2016-12-06
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — The Greens will support this bill. We also support the creation of a centralised Victorian Housing Register for the benefit of those seeking affordable housing — something that we were also promoting as policy before the 2014 state election. We desire this to make it fairer for everyone. People will not have to shop around and apply for different systems to get a place in affordable housing. I am sure many members have actually dealt with individual constituents who have phoned up seeking assistance in relation to applying for housing, getting on the right list and making sure that they are moving along on that list. So it would be the day-to-day experience I think of many MPs that this is an important issue, and we all hope that this bill will be successful in its aims.
However, of course, that is not going to solve Victoria's public housing crisis. The only thing that will do that is a significant increase in public housing stock and, for that matter, a significant investment in maintenance, which goes to the issue that Ms Wooldridge raised about vacant properties. Very often they are properties that have been run down and have not been fixed up. Last time we checked there were about 33 000 applicants for social housing and 6000 applicants for transfers on the waiting list, so 39 000 people and families who are eligible for public housing but who have not yet received it.
As always we continue to hear rumours coming out of government sources about the transfer of large quantities of public housing to the private or non-profit sector. Certainly we heard a lot more of those rumours when the Liberals were last in government, but we continue to hear them and they are of great concern to people. I know from my time as a councillor representing the Fitzroy and Collingwood areas, where a significant proportion of my ward constituents were living in public housing — and I continue to represent them as their upper house state member — that there is great trepidation in those communities every time these discussions or rumours emerge about the transfer of housing stock, because those people still want the government to continue to represent them. They do not want to be shunted off to a third party.
Housing is an incredibly important aspect of your life. If your housing is insecure, if it is unsuitable or if it does not meet the kinds of liveable standards that keep you healthy, then a whole range of problems arise.
In fact getting stable housing is almost the prerequisite for helping people with other aspects of their lives, whether it be physical illness, mental illness or employment. This is particularly acute in country Victoria. It is probably less visible in country Victoria, but drop in to see your local housing worker in any part of regional Victoria and ask them what the options available to them are when people come to them seeking help for housing. In small country areas you might think the housing would be cheaper than in metropolitan areas. There is usually less of it, and often it is of an extremely poor quality, not having been gentrified up.
Business interrupted pursuant to standing orders.
Sitting extended pursuant to standing orders.
Mr BARBER — Housing, which is one of your most fundamental requirements for life, is in fact in many ways not covered by the sorts of protections and checks and balances that exist for other essential services. We now have an energy and water ombudsman. We have a banking ombudsman. We have a telecommunications ombudsman. We have all sorts of watchdogs and complaint authorities for almost every other aspect — for banking; you name it. But when it comes to housing the sector is little regulated. In some ways the government is the world's worst landlord when it comes to the treatment of its own tenants, but there are significant problems out there in private housing as well. Yet it is little regulated; there are no minimum standards for housing in Victoria. There are minimum standards for almost every consumer product that is out there, but not for housing.
While we will be supporting this bill, we will also be continuing to advocate for these other issues, policies like inclusionary zoning, which this government at one stage was quite interested in. It is common or garden variety policy in other countries, but the government is still fiddling around on that one, particularly for more housing and better service and maintenance in the existing housing.
As a local councillor I went to a children's play that was put on in Atherton Gardens, and it was about life in the public housing estate. The backdrop that they painted for their play was actually the lift in the public housing, and a large amount of what they talked about in their daily life was about problems with the lift. I think most of us take for granted the quality of our housing, but when you live in public housing, it is a daily struggle to get from the government just a decent standard.
The Greens will continue to advocate for those, and we look forward to hearing from this government a comprehensive housing policy two years into the life of the government. I do not think we are going to see it before the end of the year, but we will certainly be willing to support other measures that the government might bring to the house when they address these important issues that I have been talking about tonight.
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