Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote): There is nothing more fundamental than the safety, security and dignity of a home. We all know this personally and intrinsically. We know it as legislators in this Parliament. We know it morally and materially. It is why we have a housing act and why its core objective is to ensure that every person in Victoria has adequate and appropriate housing at a price within their means.
The reality of achieving this is complex and paints a picture of social and economic disparity in this state. It is a picture that has many layers: market forces, gentrification, cost-of-living pressures, wage stagnation, gender inequality, entrenched disadvantage and sometimes violence. The truth is that the need for housing is both great and urgent, and there are no simple solutions. We need lots of tools in our toolbox if we are going to achieve tangible and rapid boosts to the supply of social and affordable homes in Victoria. The amendments in this bill give us more of these tools.
The bill formally establishes Homes Victoria as a modern housing agency with a robust governance structure, including an independent skills-based advisory board. Critically, though, the amendments give Homes Victoria the capacity to implement innovative financial models so it can continue to invest in new social and affordable housing at a rapid rate—and that affordable housing component is important. We know that housing insecurity is experienced on a continuum. There is the devastating, acute end where people are sleeping rough. There are those in crisis accommodation or long-term social housing, and there are also many low and moderate income Victorians who are in precarious housing or being priced out of their communities. We are seeing this play out in the inner-urban suburbs like Northcote, once an affordable option for migrant and working-class families. Suburbs in the inner north are increasingly out of range for low and moderate income earners. Rents are high, housing prices are even higher. Close to jobs, public transport, great schools, services and amenities, areas like Northcote are desirable places to live, but it is critical that as our suburbs continue to grow equity and diversity of housing choices are built in at the foundation.
This bill allows the minister to declare a project to be a Victorian affordable housing program. It means there will now be a legislative framework to provide eligible households with access to affordable properties managed and accounted for distinctly from social housing. It also includes models which can support housing for essential workers, such as nurses, police, teachers and care workers in regions that need them most. This is a big step forward in delivering more affordable housing across Melbourne, and as I said, everyone deserves a safe place to live. Social and affordable homes are core to achieving this goal.
You would think that something as fundamental as the right to a home would elicit support across the political spectrum, but it is with sadness, disappointment and frustration that I must report to you that it does not. Across the inner suburbs the Greens have stood firmly in the way of multiple social housing projects in our communities. Just last year we saw the Greens-controlled Yarra council block a proposal to build a minimum of 100 social and affordable homes next to Collingwood town hall, including 1000 square metres of new community space. It was a project three years in the making and backed in by a substantial investment from the state government, and they threw it in the trash. And then there is Flemington and Ascot Vale where I am sure the member for Essendon, the now minister, can tell you about his dealings with the Greens political party as they fought to prevent new homes being built. In the last parliamentary term they opposed giving working people the decency of affordable, safe, modern homes, a chance to break out of the cycle of disadvantage.
Let us not forget in my own community where the Greens-dominated Darebin council acted to deliberately delay our critical social housing project in Preston. This is a project that will deliver 99 homes for some of the most vulnerable and isolated members of our community, and in a disgusting display what they did was delay the project for eight months—eight months until we had to take it out of their control and go through the Minister for Planning for approval instead. If not for these delays, construction would have started so much earlier and we would be well on our way to having these critical homes built, homes that give people opportunity, hope and a chance to live with dignity and aspiration. I raised this travesty in Parliament as a question to the former Minister for Housing. In his response in May 2021 the minister said:
If not for this unnecessarily protracted process with council for no avail, the construction of the 99 social housing dwellings for the most vulnerable members of the community would have already commenced.
He also pointed to the difficulties and unnecessary delays they had to deal with in getting development plans approved, noting that:
Timely consideration of applications has not occurred, irrespective of how much consultation, flexibility and common sense approaches the project team offer up to progress the project.
Yet, in some kind of collective self-delusion, the Greens try to paint themselves as champions of social and affordable housing. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Greens political party could not care less about social housing, but they sure do recognise an opportunity to appropriate a cause so that they can market their supposed moral credentials. Well, we see through it. Those of us who are actually out there actively working to build equity into our suburbs, actively working to make a tangible difference to the lives of people who are less fortunate but equally as deserving, we see through it.
They stand on their pedestal and preach to us about how they care about social housing, affordable housing and the people who need those homes, but time and again the Greens’ track record has shown their words are empty, nothing more than marketing spin, while they put roadblock after roadblock in front of critical housing projects. When it comes down to the wire the Greens political party are not interested in delivering social housing, at least not anywhere near their strongholds. It does not serve them. In their sinister calculations it just does not serve them. So what do we get? Opposition, delays, protests. These frauds are actually not interested in wealth creation for disadvantaged people; they could not care less. They are not interested in raising people up or in backing in a proactive and progressive Labor government that is building these homes. Twelve thousand new homes are being built as part of the Big Housing Build—$5.3 billion in funding, the biggest single investment into social and affordable housing in Victoria’s history. Yet at every step all the Greens are interested in doing is undermining our work, all the while offering nothing but marketing and spin while they expect us to swallow this message that they give a damn about housing tenants. Give us a break. I mean, seriously, do they think that we do not see through the smoke and mirrors? The Greens are on a mission all right, but you can bet your life that it is not a mission about helping the most vulnerable Victorians. It is their mission. It is their political mission.
I have got 2 minutes left. We are now over halfway towards our target of 12 000 new homes, including 2400 affordable homes, with 6300 already completed or underway. Many of these homes are for people with mental illness, people with disability, women and children escaping family violence, as well as First Nations Victorians. These are people and families who deserve a chance. They deserve security and safety. They deserve to be part of a community—our community. The Big Housing Build and our investment in social housing is transformational. It is changing lives. I have seen this firsthand. Just last week I joined the Minister for Housing for a visit to one of our local social housing builds in Fairfield. This site has a long history. A hundred years ago it was a home for pregnant and unmarried women before becoming a refuge and then a boarding house. In partnership with Unison Housing and a $3.3 million investment from the Labor government we have transformed these 22 cramped bedrooms into 38 beautiful self-contained apartments for women. These are light, bright, modern and safe, and they have got regular staff on site as a point of contact and support. This is the kind of thing that we are doing through our Big Housing Build. It is transformational. The Greens need to get behind it rather than continuing to undermine it, particularly at local government level, where they have the power to approve these projects being built. It is disgraceful, and it needs to be called out.
On that note, I want to see more social housing in the Northcote electorate, and this bill goes towards doing that. I am part of a team and a government that is committed to delivering on this goal. We have done a lot already. There is more to do. I commend the bill to the house.
