Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Saturday, climate change minister Chris Bowen joined me on a visit to an apartment building in Sunshine, in my electorate. But it wasn't just any old building. Newly built, it is in a prime location, close to shopping and just a five-minute walk from the transport hub of Sunshine Station. It also has a bank of solar panels, precisely the type of development that a new initiative of the Albanese government and Allan Victorian government is encouraging. This is included in a $108 million cleaner, cheaper energy package for Victorians. It is $16 million for owners corporations to install panels on apartment buildings. I must say, when the minister and I looked across the vista of Sunshine, on almost every building, including the entire Sunshine Marketplace shopping centre, almost every rooftop was covered entirely in solar panels. It was quite a remarkable view. Last but not least, some key workers, such as teachers, nurses and healthcare and support and retail workers, now call this area home thanks to Uniting Housing, which bought 17 apartments in the building for affordable housing. The residents, who are mostly in their 20s and 30s and from culturally diverse backgrounds, pay just 75 per cent of market rent.

Affordable housing is essential infrastructure. It supports wellbeing and strengthens personal and community connections. It's why the Albanese government is making the biggest investment in social and affordable housing in more than a decade through its $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund.

Thank you to Uniting for all the other support that it provides in my community and right across Victoria, from employment, family and disability services through to emergency relief, crisis support, training, education and more.

Another organisation doing great work in Melbourne is Inner West Community Enterprises, the business behind Community Bank Seddon, an organisation that was recently accredited as a social enterprise. I was at the celebration of that in Melbourne's west, which was attended by many people from my electorate and beyond. This branch of Bendigo Bank is led by the indefatigable Andy Moutray-Read.

Andy came to Australia from England in 1989 to follow his heart. He ended up in Yarraville in 2000 and has never left the west. If you go to any event in the inner west—a festival, a fundraiser, a fair or a launch—the chances are that Andy will be there helping out. For the past eight years he has been the CEO of the IWCE, which supports numerous programs, clubs, schools and associations, financially and in kind. For example, there is the inner west Community Bike Hub, a collaboration with Rotary Club of Footscray, which provides bike services and a repairs workshop as well as safe riding and bike maintenance programs. The bike hub also has a partnership with Footscray High School, where bikes destined for landfill are fixed by year 9 students under the watchful eye of teacher and qualified mechanic Dominik Zylka . The repaired bikes are then donated to people in need. This is just one of the many projects Andy and Bendigo Bank support.