The Victorian Greens say that new revelations showing the Allan Labor Government chose to cut public housing to plug cost blowouts on the Big Housing Build expose a troubling pattern of secrecy around Labor's Big Build and the privatisation of public land and housing.
FOI documents reveal that the Allan Labor Government's Big Housing Build was facing a $1 billion blowout due to construction costs. Labor quietly decided to reduce the number of public homes that would be built overall, instead shifting more into the hands of private community housing companies.
The Victorian Greens say that savings could have instead been made by refurbishing public housing instead of demolishing it - a plan that experts have repeatedly stated would be faster, less disruptive to residents and much cheaper, especially as building costs escalate.
The shift away from public housing is already clear. At the first two tower sites slated for demolition in Flemington and North Melbourne, there will be no public housing delivered - and Labor has refused to confirm whether any of the 44 sites remaining will include public housing at all.
Although the number of social (public and community) homes has grown since 2020, the number of bedrooms actually fell by 423 between June 2020 to June 2024, and the number of households on the Victorian Housing Register continues to grow.
The Victorian Greens say this exposes a government managing a cost blowout by cutting public housing behind closed doors and handing more control to property developers and private housing providers.
As stated by the Victorian Greens housing spokesperson, Gabrielle de Vietri:
"Labor has been caught red-handed covering up a billion-dollar blowout and quietly cutting public housing to make the numbers work.
"We could be saving money and building more public homes if Labor wasn't hell bent on their plan to demolish all of Victoria's public housing.
"Experts have been clear that refurbishment would be cheaper, faster and less disruptive. Instead, Labor is ignoring that advice and pushing ahead with a slow-motion sell-off of public housing in the middle of a housing crisis.
"Labor has been moving more public homes off the public balance sheet and selling off public land to private property developers for years and refusing to be up front about it. This is just more proof of Labor's privatisation by stealth and Victorians being kept in the dark about it."
