Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week the Victorian Liberal government wrote to all public housing tenants, including all of the people in Housing Commission accommodation in my electorate in East St Kilda and South Melbourne, advising them that from August their rents will increase to take into account the supplement provided by the federal Labor government as part of the clean energy package. This is the only state to do so. The increase was provided by this government to people on low incomes in order to supplement their rent and to help them buy food that might have increased as a result of some increase in energy prices due to the carbon tax. It is an outrage for the Victorian Liberal government in order to satisfy its complete lack of investment in public housing—a subject I will return to at a later date—to take from people who are the poorest in the community that which was provided for a completely other purpose.