State grilled for funding racing over homeless

One state’s priorities have been questioned after an inquiry into funding revealed its government has prioritised horse and greyhound racing over a worsening housing crisis.

On Friday, Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas was grilled about the state’s new budget by the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee.

The Inquiry into the 2023-24 budget is held each year to scrutinise the government’s annual spending to promote the accountability and transparency of the public sector.

Amid a deteriorating cost of living crisis, committee member Ellen Sandell questioned why the government was giving four times more funding to the racing industry than it is to homelessness initiatives.

“Housing is a huge crisis that we’re facing at the moment, but the budget allocates only $112 million for new initiatives around housing and homelessness,” Ms Sandell said.

“It allocates four times that much to racing.

“So we’re looking at $112 million for new housing programs, yet $442 million for racing, so is supporting the horse and greyhound racing industry really more important than the people who are living in their cars and on the streets right now?”

The Treasurer said the government had consistently been putting “substantial amounts of funding” into homelessness and housing issues over “some time”.

“This budget invests $275.9 million in addressing homelessness in the state of Victoria. We’re putting $141 million into installing air conditioners into Victoria’s high rise public housing towers,” Mr Pallas said.

“There’s $40.5 million to continue programs that support people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

“The continuing effort that we’ve put in place in this area is really a demonstration of the values and the priorities of this government.”

Ms Sandell also questioned if the budget could introduce a “rent freeze” to allow wage growth to meet the rising cost of living.

“There’s nothing new in this budget; there’s nothing around renting and there’s nothing specifically to assist renters,” she said.

“Will the government commit to a rent freeze so that we can wait for wages growth to catch up with rents?”

“It is a matter that the government takes very seriously,” Mr Pallas said.

“We don’t have enough supply of housing into the market and we have an ever increasing demand, particularly now that we’ve seen our borders open and numbers start to move.

“We’ve said that everything’s on the table and we mean it.”

The Treasurer also addressed job cuts in the public sector, but said losing 3000-4000 staff shouldn’t have a detrimental effect on frontline workers.

“Do you expect, if we’re cutting a lot of back office staff, that frontline workers will be expected to do more back office functions?” Ms Sandell asked.

“I wouldn’t have thought so,” the Treasurer said.

“There’s always scope within those functions to look for better ways of working and efficiencies.

“In the Victorian Public Sector, we anticipate that job numbers will actually grow by 2000 because it’s in the public sector that you have a principal focus on service delivery. Not exclusively, but principally.

“The public service works in a complex and challenging environment, and quite frankly, it’s done an amazing job throughout the pandemic.”