GRIEVANCE DEBATE
Mr BURNS (Macnamara) (12:40): We believe that every single Australian deserves a safe and secure home—somewhere to come home to at the end of the day, knowing that they are safe, that they will have somewhere to sleep and that their family will be safe as well. But we also know that, for too many Australians, that is not a reality. Insecure housing, housing unaffordability or even just the fact that their home is violent and that they do not feel safe in their own home is something that too many Australians face on a daily basis.
We also know that, for many Australians, just simply affording their own home is not a reality. For 40 years, our housing sector has been hurtling towards the situation where too many people simply can't afford a safe and secure home of their own. But, for the first time in my living memory, we on this side of the House are as focused and ambitious as any government has been on housing since the Second World War.
We are throwing everything at it, and, as the Special Envoy for Social Housing and Homelessness, I have found it just amazing to see the work that we have invested in since coming into government come to life and the homes being open and available for the people who really need them. Last week I had the pleasure of joining the member for Fraser right in the heart of Maribyrnong, where we topped out 83 apartments—48 social and 35 affordable.
The thing that makes this project so special is that not only are VincentCare and the St Vincent de Paul Society going to be the tenant managers and making sure that this home is going to be maintained and going to the people who really need it but also the location of this amazing project is right in the heart of bustling Melbourne, where there are jobs, schools and transport opportunities.
The people who will be moving in there in the not-too-distant future are women and children who are escaping violence, older women who are at risk of homelessness, veterans and frontline workers, and a high percentage of the tenants will also be Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders, who we know are overrepresented in our homelessness sector. This is a great project and, together with the mayor of Maribyrnong, Mohamed Semra, the member for Fraser and I were there to thank the builders who have been working around the clock to make this incredible housing development a reality in under 12 months.
They are on time and on budget, and those homes will be available to those tenants in the very near future. I also went down to Noble Park in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, where there are now 97 social homes that are ready and the first tenants are moving in as we speak. I was there with the Victorian minister for housing, Nick Staikos, and member of the upper house, my good friend Michael Galea.
We opened this incredible development, which we did in partnership with the Victorian government, as well as with HousingFirst. These homes are going to be for young people who are experiencing homelessness. They are also going to be for women and children fleeing violence and for people who have real complex personal needs, many of which stem from years of trauma and years of cycling through the homelessness sector and services and from not having a safe and secure home in which to be able to rebuild their lives.
Right in the heart of this amazingly beautiful and diverse part of Melbourne, there are going to be 97 social homes right next to the train station. We could see the trains go by, but these homes are built to such high standards, with high energy efficiency and incredible sound protection, so the residents will not be disturbed by the trains going past, but they will be able to enjoy catching the train to work or to and around the city.
There are also car parks built into it. There are bike racks. There are EV chargers.
There are EV bike chargers. There's communal open space. There's a park right next door.
It's perfect for people who need a home. Especially for women and children who are fleeing a violent home, this will help them rebuild their lives. If anyone's been to Noble Park, it is just such a magnificent part of Melbourne.
It is diverse. There are people from different cultures right around the world. I think that that's fabulous.
If you want to get some food that has so many different inspirations, whether it be Middle Eastern, African or European, you can get all of the different flavours right there in Noble Park, right next to these beautiful new homes. It's going to be a fantastic place to live. The other place I went to was in Hampton East, which is not too far away from the magnificent electorate of Macnamara.
This development that we have invested in, in partnership with the Victorian government, is such an amazing development. There are 285 new homes intertwined between social housing and affordable housing, and then some of the homes are also going to be just general market housing that will help pay for the project. It's one of those sorts of projects that is designed not to isolate people who have faced homelessness but rather to bring them in as part of a community.
There are open spaces in and around these beautiful new apartments. There are communal areas. There's an amazing park right out the front.
It is so close to all of the really picturesque parts of Hampton East. I visited together with the Minister for Housing, Clare O'Neil, the Victorian Minister for Housing, Building and Precincts, Nick Staikos—we bumped into each other quite a few times last week—and a member from the upper house in Victoria, Ryan Batchelor. This is an amazing development.
The best part was meeting two of the residents who have already moved in. I met one gentleman named Stephen who's got an eight-year-old son. He was living in a property that was there before and has come back to a brand-new apartment that has been built in collaboration with the state and federal Labor governments.
He was just blown away by the quality, the cleanliness and the speed in which this project has been delivered. He said that this project is life changing. It means he's proud to bring his little son home and he's proud to make sure that he's got a safe place to spend time with him.
Then we met the amazing Mira. She's someone who has worked her entire life and given so much to the community. She had some personal hurdles that she had to overcome and found herself facing housing insecurity.
Her rent went up and she just didn't know where she was going to turn. Amazingly, and thankfully, she has managed to access one of these homes. She was just the most beautiful, kind and deserving recipient of one of these homes as someone who has given so much to our country and who should not be facing homelessness and who should not have to worry about if she's going to have a safe and secure place.
To walk through her small but beautiful one-bedroom apartment that she has made into a little home was just something that I was extremely grateful for. She welcomed us in. I was also grateful for her kindness.
These are just three projects that I was able to see last week. They come as part of 55,000 social and affordable homes that we are building right across the country. This is what it looks like when the federal government invests directly in housing.
For a long time, the previous government didn't think that the federal government had a role to invest in social and affordable housing. But that has changed. We are in this with a vengeance, with dollars and investments that are building real homes for real Australians.
Also last week, the minister and I announced our funding for crisis and transitional homes. These are homes that will be there for young people who are facing homelessness and also women and children who are fleeing a violent home. These are shorter term homes.
They are for up to two years. They are there for people who are facing the most difficult parts of their lives. As we know, too many people turn up to specialist homelessness services and there just isn't anywhere for them to go.
But we are trying to change that to make sure that nobody is turned away from the support they need when they need it. The homes that we are building right across the state and across the country will go towards supporting people. We estimate around 10,000 people over the next few years will access these homes, and that will make a huge difference in helping people rebuild their lives and get access to the support they need.
There's lots more we can talk about in the housing space, but, again, I bring you back to this key point. Every single Australian should know that, at the end of their day, they can go home to a safe and secure home, and the only way that we can make that a reality for every Australian is if the federal government is in this, working and investing across the other levels of government and making sure every Australian has a safe place to live.