WE can do better than this, Sunraysia.
Getting airconditioning into our public housing should be the type of issue we all rally behind.
Having the same rules as Melbourne, where the mean January maximum temperature is 6.5 degrees cooler, makes no sense.
And the consequences — which include children struggling to get any sleep the night before school — should make us all angry.
Instead, after Member for Mildura Ali Cupper brought what she described as “dereliction of the state’s duty” to State Parliament, many chose to look at the issue through a selfish lens.
One commentator on the Sunraysia Daily Facebook page was “sick of all the handouts”.
“Our power system is struggling now,” one bemoaned.
Public housing tenants should “get a job”, offered someone else, ignoring that living in public housing does not mean someone is unemployed.
Instead of thinking about ourselves, maybe a bit of compassion would be right and proper.
Remember, children live in public housing.
“Get a job” isn’t particularly helpful advice for someone not of working age.
People who battle serious health issues live in public housing.
For them, not great advice.
A research project by Mallee Family Care and the University of Sydney found 77 per cent of Mildura’s summer nights were above the healthy sleeping temperature
It revealed some people were sleeping on mattresses outside or by the river at night just to get relief.
Librarians reported people sleeping in the airconditioned library to cope.
A Mildura resident who grew up in public housing with sick parents told Sunraysia Daily last year that there was “a lot of sleeping on tiles”.
Her family’s pleas for adequate cooling to be installed weren’t met for 10 years — after both her parents had died.
“I wish they were comfortable in their last years,” she said.
These are not stories we should be reading in a fair-minded society.
We’d do well as a community to unite around this cause and make it clear to Daniel Andrews and the Victorian Government that things must change.
