My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Housing, and the action I seek is for the minister to upgrade public housing estates in the Prahran electorate, of which there are several in South Yarra, Prahran, St Kilda and Windsor—all around the Prahran electorate, including building new public housing on those estates as well to fix homelessness and reduce the public housing waiting list. More and more people are facing homelessness, sleeping rough, fleeing family violence or living in unsafe and unsecure accommodation. The conditions of some people’s homes, and these are people’s homes, is just unacceptable.
My office has had reports of bed bug infestations, pigeon infestations and pigeon crap covering the common windows and no air conditioning despite the incredible heat that is faced during summer. One tower in the Horace Petty Estate has only had a few floors upgraded, many years ago, while tenants have had to wait for empty promises that the rest would be fixed. Some of the houses need to be replaced with entirely new homes. Victoria spends less on social housing than any other state. It is absolutely outrageous that a wealthy society like ours cannot afford to look after people in need. Victoria needs a big build.
Thousands of public housing homes need to be built every year—far more than what the government has promised in this term. The government’s sell-off plan, the public housing renewal program, has been designed to profit developers. It will actually reduce the capacity of our estates. The Bangs Street estate in Prahran is now just sitting empty. The government shops it around to developers when they could be building new public housing on this estate now. I urge the government to upgrade estates in the Prahran electorate and to build more public housing.
