Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I don't know any of them; maybe you'd be able to help. But, of course, all we hear from them is constant carping, whinging and complaining but never real solutions. You would think, if public housing and affordable housing were issues as big as the Greens like to pontificate they are, they would do something about them. At the first opportunity that came forward, Greens MPs, Greens counsellors blocked public housing. Because, when they talk about public housing and affordable housing, they don't want it in their inner-city electorates—'Oh, no, we can't have those people living in our areas.' They blocked every one. Go and talk to the member for Melbourne and ask him about the blocking by the Yarra council on Fitzroy. If you want affordable housing and if you want social housing, you need to put them where jobs are. You need to put them where services are, and you need to put them where transport is. But every single time there is a proposal to build affordable and public housing in the city where these things are, they say no.

The reality is the elitists that sit over there want to have public housing areas but not in their areas—'Oh, no, let's put those people out in the suburbs,' then complained there are no services. It is absolutely ironic that you sit there and say, 'I'm going to bring a matter of public importance to the parliament. This is the most important thing we need to deal with on a day-to-day basis, but they couldn't even last five minutes on their speech. All they were doing was ranting and raving about nothing. They had no positive plans, no solutions, no support. You would think, if you wanted public housing to be there, you would be supporting homes for people fleeing family violence. But, no, they don't; they blocked the bill. You've got the senators over there in the sleepy Senate. Go in there and tell them to support the bill and get things happening. All we see is a continuation by the Greens to constantly block, obstruct and carry on like pork chops—as we saw last night with that meme by the Greens that went out on the budget. It was the most childish thing I've seen in this place, and, believe me, I've seen a lot of things. That was ridiculous.

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