Labor is letting private developers decide what is 'affordable'. This is what 10,000 public housing residents are about to be plunged into if we don't stop Labor's plan to demolish and privatise all 44 of the public housing towers in Victoria. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

The rally yesterday and the rampage at Camp Sovereignty is a wake up call for us all. I can’t imagine how distressing this time is for First People and people of colour. Thank you to those who turned up to let neo-nazis know their fascist ideology is not welcome here.

This morning Labor refused the opportunity to make the right to housing law in Victoria. But we’re not giving up. Our bill is delayed, but not dead! Let’s keep fighting to change the way we think about housing - to treat it as a human right.

BREAKING: Land Forces weapons expo is officially out of Victoria. Protest works. Thank you to the thousands that organised, turned up and raised your voice to say no to war profiteering in our state.

Labor's housing plan isn't working. They have a bad habit of announcing big numbers with no vision of how to actually get more genuinely affordable housing built. www.theage.com.au/politics/vic...

Former Supreme Court Judge, Kevin Bell gets it. Now let's see if Labor MPs will vote with their values when we bring our bill to Parliament this week. Tune into the debate this Wednesday. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The final witness in the Inquiry into Labor's plan to demolish and privatise all of Melbourne's 44 public housing towers is Harriet Shing, Labor Minister for Housing. Tune in live now - www.parliament.vic.gov.au/watch

The Department of Families, Fairness & Housing, & Homes Victoria are speaking to the Inquiry now. So far, we've heard what we already knew - the Gov refuses to release majority of the documents on their demolition and privatisation plan. If these docs justify the Gov's plan, why not release them?

Jackson Payne from Stop the demolition, a grassroots, workers-led coalition, is now speaking to the inquiry.  When asked if community housing providers are able to cherry pick tenants, they replied “I am currently viewing applications [for community housing] on higher income as it’s a requirement”

First, we’re hearing from Gerry Noonan, a retired engineer involved in the construction of the concrete towers, & Richard Cameron, a retired architect, involved in the construction of the Carlton Red Bricks. Richard Cameron started by calling for an immediate pause to demolition & any further works

Today is the final day of hearings for the Parliamentary inquiry into Labor’s plan to demolish and privatise Melbourne’s 44 public housing towers. Today we’re speaking to the political and financial interests behind the plan, including Housing Minister Harriet Shing, and senior reps from the DFFH.

An incredible opening statement from Arundhathi Lekshmi, researcher and advocate from the Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health. She spoke about the profound effects of cutting migrant women off from their communities and supports during forced relocations.

We're now hearing from The Retrofit Labs. They told the inquiry that studies show retrofitting produces “significantly better outcomes.“ They also spoke about the benefits of the towers' concrete panel construction (as opposed to a steel structure) for the retrofitting process.

Onto the next set of witnesses, we’re hearing from Housing@RMIT who have spoken about the issues with the ground lease model. "I can’t show any examples of when the ground lease model has been proven to be effective.” David Kelly said.

We’re now hearing from the Law Institute of Victoria. The Hon Kevin Bell, retired Judge and Professor of international human rights law at Monash University, told the inquiry he will be making a complaint to the UN about the breach of human rights from Labor’s demolition plan.

Day 4 of the the Public Housing Inquiry hearings have started. First, we’re hearing from OFFICE, a not-for-profit Melbourne-based design and research firm. They've created the ‘Retain Repair, and Reinvest’ report (RRR), which is a feasibility study on the refurbishment of the PH towers.

Kai, a public housing resident, closed his statement simply: “I signed the documents because moving out was compulsory. I had no choice.” Kai wasn’t given an interpreter. He was made to sign with no real understanding - “my English is not very good,”. This is what forced relocation looks like.

Grace, a community housing resident told the inquiry: “Moving into a Homes Victoria build has been a living nightmare.” Water-damaged walls, no privacy, fire stairs dripping with moisture - “like replacing a hardwood table with a cardboard one.”

"It’s pretty hard to convince me that 'managed decline' is not happening" was public housing resident David's opening statement.

“The Victorian Labor Party and its real estate agents have shown themselves to be morally bankrupt’ - Michael Walpole - a public housing resident, told the inquiry in his opening statement 🔥🔥🔥

We’re back from a break and hearing from Sahra Aden, a public housing resident. She was told when she moved into her current home, in one of the towers Labor plans to demolish, that she could live there as long as she wants. “I feel I have been lied to; I have been cheated” she told the panel.

We’re now moving onto hearing from residents directly, which to me is the most important part of this inquiry process. These are people who have been or are being forcibly relocated from their homes, and whose voices and experiences should be informing any works to the towers.

Nicky Chun from the Australian Vietnamese Women’s Association has just given their opening statement to the inquiry. She said that despite Homes Vic saying they were working with residents during the relocation process, residents were told “Here are two options, take one or miss out.”

We are now hearing from Fitzroy Legal Service, who raised concerns on forced relocation & how it's dismantling long-standing community networks & supports. They noted that Vic has the lowest rate of public housing in Aus and the Gov. has not committed to rebuilding public housing on these sites.

The final hearing in the Inquiry into Labor’s plan to demolish all 44 public housing towers is kicking off. We’re hearing from Yarra Council, Fitzroy Legal Service, & the Australian Vietnamese Women’s association. This arvo we’ll be hearing directly from residents so tune in or follow for updates.

They were trying to collect water. There was no “missed target”. This was a place that children, trying to survive, go for water in a refugee camp. And Israel just killed six of them.

“Why aren’t they building public housing?” was the final comment from an unnamed resident at today's hearing for the inquiry into Labor’s plan to demolish all 44 public housing towers in Melbourne. That’s a wrap on day 2 of hearings. Power to all the residents who are making their voices heard.

This afternoon we’ve heard from residents who live in some of the towers that have been slated for demolition. Katherine, who is currently being evicted from her home, says she’s worried about being able to afford community housing, which has higher rents, on her disability support pension.

We just heard from Lloyd and Jess from Southside Justice who are supporting residents who are being evicted to make way for the demolition. “Public land is a public asset and should be used for public housing” Lloyd said in their opening statement.

“Well it depends if you’re the person who’s homeless at the moment” was George Hatvani from Launch housing’s response to Labor MP Ryan Bachelor when asked if it’s feasible to have a demolition and rebuild as part of a long term plan to increase supply.

Ruth from the Southern Homelessness Services Network told the inquiry they are concerned about the shift from public housing to community and affordable housing:

Resident Maurya speaks out in front of the Victoria Government’s inquiry into Labor’s demolition of public housing towers ✊🔥

We’re now moving onto the next witnesses, who are representing the Southern Homelessness Services Network, Launch Housing and Stonnington Zero.

The city of Port Phillip Council stated that redevelopment should be assessed on a case-to-case basis. They referenced the Barak Beakin estate, where residents resisted privatisation after being evicted by Homes Victoria in 2023 under similar circumstances to Labor’s current demolition plans.

Day 2 of Victoria’s inquiry into Labor’s demolition of 44 public housing towers has just started. Today we’re in South Yarra hearing from local councils, homelessness and health services, and residents. Follow this 🧵 for updates throughout the day.

Today is the first day of hearings for the Parliamentary Inquiry into the demolition of Victoria's public housing towers. You can tune in live here www.parliament.vic.gov.au/watch?page=1...

Today Yoorook Justice Commission Chair, Travis Lovett will complete his 500km Walk for Truth to signify the end of the Yoorook truth-telling commission.

Today the community and residents stopped demolition works at North Melbourne 100 people turned up to prevent demolition from happening for the second day in a row.

Earlier this morning, we stopped demolition work from starting at the public housing towers in North Melbourne. People are still living in the building.

Our systems punish First Nations people for surviving in a world that is designed for them to suffer.

Yesterday, Nasser was interviewed on ABC News, speaking on Palestine. Today, the interview has been removed from ABC’s news site as well as iview. Shame on the ABC for silencing Palestinian voices during a genocide. www.crikey.com.au/2025/05/27/n...

The Victorian Labor Government has quietly cut $2.4 billion from our public schools by delaying their funding commitments under Gonski by three years.

Respect to students and staff at Monash for pushing the uni to reverse their sudden decision to cancel the Flat Earth exhibition with works by Khaled Sabsabi. Political censorship has no place in the arts and in our universities, and when we come together we can hold our institutions to account.

6000: the number of homes the Victorian Government should be building every year to meet existing demand. 2379: the number of public & community homes built in 2023/24 in Victoria. 1626: the number of public & community homes "disposed of" (demolished or sold off) that same year in Victoria.

The people of the inner north have spoken, bye bye (not a captain) cook! www.theage.com.au/national/vic...

Netanyahu has just confirmed in a gut wrenching speech that he will ‘occupy the entire Gaza strip and remain there’. This morning, Israel bombed Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria in less than an hour.

There are only 352 rentals across this entire country right now that are considered affordable for full-time minimum wage workers. Zero for people on Youth Allowance and just three for people on JobSeeker. www.sbs.com.au/news/article...

The North Richmond Medically Supervised Injecting Room saves lives and provides pathways for recovery. Yesterday’s far-right rally in the streets of Richmond did nothing but stoke division in our community.

Well done to the Victorian Labor government. Hope you are feeling very good about yourselves making a public housing resident pay the legal costs of the class action against you for trying to demolish and privatise their home. Sickening.

Melbourne rents have hit record highs forcing renters to make desperate decisions just for somewhere to live. Only capping rent increases will stop out-of-control rent increases. But Labor would prefer to keep renters suffering than upset their property investor mates.