Regional Victoria is in the midst of a housing crisis, with long waiting lists for rentals and house prices rising.
Ms O’Keeffe served four stints as City of Greater Shepparton Shepparton Mayor and said government could do more to help councils unlock land as regional communities grew and the housing crunch continued.
Support agencies such as BeyondHousing have said the current pace of housing can’t keep up with demand, let alone alleviate the housing crisis, which is pushing people into couch-surfing and sleeping rough.
“Part of the National Party’s policy is making sure local government is supported to do that,” Ms O’Keeffe said.
“We need to be unlocking more land because as I’ve said, we're seeing such a growth in regional Victoria, we can't wait five to seven years to unlock land.
“We need to be looking at options and need to make sure ministers understand our regions.”
Liberal candidate for Shepparton Cheryl Hammer, who has worked with agencies supporting people at risk of homelessness, said there was no “overnight solution” for the housing crisis, but said government should do more.
“For me with housing, it's rooves, rooves, rooves and rooves. It's not the Band-Aids. We need all levels of housing — the crisis and transitional, and social housing,” she said.
“For me, council’s part is to remove the bureaucracy and get some land opened up. Work with investors, incentivise bringing investors to the region when they want to build these beautiful big, sprawling, housing estates and have a percentage of them be one- or two-bedroom units.
“We need land and we need the investment, and state government is going to have to play a pretty big role in that.”
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