Housing
Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (12:11): (888) My question is for the minister for housing. Minister, as raised by Mr Limbrick yesterday during question time, ministerial diaries have not been published since quarter 3 of last year, contravening section 5.3 of the ministerial code. Whilst I recognise that you have previously been one of the most transparent ministers on your front bench when it comes to publishing the details of ministerial meetings, we are still left without a lot of these details at a time when there has been significant change in portfolios going on.
Minister, I note that in June last year you met with the Flemington housing estate, including residents. Have you had any formal meetings since this time with residents of any of the other public housing towers set to be demolished across Melbourne?
Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop, Minister for Housing and Building, Minister for Development Victoria and Precincts) (12:12): Thank you, Dr Mansfield, for that question. There is a fair bit in what you have just said there. It is my understanding that I have complied with all of the reporting requirements for the release of diary information. I also note that yesterday the Leader of the Government’s position was clear around how documents and information have been submitted – and it is about the publication rather than the submission of materials – and that that would be addressed as a matter of urgency. So I do not wish to entertain any conclusion that my colleagues have not also been as transparent.
I have met with numerous community groups. I do not have the information in front of me directly to be able to answer the question that you have put, but I do meet with community organisations and groups, including from across the public estates. That includes meeting with people who have been here in Parliament for visits and having conversations with them – community committees coming in to meet with me at my office – and of course meeting people out in communities and the conversations and discussions that have been happening on the very sites that people call home.
There is a lot in what you have asked in terms of me not having recall of who I have met with since, I think you said, the June quarter last year. I am very happy to look through the information that has been provided and perhaps come back to you with an answer on that question. But for avoidance of any doubt and just to be really clear, I make myself as available as I can possibly be to people, whether it is the Property Council Australia, the UDIA, community groups and organisations or the language and learning centre for North Melbourne, for example, who I met with just a couple of weeks ago. So I will get you some further detail and we can go from there.
Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (12:13): I thank the minister for that response and look forward to receiving that information. The question was specifically about residents of the public housing towers. I understand that there are community groups that might interact with those residents, but I mean residents specifically. Do you have any meetings in the near future planned with residents of these housing towers?
Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop, Minister for Housing and Building, Minister for Development Victoria and Precincts) (12:14): Thank you, Dr Mansfield. Anybody who knows me will know that to put me in charge of my own diary is inviting disaster in respect of my desire to meet with as many people as possible. Many of these residents groups and community groups include residents, so they have been at a number of the meetings or people have identified themselves as residents at a number of the meetings with community groups that I have attended and that I have coordinated or responded to invitations to attend. I am not sure what is foreshadowed for my diary. It is intended to be as open as possible for people to be able to come to me and to have conversations with me and to provide feedback, suggestions or their views in relation to what is working, what could work better and what is not working. So again, I am very happy to come back to you, but it is often not easy to determine whether somebody is a resident unless they are identifying themselves as such. So I will not necessarily be able to give you an ironclad guarantee of complete numbers of residents, but again, let me see what I can do.