Public tenants raise their voices against privatisation 

Everyone is three steps from homelessness: unemployment, family break down or a poor decision can all lead to homelessness. Nobody believes it can happen to them, but it can and does. I was very lucky. I was thrown a lifeline. We were all thrown a lifeline … That lifeline is our homes here. They are not simply flats. They are our homes.

I’ll admit to being nervous when I first moved here. Like untold thousands of Australians, I too was a victim of misinformation about public housing estates. The press, the government and the big end of town, indeed people who have never been here, would have it that public estates are riddled with crime, daily violence, drug dealers, drug addicts, alcoholics and constant serious trouble. The people who believe this have never been here.

This misconception and misinformation are endemic and also completely untrue. I have lived in some pretty fancy suburbs, so I feel well qualified to make a comparison and dispel the myths about public estates. Indeed, it is quite the opposite. I feel safer here than anywhere else I’ve lived. When I lived in private housing, I never met my neighbours, never knew their names. Here I know so many people. We all do. We look after each other. We care for each other. The sense of community here is overwhelming.

The Andrews state government wants this land. They want to sell it to private investors. They want to build tall towers and pack in as many private tenants as they can. Right now they are being rather quiet about Ascot Vale because there is an election coming up in November. Don’t be fooled. This electorate is in Labor heartland. But we have a voice. Consider your vote very carefully. We will raise our voices and we will be heard.

The social housing the government keeps talking about is not public housing. I have tried and tried to get certain politicians and political representatives to say the word “public”. So far, I have had no success. So be assured, if this estate is demolished, it will be 90 percent or more private. We will all be moved to who knows where, and we probably won’t be coming back. Our wonderful community will be torn apart. Despite words to the contrary, we’ve been given no real assurance that we will be coming back. We will probably never see each other again.

These are our demands:

1. The Andrews state government should immediately rescind its plans to privatise public housing in Victoria.

2. Public housing stock should be significantly expanded to meet demand.

3. Existing public housing should be properly maintained, and redeveloped only where necessary, and in a way that is least disruptive to the lives of tenants. Any redevelopment of public housing that does occur should happen in close consultation with public housing tenants and local residents, and should not involve any privatisation.

4. The needs of tenants and local residents should come before the interests of profit making.

5. The Moonee Valley city councillor Nicole Marshall has justified the redevelopment by painting the estate as a violent place that locals are “scared to walk through”. Rather than demonise public housing tenants, the Moonee Valley Council should pass a motion opposing the privatisation of public housing and supporting redevelopment only where it is necessary and only when 100 percent public housing will be built in its place.

6. The Victorian Public Tenants Association – an organisation that is supposed to defend the interests of public tenants – has also supported the government’s plans. The VPTA should release a public statement denouncing government plans and demanding the expansion of public housing to service the 37,000-long public housing waiting list.