HOUSING

Mr MARSHALL (Norwood—Leader of the Opposition) (14:22): Supplementary, Mr Speaker.

The SPEAKER: Yes, supplementary.

Mr MARSHALL: Can the Premier inform the house: have they appointed somebody to the role of the coordinator-general, who that person is, what the status of that job is—whether it is full time or part time—and what resources are going to be allocated by the government to this important role?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Treasurer, Minister for State Development, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for the Arts) (14:23): I thank the honourable member for his question, and I am more than happy to supply that information to the house. Yes, we have appointed somebody to that role. The name of that person is Rod Hook.

Mr Marshall: He's also running a department, and a bridge, and all these projects.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Just as he was running a department when he implemented the most successful rollout of the Building the Education Revolution funding in the nation, acknowledged by all industry players.

Ms Sanderson interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Premier, would you be seated. I call the member for Adelaide to order.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: His roles and functions will be to oversee the speedy delivery of the housing construction program. Those opposite may cast their mind back and recall that an element of the federal government's stimulus package was, in fact, the rollout of some social housing, one of the most spectacular examples of which I think are the UNO apartments, which are on Waymouth Street. They are a fantastic example of the way in which you can cocktail a series of apartments, including a youth accommodation service, an affordable housing component, a public housing component, plus market-based housing, put them all into an apartment block—

The Hon. J.M. Rankine: And a youth shelter.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Yes, that's the youth homelessness arrangement—all of that in the one building, which has been a tremendous success. It has demonstrated a new standard about what can be achieved for apartments of this sort, but, frankly, if it had been left to the usual planning processes I doubt whether we would have achieved the result in the time we achieved it.

Mr Hook, in his role as coordinator-general, approved that development, I am advised by him, and he will play a similar role for the approval of other developments, so that we put these houses on the ground as soon as possible, so that workers are getting work and businesses are thriving. That's what you do if you are prepared to get out there and support an economy, not take your hands off the wheel and just hope that something might turn up.