Kat THEOPHANOUS (Northcote): Thank you to all of the previous speakers in this debate so far, although I do think that the win for best performance goes to the member for Richmond. I mean, seriously, we have all had the opportunity to witness her confected outrage before in this chamber, but I think she may have taken it to a new whole level today. Unfortunately, though, theatrics do not build the safe and secure homes that Victorians desperately need right now, and neither do simplistic tweets and neither do catchy slogans, the other weapons in the Greens arsenal, yet we have seen them plastered all around our inner-city suburbs and on fancy cupcakes paraded by the member for Richmond.
Nothing demonstrates the utter hypocrisy of the Greens political party more acutely than their position on housing. The level of cognitive dissonance it takes to convince themselves that they are champions of housing while simultaneously being directly – directly – responsible for blocking it from being built is beyond disturbing. The fact that the member for Richmond can stand up there and moralise to us about housing when she herself as the mayor of Yarra council was responsible for scuttling social housing in Yarra is utterly despicable. How do these people look themselves in the mirror? How do they reconcile two completely incongruent positions in their mind, one that demands more housing and the other that demands it not be built? What kind of self-justifications do they mutter to themselves at night when they pull the sheets over their heads and dream about the Greens revolution?
Our Labor government is serious about addressing the housing crisis in Victoria and about our responsibility to not only build more housing but renew the old stock to make it fit for purpose and up to modern living standards. Many of my colleagues today, including the Minister for Housing, have outlined exactly how we are putting that into effect through our $5.3 billion housing build, our $1 billion Regional Housing Fund, our affordable housing rental scheme, our rental reforms and other initiatives that are giving more housing choices to more Victorians.
Of course even more genuine reform is sitting on the table with the federal government’s $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, the HAFF, a fund that would support the construction of 30,000 new social and affordable housing properties with a minimum $500 million each year over the next five years, a fund that includes provision for 4000 properties for women and children experiencing family violence and older women at risk of homelessness. If the Greens truly want to support an increase in public and community housing, they should pick up the phone to their Greens mates in Canberra and ask them some hard questions about why they are teaming up with the coalition to block this bill. They say you can judge character by the company you keep. Well, the Greens are keeping very close company with the likes of the coalition, One Nation and the United Australia Party up there in Canberra – very close company indeed.
The Greens pretend to care about people doing it tough, but time and again they show up only for themselves. Their federal member for Griffith even penned an article effectively arguing that refusing to pass the HAFF bill is part of a strategy to sow disaffection, to mobilise and weaponise disadvantaged sections of society in support of the Greens. Nothing could be more sinister, and it was rightly called out by the Prime Minister, who pointed to a fundamental truth of the Greens political party – that they are frauds. They do not care about the policy outcome, they want the fight. They want the fight because it is their only way to get attention and, more importantly for them, to recruit.
Meanwhile the federal government has just injected an additional $2 billion into social housing, and it will be a lot more if the HAFF passes. But the Greens political party think it is more worthwhile to throw a tantrum for relevance rather than take meaningful action. So fragile are their egos that they are willing to risk the most significant housing reform policy our nation has seen in decades. How petty. How utterly immature, how disingenuous and how dangerous. We are in the middle of a housing crisis and all the Greens care about is how much political capital they can squeeze out of it. The hard truth is that the Greens political party do not want to see real reform in the housing sector because as long as they are able to block real projects that will deliver real homes for those who need them, they know they can keep campaigning and fearmongering and recruiting.
We know the play because we have seen it before with the radical right; the mean-spirited and manipulative tactics are taken right out of the populist recruitment handbook. They are deliberately designed to exploit people’s vulnerabilities and escalate disadvantage in order to weaponise it against their political opponents. The theory behind these tactics is very well documented and understood, and their use of them has been effectively admitted by the Greens member for Griffith.
As the member for Mordialloc rightly pointed out earlier today, it is all cynically based on the polling in their electorates. They have done the numbers and with calculated ruthlessness they are willing to prevent homes from being built for political gain. I heard the Greens member for Brunswick earlier today trying to justify their opposition to new housing by saying not enough of it is public housing. This is where the Greens argument completely lacks nuance and strength, because they are utterly incapable of recognising the value and place of community housing within the sector. Community housing run by not-for-profit providers is absolutely vital in allowing models of housing that cater to specific cohorts. That includes housing specifically for women and children fleeing family violence. It includes housing run for and by Aboriginal Victorians, housing for older women, housing for people living with mental health issues and housing for young people. Are the Greens really proposing that we scrap these models of housing provision? Really?
That is not the only falsehood dished out by their marketing team. Another one is that we are not building public housing any more. Wrong. The 1000 homes project is public housing. The Markham estate is public housing. We certainly are building public housing. In fact the vast majority of housing stock in Victoria remains public housing. The Greens seriously need to do some soul-searching. They need to stop trying to gaslight Victorians into falsely believing that they give a damn about vulnerable people. They do not. They are so far from being interested in actually helping people. The truth is they are not for more public housing, they are for publicity, and it does not matter to them what communities they trample in the process. It does not matter to them what wounds they open and who they exploit.
Nothing matters to them so long as they can put their slogan on a rock poster to try to convince people they have some moral substance and position themselves to take credit for Labor’s reforms. Victorians see through it, the housing sector sees through it, tenants see through it, people living pay cheque to pay cheque see through it, and none of us can afford to wait for the Greens to run the housing crisis through their slick marketing machine. Front up and support the HAFF. Do not wait until October. Do the right thing.
In my community of Northcote I have spoken to many people who are living in housing stress, fearful of what the future holds. These are people and families that are working hard, doing it tough and who deserve the dignity, security and foundation of a home. In Northcote we need a variety of housing options from social housing to affordable rentals and to make it easier for people to buy their first home or to run the one that they own. That is why we are currently building over 200 new homes for people who need them in our inner-north suburbs. In partnership with Unison we have transformed a 22-bedroom rooming house in Fairfield into 38 modern, self-contained units for vulnerable women. We have constructed and opened a new family refuge, Virginia’s Place, at a secure location to provide safety and dignity to women and children escaping violence. Locally we have also facilitated exclusive opportunities for first home buyers to enter the market without competing with investors. We are building key worker housing, and we are working hard to give more residents the opportunity to live in energy-efficient homes through our rebates and programs.
There is scarcely a conversation right now that is more important than the one that we are having collectively on housing. We need to be able to build more homes to manage the growth of our state, embed sustainability in our suburbs, create jobs and keep pace with services and infrastructure. None of these policy considerations are easy to navigate, but as a government we have a duty to tackle them. That is why we are working towards our housing statement, which will deliver a considered and cohesive plan for our state’s growth. At a very basic level it will mean getting more homes built, and that means every level of government needs to front up. Yet across Yarra, Darebin and Merri-bek the Greens have consistently voted to oppose critical housing projects for vulnerable people. Others have elucidated some of those examples very well in the debate this afternoon, but it is emblematic of the appalling attitude that the Greens continue to have on housing – an attitude that could not care less about the people who need these homes. It is an attitude of utter contempt for the housing sector and housing providers. It is an attitude that is right now hurting Victorians, and each and every one of them should be ashamed.
