuffle through their paperwork and find a report somewhere. My great concern is – and we will soon find out from the court hearing – what has actually happened here is there has been a unilateral decision. Someone had a brainwave – and this does happen sometimes in a Premier’s office; I have seen some Premier’s offices over the years. Someone, some little darling, has a brainwave, and they suddenly think, ‘I know, let’s do this: we’re going to have the biggest build ever.’ Let us not forget that this was just before the last Premier left. We had the biggest, most exciting build of all time, and we just did that again last week. I actually cannot keep up anymore. There are so many big builds. The problem is it is a big fraud. There is nothing going on. Even last week there was not a single cent attached to anything. No Victorian can actually have any confidence that they will find themselves in a public housing house sooner rather than later. It will be later, and we know it will not be in the rooms, because there are, as I said, 3006 fewer rooms in the state of Victoria with the big fraud. There are also fewer homes. There are 178 fewer homes.

The Greens will cover this adroitly later on, but the truth is what they are actually also doing is using a part-privatisation system – ‘We’ll give a bit here and give a bit there, and we’ll sell the rest off.’ While in Heidelberg, as my colleague Mr Puglielli knows, we have sold off vast tracts of land and been left with nothing to show for it – not a single home. It has been sitting there for years absolutely unused. Then we have the disgraceful episode out at La Trobe University, where the former Premier just put a whole lot of solar panels on this place. He has devastated the natural environment, chopped down trees and put in solar panels. That would have been an enormous place for homes out there with the solar panels, God forbid, on the roof. That is what he could have done, but he chose not to.

In closing, Minister, I can only hope –

Harriet Shing interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: Minister, I would delight in keeping going, but sadly my time has come to an end in this speech – not in this chamber, I hasten to add. I only hope that we have more rooms and more homes in the future.

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:12): Well, what a debate it has been. To begin with I just acknowledge the motion before us, which is:

That this house acknowledges:

(1) the release of OFFICE’s report …

(2) that this report outlines a feasible alternative to the government’s current plan to demolish and privatise the high-rise public housing estate at the site of 120 Racecourse Road, Flemington …

It outlines an approach that could achieve a complete refurbishment of all homes, match the number of total dwellings proposed by the government’s plan, increase the net number of public homes, avoid the displacement of the estate’s residents and save the government $364 million in costs at one site alone. This is a significant report brought together by experts – vastly more than we have seen come out of this government in terms of receipts for the plan that was announced under the former Premier.

To clarify some of the contributions that I think we have heard from government members, this plan, to boil it down a bit further, is that you build new public housing. Residents in estates where refurbishment and repair is required are then moved into that new public housing. Once the refurbishment is complete they are then able to return, collectively, should they wish to do so, to their existing estate. You are not knocking down the existing public homes that we have in this state. Doing so is the destruction of public housing. There seems to be a disconnection happening there with some of the Labor members. It is a completely different plan. It is not some idea of renovating the homes as if people are still literally next door to the renovations. We acknowledge the realities of construction. We can acknowledge that while building new public homes. It does not seem to be grasped by some of the government members.

We have also heard the refuting of the idea of privatisation. Just examining what has been announced, largely through press releases from the government, on the refuting of privatisation: if you are knocking down the existing public housing that we have in this state, collectively, wholesale, you are then rebuilding by private property developers a small portion of community housing, and then the vast remainder of the site becomes private market rate housing. I hate to break it to you: that is privatisation, to put it plain and simple.

We have also heard from Labor members the distress that they are feeling that what is put forward in this report from experts is not matching the scripts that they are receiving from central casting. You know what, if you are reading truth, if you are reading information that is actually provided by experts, as opposed to the air that is coming out of the government right now – I am not seeing documents from them – perhaps that would assuage your concerns because you would be able to make. contributions based on fact rather than just opinion. We are hearing a lot of opinions today. We have heard from Labor members about the need for homes for people to live in. As has been noted by my colleague in moving this motion, moving people from the public housing stock and then looking at the new housing that is being proposed – we are hearing from residents that what is being offered to them is not something they are able to afford. What is the alternative for them? They have a home they cannot afford or homelessness. This plan that was announced under the former Premier is putting people in disastrous situations, pushing people to the wall, when we could acknowledge that we need to build new public housing and get on with doing that job rather than this disastrous plan from this government.

We heard a really quite peculiar contribution from one of the government members around what would be required to repair, say, a kitchen or to repair or renovate a bathroom. It seems as if the government member’s contribution indicated that the answer to fixing those problems would be to knock an entire building down. I find that quite worrying. I do not think that is what we are seeing here laid out in the report. Instead it is some kind of fanciful notion of what that renovation project would look like. It is really quite bizarre.

As has been put by one of the Labor members, what should the residents believe? What should people believe? I tell you what they should believe: a cited report from experts that is publicly available as opposed to opinion offered with no citation – purely opinion and vibes. That is what we have seen come out of this Labor government: a plan written on the back of an envelope from a former Premier and announced to the press. That is not good enough. Get a grip.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (15:16): I am pleased to rise and speak in this debate because what Dr Ratnam’s motion – the Greens motion – suggests is that there is a report here that is ‘a feasible alternative’, in the words of the motion, and provides, to quote Dr Ratnam, a meticulously detailed plan:

… that refutes every one of the government’s claims to date …

I want to get into that in a moment. But the central question in this debate is quite simply: what sort of housing do the poorest and most vulnerable in our community deserve? We on the government side are on the side of having better modern energy-efficient homes that meet design standards. The most vulnerable in our community deserve the best standard of homes. The Greens say they do not, and yet again the Liberals side with the Greens.

I want to start this contribution by looking at some of the things that are in this meticulously detailed report that Dr Ratnam wants the house to take note of. It appears I have read it, unlike Mr Puglielli. The report goes through the construction typology of the high-rise towers first finished in 1964:

When the buildings were designed, the code of practice outlined a 50-year life span for these structures.

In 1964 the first one opened, designed for a 50-year life span. Sixty years ago they said it was designed for a 50-year life span, and that is what the Greens think is the most appropriate place for the most vulnerable in our community to live.

The second issue which I will come to in the OFFICE report is looking at their assessment of the structural condition of these towers, the structural condition in which the Greens seek to house our most vulnerable. The OFFICE report says:

The structural assessment identified both non-compliance within the existing building to current code as well as strength deficiencies …

So their report says these structures do not meet the current code and have strength deficiencies where the Greens think the most vulnerable in our community should live. It goes on to say:

A number of construction elements within the existing building were deemed to be noncompliant when assessed against current codes …

It goes into details like the general principles and a whole lot of other elements, including wall reinforcement spacing, where it says:

A number of existing walls are non-compliant as the vertical and horizontal reinforcement exceed the maximum distance.

There is noncompliance with the minimum wall reinforcement requirements. A minimum quantity of reinforcement is required within structural walls, so the buildings the Greens want to preserve have structural deficiencies. Fine, they say – they can be fixed. The whole premise of this proposal from the Greens is that the structural deficiencies outlined in their own report can be fixed. So let us look at how they propose to fix them as part of their renovation plan. The OFFICE report suggests that to fix these problems with the structural deficiencies in the buildings you would need to put steel plate reinforcement along the buildings. To reinforce the concrete structures with an exoskeleton of steel, that is what you are proposing – to retrofit them to the faces of the concrete walls. Looking at figure 14 on page 61, it suggests that each floor that you affix these steel exoskeletons to requires 17 steel bolts to be drilled into the concrete structure, not just once but on every floor on every side of the building that is to be reinforced with structural steel.

One thing that is missing from the report that the Greens are proposing – the report that you suggest we should take note of and read – is the environmental impacts. There is no assessment of the environmental impacts on residents of the noise of drilling steel reinforcement into the concrete above people’s homes. That is what you are proposing. But I will get back to compliance. I will not spend all of my time talking about the noise and dust that you want to subject these residents to as a steel exoskeleton is affixed to their homes.

We want to talk about the sewer stacks, because the sewer stacks failing is the reason that the first two of these 44 public-housing towers have been condemned for human habitation. There is sewage in the walls. The sewer stacks have failed, and the residents have had to move out. The proposal that the Greens are advocating for is:

Existing sewer stacks to be inspected.

Their proposal is that they go and have a look at them, whereas we know that these sewer stacks are failing and causing difficulty for residents. But what is worse is the other element of noncompliance is – and this is from the report of existing conditions that the OFFICE report refers to:

Evidence of dampness in walls throughout the building and the formation of efflorescence and mould within sole occupancy units. The sewer stacks appear to be the source of internal dampness.

You can draw your own conclusions about what that means. But the proposed approach in the OFFICE report on the Flemington flats to the mould in the walls caused by sewage is ‘n/a’ – not applicable. This report, their plan, has ‘Not applicable’ as the proposed approach to dealing with the mould caused by sewage leaking into the walls of these residents. That is what the Greens want to have as the standard for the most vulnerable in our community. There is more. I cannot go on.

What I also want to say is that even if you could fix all of these problems the designs that this report proposes our most vulnerable residents live in will not meet the Better Apartments Design Standards. The report says they cannot meet the Better Apartments Design Standards. They cannot do it; they will not do it. Their plan will not even create apartments that meet the Better Apartments Design Standards. I cannot even get into the discussion about ceiling heights, although I would like to. I want to get to the point about relocations, because Mr Puglielli in his contribution said you can avoid displacement but the OFFICE report says that you have got to dislocate everyone from their current homes. Alternatively, option 1 in the OFFICE report suggests that they will only move people out five floors at a time. Imagine this: whilst they are drilling steel bolts into concrete walls below you, the Greens would subject residents to the noise, the dusk, the disruption and the inconvenience of living in the midst of one of the most disruptive renovations that would ever occur, without any kind of lifts, because they would be out of order whilst you were replacing them, and without any kind of environmental impact or assessment.

More to the point, the costings in their report do not even have an allowance for resident relocation. There is no support. They say the relocation costs are minimal and that you can save $227 million off the cost estimates. When the cost estimates for the relocation costs they are benchmarked against are $227 million, there is no money in this plan for residents’ relocation. They want them to stay in the towers, putting up with dust and noise whilst half the building has a steel skeleton put on the outside. This is not a plan for better apartments, this is a plan to leave these people in exactly the same condition as they are in now.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:27): I rise to share a few remarks on this, noting that we do not have a great deal of time left in this debate and I am anxious to hear from my colleague Ms Watt as well –

Tom McIntosh interjected.

Michael GALEA: As indeed is Mr McIntosh. I was planning to talk about some of the many, many structural issues that would prevent this sort of proposal from going forward, but Mr Batchelor has so well elucidated that in his contribution – the impact of steel being ground into concrete alone, let alone all the other impacts, and talking about things such as the fire resistance levels and the size of lifts to allow for ambulance stretchers, the size of the waste chutes, the distance from apartments entries to fire stairs, the provision of hobless showers, the width of communal corridors or the floor-to-ceiling heights. These are all things that are completely ignored by this dud proposal from the Greens.

But what I find interesting is that we have seen members of the opposition here today speak in favour of this motion, a motion which specifically calls on the government to stop its plans to redevelop and reinvest in these public housing towers, these valuable assets in inner-city Melbourne, in projects that would in fact increase threefold the amount of housing provided on the sites across inner-city Melbourne. It is absolutely emblematic of an opposition that says one thing about being all for development and says one thing about being YIMBY and then turns around and backs in motions that oppose up to 20,000 new homes in developments in areas with good public transport.

Enver Erdogan interjected.

Michael GALEA: Someone’s first speech even – indeed, you are quite right, Minister Erdogan. The Liberals cannot hide from the fact that by supporting this motion they are all tying themselves with the creepy antics of the member for Brighton, peering through glass windows in hotels, opposing sensible infill development in activity centres and opposing sensible redevelopment that will provide habitable, livable housing not just for those that can afford to purchase or rent but for those in social housing as well. Only the Labor Party it seems is standing up for those people in social housing in order for them to have those same rights of livability and habitability that every other Victorian rightly expects and deserves to have. Only the Labor Party is standing here in support of more housing, whether it be, as in this motion, for the inner city of Melbourne or whether it be in the outer suburbs of Melbourne or in regional Victoria, providing those options. Whether you are purchasing, renting or in social housing – whatever situation that you are in – this is a government for all Victorians, including young Victorians, which the Liberals are so happy to ignore and so happy to neglect. Only Labor will support the aspirations of millennials and Gen Z to live and work and play in the areas of Victoria where they want to be. I will conclude my remarks there as I understand that Ms Watt has a contribution as well.

Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (15:30): Thank you for the call and the opportunity to make a contribution to the final motion put forward by Dr Ratnam in this place, and I am going to take the time to say thank you for the chance to again speak about public, social and community housing, something that I very deeply support. I also thank my colleague Mr Galea for giving me a moment to make a contribution.

The truth is that this community is a community that I know. It is a community that I talk to, and I have talked to the folks from OFFICE, so let me go through and make some points really clear. Firstly, I just cannot believe that I am sitting here with a motion before us that condemns people to live in a construction zone. These are folks that are really unwell. They have young families. My mind cannot comprehend it, because I know what it means when the lifts do not work on level 11. I know what it means when folks with walking frames are trying to get to their place and they cannot because something has gone awry with the lifts. I know that these folk deserve better. They deserve a home that is modern and that is fit for purpose.

I just want to spend this time talking about the folks that already live there. I want to talk about the thousands of folks waiting, because those are the folks that I connect with. Those are the folks that I understand. Those folk were me, because I spent my entire childhood waiting for a home, and with this motion before us nothing will change. What I want to see is more homes for more Victorians, for the Victorians that need them most. I know the absolute despair of getting that letter saying you have got longer to wait, and it is heartbreaking. I know what it means to be picked up and separated from your community and moved around because of the uncertainty of the private housing market. What we need is more affordable homes. What we need is more social homes.

The providers that are out there are doing the very best that they can. They are working in partnership with community organisations. They are working in partnership with healthcare providers, schools and the people that need them to be really responsible home providers. The folks that I met from Haven Home Safe are looking to work with Aboriginal communities to build strong communities for traditional owners. That is what they want to do. The constant attacks on community housing providers, for me, are really hurtful, because I know the intentions of these folks. I worked with these folks. My last job before coming into this place was finding homes and finding jobs for people sitting on the public housing and social housing waiting list. Those folks deserve a home, and they deserve the dignity of a home that is right and safe and provides them the security that they deserve in their many years to come.

I have got to tell you that demonising social and community housing providers is a really hurtful thing. These workers feel it, and they do not deserve it. And the harmful misinformation being spread right across our community is very, very damaging. To the workers at Haven Home Safe and Wombat and everywhere, I know you and I see you and I support you, and this government supports you. We will not continue to sit back and allow these attacks to go on, because you guys are doing an incredible job supporting families escaping family violence and supporting families that are doing it tough, that are managing really complex mental health needs. We know that you are doing the right thing, and you have allies and friends here on this side – perhaps not so much among those behind us – because there is a truth, and that is that more Victorians deserve more homes, including those waiting, waiting and waiting.

Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (15:35): Thank you to everyone who has made a contribution this afternoon to this really critical debate. What we have heard this afternoon, in summary, is the government once again going on the attack because they have got nothing else. Not a shred of alternative evidence has been presented once again. We have come to expect this, because in 12 months we have still not seen a shred of evidence provided by Labor to justify their plans to demolish and privatise public housing across the state.

We have heard Labor members talk about maintenance and talk about the state of the current public housing towers. But let us remind everyone about what has happened under Labor’s watch. The Productivity Commission has found that Labor has spent the least per capita of any state in the country on the maintenance of public housing. We are at the bottom of the ladder. Do you want to know why there are complaints about public housing? Because Labor let that happen. They have just scrapped funding to upgrade the sewer stacks at every Victorian public housing tower right now. Do you want to cite the sewer stacks that stopped working at Carlton? Well, Labor did that. This is Thatcherism. You keep the funding low, you let the public services run to the ground and you say, ‘Sorry, it’s too hard to fix’ – on your watch. Labor has been in power for nearly a decade. You have run public housing into the ground. You had the chance to fix it. If you cared about modern homes, you would have spent the funding to keep these homes livable. It is still possible, and we are urging this government to take the lives and homes of public housing residents seriously.

Remarkably, what we have heard in this debate – or perhaps what we have not heard in this debate – is not one single government member refer to a conversation they have had with a public housing resident that is directly impacted by the imminent demolitions. It speaks to the contempt with which you treat public housing residents and many of us in the chamber who bother to go down to the estates week on week and talk to residents directly.

I can tell you about the conversations I have had with residents, about how they tell us they are not being offered alternatives and they are being pushed into rents they cannot afford and they are worried they will be left homeless by Labor. That is what Labor is promising. If we want more public housing in this state, if we want to bring that waitlist of 120,000 to zero, you know what we have to do? We have to build 100,000 public homes right now, not demolish the ones that we have. We have a plan from OFFICE that can build more at the Flemington estate alone. You can multiply that by 44 to see how much public housing we could have at these estates, let alone all the public sites that this Victorian Labor government is earmarking and packaging up for sale. Something like 2500 hectares of public land is being packaged up by Labor for sale right now – land that can be used to build public housing.

I hear the appeals to bring that waitlist down and to end homelessness. You know what you have to do to end homelessness in Victoria? Build public housing. You have got to build public housing, not luxury penthouses, not private apartments that no-one can afford. Under Labor’s watch we have seen the greatest retreat from public housing that we have ever seen, and the Minister for Housing is about to preside over the greatest destruction of public housing Victoria has ever seen. That is the legacy of the Allan Labor government, presiding over the greatest destruction of public housing Victoria has ever seen. Make no mistake about it, that is what is on the table. Two-thirds of each of those estates are about to be handed over to private developers – two-thirds of that land that we could save for public housing to build more public homes so that everyone can have a good-quality, affordable place to call home.

You know what solves the housing crisis? Public housing. You know what ends homelessness? Public housing. You know what guarantees affordable housing in this state? Public housing. The once great Labor Party believed that too, but they have lost all their courage. They have lost all their vision. And you know who they listen to? Developers. Developers are the only ones around the table, not residents, not housing experts, not academics, not architects, not designers, not engineers – just the developers who want to make a profit. And they have lucked out big with this Victorian Labor government, their best friend. You could have seen the dollar eyes as the developers walked with Labor across those estates and said, ‘You know what we can do? We can commercialise this full estate.’ You want to talk about commodifying? That is what Labor is doing to every Victorian that is on the housing register at the moment, to the 30,000 who are experiencing homelessness right now. Well, I will tell you something: not on our watch. Not on our watch are you going to destroy public housing in Victoria. Save public housing in Victoria. This Parliament has the chance to do it right now.

Council divided on motion:

Ayes (18): Melina Bath, Gaelle Broad, Katherine Copsey, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Renee Heath, Ann-Marie Hermans, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Sarah Mansfield, Bev McArthur, Joe McCracken, Nick McGowan, Evan Mulholland, Aiv Puglielli, Georgie Purcell, Samantha Ratnam, Richard Welch

Noes (18): Ryan Batchelor, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Jeff Bourman, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, Michael Galea, Shaun Leane, David Limbrick, Tom McIntosh, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Sonja Terpstra, Gayle Tierney, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, Sheena Watt

Motion negatived.