Hansard debates

Mr McGUIRE (Broadmeadows) (12:04:24): I refer to the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee (PAEC) inquiry into the budget estimates and in particular to the contribution from the Minister for Housing. I want to emphasise the commitment that the Andrews Labor government has made to housing and homelessness. The minister underscored this before PAEC by highlighting that there has been $1.2 billion of investment since 2014. This continues today with more than $400 million in the 2019–20 budget allocated to the housing portfolio. I am hoping to add value to what the minister said during question time. He outlined what the Victorian government is looking for, which is to try and get a balance between industrial and residential land in Melbourne’s north. This is something I have been campaigning for for a long time. I want to look to the future and how we can continue to reimagine the Australian dream. The need for affordable housing is one of Australia’s biggest concerns. We are using population growth to drive economic activity, and therefore one of our best responses would be to provide affordable housing where we already have the established infrastructure. This will save a fortune. We are looking to reimagine the future of industries and jobs, and this is an area that has the industrial heritage. The strategy I am proposing is to unleash the economic growth potential of Broadmeadows to deliver the aspiration people crave. Here is the plan, here is the opportunity and here is the place where it all comes together. We can make it the centrepiece for the revitalisation of Broadmeadows. Broadmeadows matters because it symbolises hope and the promise of Australia. This is where you get your start, as my late dad always said, in the land of opportunity—and he was right. We can go back into these blue-collar communities and reimagine them and revitalise them. Here is the Australian dream for the future. Here are the new industries and jobs. We can also add beauty. Why don’t we do that as well? There are about 2000 homes that were built in the 1950s that are well past their use-by date. They were concretes home only defined by different pastel colours. Well, we can do better than that, and we should for the people that I represent. This is the opportunity. I know for a fact that the Minister for Housing is a man of conviction on these matters because I worked with him previously on the old Mews—a derelict site in the electorate—and this was before I was the MP. The revitalisation there with Valley Park is outstanding. The government was able to create competition between different companies by using market forces, and so we need to get the competitive edge in there as well. Also I really want to highlight the opportunity we have with superannuation funds. There is now $2.8 trillion in Australian superannuation funds, and this will rise to $5 trillion by 2030. Superannuation funds are going to have more money than the Australian gross domestic product. So here is what I am trying to do, and here is how we can connect the disconnected, provide new opportunities, revitalise communities and get the balance right between the industrial land and the residential land. Melbourne’s north will soon have a population greater than Adelaide. This is the same situation as in Melbourne’s west. This is where we have the growth. We have the infrastructure. The Andrews Labor government widened the Tullamarine Freeway, we have the ring-road and we have the curfew-free international airport at the back door. This is a concentration of wonderful blue-chip infrastructure. We have now attracted a $500 million investor from the private sector to put that money into new industries and new jobs at the Ford sites. That is a carve-out for my colleagues in Geelong as well, because they will get to benefit from this also. This is what we should be doing. I am looking for unity tickets to drive these propositions. We have been able to deliver city deals. We have got those city deals for Melbourne’s north and west. It is not just the west; it is the north too. I do not want Melbourne’s north to be last and I do not want Broadmeadows to be left out, because that is what has happened all my life. So we are going to keep fighting and campaigning for this. Here is a strategy that will work. It will deliver what we are all wanting to achieve: better economic and cultural development and social cohesion. This is why Labor matters. When Labor is in power this is what it does best.