Community members opposed to the Victorian Labor Government’s plan to demolish 44 public housing towers and privatise the land will gather for a rally later today.
The rally – which will take place outside the State Library at 1:00pm – will see housing advocates, public housing residents, and broader community members call on Labor to axe its privatisation plan and keep the public land in public hands.
In September, Labor unveiled its housing statement, which included plans to demolish and privatise 44 public housing towers across the state.
The plan would see the estates razed, with the majority of each site being handed to private developers for expensive private homes and social homes to replace public homes.
Labor has yet to commit to any of these homes being public.
Leader of the Victorian Greens, Samantha Ratnam, said the plan could be the end of public housing in Victoria.
She added that in the midst of a housing crisis and with 125,000 people on the state’s housing waitlist, it was disgraceful that Labor wanted to knock down almost all of Melbourne’s public housing and displace over 10,000 residents.
Today’s rally forms part of a National Day of Action, which will see similar rallies staged across the country calling on governments to take greater action to address the worsening housing crisis.
As stated by Leader of the Victorian Greens, Samantha Ratnam MLC:
“We are in a housing crisis.
“Yet instead of building the public housing our state desperately needs, Labor wants to demolish these towers, displace thousands of people and sell-off the majority of the land to private developers.
“The only people who don’t think this is a completely cooked idea are Labor and their developer mates.
“Public land should remain in public hands.
“The Greens will keep fighting to stop this plan and pressure the government to commit to a big build of public homes.”
