Submission to the Inquiry into the redevelopment of Melbourne’s public housing towers – Apr 2025
Our submission to the Legal and Social Issues Committee’s Inquiry into the redevelopment of Melbourne’s public housing towers illustrates how the Charter and the EO Act can frame compulsory relocation processes of public housing residents to reduce the negative impacts of such a process.
The Commission’s overarching role is to protect and promote human rights and equal opportunity in Victoria. We fulfil this role in many ways, including by overseeing the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic) (the Charter) and the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (Vic) (the EO Act). As part of our range of functions, we intervene in cases raising human rights and equal opportunity issues, we provide education and training, and we produce guidelines to assist organisations in upholding their duties under the EO Act.
These laws are directly relevant to the rights of public housing residents. The importance of these laws is amplified in the context of compulsory relocation processes. As with all people in Victoria, public housing residents hold rights that are protected under the Charter. When a public authority, like a government department or entity, makes a decision that affects public housing residents, that decision must involve proper consideration of relevant Charter rights and must be compatible with relevant Charter rights.
Public housing residents also hold the same right to be protected from discrimination as others in Victoria under the Charter and EO Act. This includes being protected from discrimination while receiving a service and in the provision of accommodation – both areas of public life that may be relevant to compulsory relocation processes.
The Commission has a history of advocating for and supporting public housing residents to uphold their rights. Back in 2012, the Commission made a submission to the Pathways to a Fair and Sustainable Social Housing System public consultation discussion paper, highlighting how and why policy frameworks for public housing must comply with the EO Act and the Charter. More recently, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Commission produced factsheets in several different languages on the rights of residents who were suddenly and unexpectedly locked down in three public housing towers.
The intersection between disadvantage, discrimination and limitations on human rights is well known. Public housing residents, whose security of home is tied to the decisions of government, sit within this intersection. It is therefore even more vital that active steps are taken to preserve and promote their rights.