Victorian Greens demand Jacinta Allan ‘comes clean’ on public housing plan
The Victorian Greens have demanded Jacinta Allan “comes clean” on controversial plans to rebuild 44 public housing towers, calling on the new Premier to fix her predecessor’s “failures”.
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The Greens have demanded Jacinta Allan “comes clean” on controversial plans to bulldoze 44 public housing towers, calling on the new leader to make up for her predecessor’s “failures”.
With the state government planning to privatise public housing, Greens leader Samantha Ratnam said it was “the biggest privatisation agenda since Jeff Kennett” and called for Premier Allan to release all documentation about the plans.
“The new premier now has an opportunity to come clean on this project to privatise public housing in Victoria, that could mean the end of public housing,” Dr Ratnam said.
“With 82 per cent of renters experiencing rental stress, we want to see the new premier come through in a way that Daniel Andrews failed to do.
“It makes no sense to privatise prime public housing land so close to the CBD instead of building more public housing on it.”
The state government revealed in September plans to demolish 44 public housing towers built post World War II, many of which dominate the skylines of prime suburbs such as Flemington, Fitzroy, South Yarra and South Melbourne.
But, the land has been recommitted to primarily private housing, rather than public or social housing.
Public housing is owned and managed by governments while social or community housing is typically run by non-government organisations.
The Andrews government’s landmark housing statement said the public housing towers were “reaching the end of their useful lives” and were “no longer fit for modern living”.
Flemington, North Melbourne and Carlton towers will be brought down first, with the housing statement saying there will be a wholesale program to “progressively retire each tower and redevelop each site”.
The government said once all towers are rebuilt by 2051, an extra 10 per cent of social homes will exist and will each be able to house 20,000 more people per tower than now.
Dr Ratnam said the state government needed to commit to replacing the demolished towers with new and upgraded public housing but when asked during Upper House question time, Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes would not confirm whether this was on the agenda.
“If this government instead decides to privatise these estates, it could mean the end of public housing in Victoria,” she said.
“The only people that stand to benefit from this are property developers and landlords.”
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