Victorians living in public housing towers are feeling blindsided by the government's decision to knock down their homes. As part of sweeping housing reforms all public housing towers in Melbourne will be demolished and rebuilt by 2051. Some have compared the government's approach to being locked down at the height of the pandemic.
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00:00 Public housing resident Mohamed has spent the day taking calls from worried neighbours.
00:06 It's just been a lot of fear and anxiousness and confusion and uncertainty about what exactly the process is.
00:12 No notice, no nothing. Everybody's shocked.
00:16 By 2031 their homes in North Melbourne and Flemington will be knocked down.
00:21 They're the first to go under the government's plan to demolish all 44 of Melbourne's public housing towers.
00:27 We don't know where we're going to go. That's very, very scary.
00:31 Over the next 30 years all towers will be knocked down and redeveloped to triple the number of people living there,
00:37 though social housing will only see a 10% boost.
00:40 The government says it's door knocked more than 4,000 homes so far to notify residents.
00:45 Randomly a door knock on the door saying, "Hey, your entire life, your entire supports are all going."
00:51 To where? You don't know. To answers? You don't know. Here's a QR code.
00:56 Exactly the same thing as they've done for the COVID-19 lockdown.
01:00 We'll have opportunities to house those people and we will.
01:03 And we'll house them as close to schools and hospitals and other support services, family, as we possibly can.
01:10 Today the Premier was selling the government's new planning reforms,
01:13 including taking away some powers from councils to speed up the application process.
01:18 Many of these councils have had a long time, they've had their chance.
01:22 They have not made the sort of decisions they should be making.
01:25 The government says the worst offenders for delayed permit applications are Darabin, Cardinia and Yarra councils.
01:31 Councillors represent their local communities, putting sunlight, scrutiny, transparency and accountability over those decisions.
01:39 Yes, there is scope to reform the system, but Daniel Andrews is the worst offender when it comes to sitting on planning applications.
01:46 The government says a task force for resolving council planning delays will be established by November.
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