Legislative Assembly 12 May 2022
Mr MORRIS (Mornington) (10:07): We have a housing crisis on the Mornington Peninsula.
We have the sixth-largest number of rough sleepers in the state. We have low—in fact extremely low—vacancy rates in terms of rental properties. We have a genuine crisis.
I thought it might have been instructive to see what the government, particularly the member for Nepean, has been saying about housing, so I searched Hansard.
The member for Nepean has mentioned housing on the Mornington Peninsula once, on 9 September 2021. He asked the Minister for Housing to provide an update to his community about:
… how the Victorian government’s announcement on funding to provide housing support and targeted initiatives to address homelessness in—
the budget—
… will help to reduce homelessness on the Mornington Peninsula.
What was the response? None—absolutely none.
A government member asked in an adjournment for a response from the Minister for Housing and he has had nothing at all. I guess it is hard to talk about what you are doing when you are not actually doing anything.
My own electorate has a number of locations where public housing is literally falling apart—literally collapsing. It is prime real estate, but if you are not going to invest in public housing on the Mornington Peninsula, how about you utilise the assets better? Surely we can use them more effectively.
The sites are great, the buildings are not. Well-located slums are still slums.
There is a real opportunity here to take action and make improvements that will make a real difference to people’s lives. I challenge the minister, who it is great to see at the table, to really get on and do something.