Hansard debates

Mr McGUIRE (Broadmeadows) — This bill is important because it aims to pave the way for an increase in affordable housing developed by the private sector. This comes at a critical time, when we have mortgage stress, when we have wages growth flatlining, and we have a proposition that is about a generational issue as well — about how first home buyers get their opportunity at the great Australian dream.

This bill introduces a new definition of affordable housing into the Planning and Environment Act 1987 and provides for the Governor in Council, on the advice of the minister, to make an order specifying a range of household incomes as a very low income range, a low income range and a moderate income range for the purposes of the definition of affordable housing. Currently councils can make voluntary arrangements with developers to provide a portion of affordable housing in a development; however, there is no consistency in approach, no guideline on the structure of agreements and no legal definition of what constitutes affordable housing. This creates the problems of uncertainty, inefficiency and ambiguity, and the lack of a legal definition can lead to challenges at VCAT and ultimately a failure to deliver affordable housing — the key proposition at the centre of this bill.

These changes provide the legislative backing for voluntary agreements between councils and developers, providing certainty about how affordable housing schemes can be applied. Through the provision of accompanying non-statutory ministerial guidelines, the matters that a council can have regard to when negotiating agreements will be listed, improving the transparency and consistency of affordable housing agreements. That is a clear proposition that is in the public interest. You will be able to see what the deal was and what the dividend is for affordable housing. With a legal definition and greater guidance on the structure of affordable housing agreements, the hope is that there will be an evolution in the affordable housing sector as developers, councils and housing associations increasingly make use of the planning mechanism available.

The Victorian government is implementing the proposition in the housing strategy Homes for Victorians by facilitating the provision of affordable housing through the planning system. This bill enables a responsible authority — and usually that will be the council — to enter into a voluntary agreement with a landowner for the development or provision of affordable housing. Affordable housing agreements are intended to be voluntary. It will not be possible to condition a permit to force a developer to enter into an agreement. Really what the government is looking to achieve here is getting a better balance and delivering what needs to happen. I represent a community that is right at the heart of this issue, and historically we have had neglect of the proposition of housing. What we now need to do is to come up with these better partnerships that will deliver affordable housing.

Here is the opportunity: the Broadmeadows electorate is only 16 kilometres from the centre of the world's most liveable city. It has blue-chip infrastructure — it has two train lines in, it has a spur into the Ford site, which is the size of a suburb, it has the Tullamarine Freeway, which the Andrews government is widening, it has the ring-road and it has the curfew-free international airport at the back door. So this is prime real estate.

It is not just as you have heard me through the Creating Opportunity: Postcodes of Hope strategy articulating this; the market is catching up. The reports in the local paper have recently put the rise since March at about 17 per cent in this community. So I have given you all the best property tip you are likely to get for a long time on where you should be looking. This is the new vision and the new plan. We are putting forward that we can actually unlock the value of the almost 2000 old housing commission pastel-coloured concrete homes that were built in the 1950s for the 'factory fodder', as they were then regarded. How can we unlock the value of them being on almost a quarter of an acre block, take out the stigma of the old housing commission and redo them in a way that looks at what is an enlightened 21st century method of having public-private social housing? How do we unlock the value of this?

I note that the Minister for Planning and former housing minister is in the chamber. He has been part of putting up a model for what was the old Mews estate, now Valley Park. That has taken an area that was derelict and had crime and major social problems and is helping to turn that around. The creative response that came from the developers — and from memory it was Australand that won the public tender for this — was to come up with something that is much more enlightened for the 21st century and provides better homes.

So these are the issues that we have been wrestling with. There is obviously a historic context to areas like Broadmeadows. I remember citing the 1956 Report of the Royal Commission to Inquire into the Operation of the Housing Acts of Victoria and the Administration of the Housing Commission. I quote from that report:

Poor housing conditions result directly in physical illness and indirectly in tensions and dissatisfactions which cause broken homes, drunkenness and juvenile delinquency, leading to vice and crime. In this connection, poor housing conditions do not necessarily mean small frontages, leaking roofs and lack of facilities. It may involve a solid structure, put up in the wrong place, without thought to the requirements of life other than mere shelter.

Here we are in the 21st century with a wonderful opportunity. It really underscores one of my arguments about getting a city deal and a regional deal for Melbourne's north with the commonwealth government. The connection there is that city deals made between the Australian state and local governments are designed to make our cities better places to live and conduct business. They provide a mechanism to renew cooperation beyond partisanship. Through city deals, governments, industries and communities will develop collective plans for growth and commit to the actions, investments and reforms needed to implement them.

This is an opportunity. When you look at what are the new industries and the new jobs that we need to create, this is the prime position in which to do it. Housing is a critical proposition. This is the chance to do it. I see in the report on mortgage stress that even some of the communities within this area are going through that issue as well. So it is the culmination of deindustrialisation, it is the culmination of mortgage stress and it is the culmination of large numbers of poor people being put into an area where there is the highest unemployment in the state.

That comes to what is our creative response, and that is one of the key propositions that we are looking at. Australia's major cities are facing a severe reduction in affordable housing, with 15 per cent of Victorian households currently suffering housing affordability stress whereby housing costs absorb more than 30 per cent of total weekly household income. Coupled with the increasing lack of social housing stock, housing has reached a crisis point for many low income earning Victorians unable to rent privately. This problem is exacerbated when concentrated in suburbs with high levels of disadvantage, and that is the issue that I am raising — that Broadmeadows is not just one of these; it is top of the list in these categories. Therefore it is imperative to analyse the options for future renewal of the housing market, drawing solutions back to the area's local context in order to predict their effectiveness.

This is where I am trying to see opportunity from adversity and how we can come up with a vision and a plan. I put that forward in Creating Opportunity: Postcodes of Hope as a strategy to do that and get a coordinated proposition, because that is always what this community has suffered from — a lack of a vision and a plan that can be delivered over time. This bill goes to being another part of the architecture that will allow for such ingenuity and innovation to perform and deliver on behalf of these communities that need it most.