Parliamentary Committees

Public Works Committee: Neighbourhood Renewal Program

Mr CREGAN (Kavel) (11:22): I move:

That the 124^th report of the committee for the Fifty-Fourth Parliament, entitled Neighbourhood Renewal Program, be noted.

Mr Speaker, as you are aware, the Public Works Committee received the South Australian Housing Authority's neighbourhood renewal program submission on 2 September 2020. There followed a number of further requests to provide additional and updated information. That information was received in accordance with Premier and Cabinet Circular 015 and the Public Works Committee user guide. Consequently, a revised submission was requested and also provided.

That revised submission was provided on 22 September 2020 and considered by the committee at its hearing on 24 September. A number of outstanding issues were raised by the committee and a number of questions were taken on notice. The committee resolved not to recommend the project on that occasion but did receive additional information and subsequently took in that information in the course of its deliberations.

The neighbourhood renewal program is a five-year public sector initiative that will deliver new social dwellings, a mixture of affordable land and dwellings and market land sales in the suburbs of Felixstow, Blair Athol, Seaton and Woodville Gardens, targeting low density and ageing South Australian Housing Trust properties. The neighbourhood renewal program involves a combined total land area of 14.7 hectares across the four abovementioned suburbs, delivering a target of 142 new social dwellings, 252 allotments for affordable dwellings available to low to moderate income earners, and 173 allotments for market-priced house and land developments.

The neighbourhood renewal program is estimated to require expenditure of $57.6 million over the life of the program, which will be funded utilising the South Australian Housing Authority's cash holdings, and has no impact on the general government sector funds. The committee examined written and oral evidence in relation to the project and received assurances that the appropriate consultation in relation to the project had been undertaken.

The committee is satisfied that the proposal has been subject to the appropriate agency consultation and meets the criteria for the examination of projects, as described in the Parliamentary Committees Act. Based on the evidence considered, and pursuant to section 12C of the Parliamentary Committees Act, the Public Works Committee reports to parliament that it recommends the proposed scope of public works.

Ms COOK (Hurtle Vale) (11:25): I would like to contribute to the neighbourhood renewal program report that has been tabled and thank the Public Works Committee for their due diligence in terms of their scrutiny of these very important projects that form part of the core fabric of the delivery of services to people in our community who require a little more assistance to achieve actualisation in terms of shelter, housing and dignity. I acknowledge that the member for Kavel has done an excellent job chairing the committee, and the rest of the Public Works Committee have also done a very good job in terms of questioning.

I want to make it really clear that this report is version 3. I have not been in here as long as some, but I have read quite a lot of Public Works Committee reports, and I have to say I do not recall having a series of project submissions and delivery on scale from a department as well equipped as the Housing Authority is and then seeing those submissions knocked back with requests for further information not once, not twice—but we have seen three submissions for this particular project.

Version 1 went in on 2 September: 'Please explain. More information.' Version 2 came to the committee on 22 September: 'Please explain. More information.' It was not extensive enough to be able to tick off. Version 3 came on 4 November, after having had a number of questions taken on notice, and a number of other questions were asked at the time by the committee.

This is a committee chaired by the government, and I give credit where credit is due. They have not just waved this through. They have worked together as a committee to scrutinise it and they have made sure that more information has come back. I will have more to say about that in a minute. We are three years into this government. To this point, very little has been done in terms of social housing projects, if anything at all. The transfer of stock to community housing providers has been slowed, the expenditure of budgets from this department has been way too slow, and we are seeing these projects that have been bowled up—which actually reduce the number of social houses; they do not increase the number: they reduce it—taking five years to deliver. It is far too slow.

These are outcomes in the ether. This is in a climate where we want stimulus and we want activity. For a capital expenditure of $57.6 million of public money, taxpayer money, we get 142 social houses in total across a number of sites, which is a reduction of 129. There are 271 public housing properties or thereabouts that are going to be demolished and replaced with 142 social houses—142 public houses for public housing tenants.

There are 252 houses being built and sold at an affordable price, with 173 to open market. I have spoken about this before and I will talk more about this later. The affordable ones will presumably target people on lower to middle incomes—couples, singles, families—then we have market, which could be any price, clearly to recoup the cost of building. Out of 277 properties (567 at the end) there will be a reduction to 148 of public housing/social housing properties.

I have asked questions about this department's capacity to deliver projects, given that I understand an increased number of good quality, experienced project management, executive-level staff have left, vanished or whatever you want to say, but they have gone. I have also asked questions about the department now having to pay for project management and quality advisers to oversee projects—in the past, that would ordinarily have been done by the department—evidenced by the fact that this has been presented three times for the tick-off by the Public Works Committee.

They are not schoolteachers. The Public Works Committee should not be looking through and saying, 'Woops, a little error here. Sorry, take that back.' Yes, they should be scrutinising, but the information should be there. This is not a school spelling test: this is a high-level project submission. The minister has seen this, and this is not new information. These things go to cabinet and then they come in and go to the Public Works Committee. How many eyes has this been past and where have the staff gone?

We know that living in unaffordable housing can have crippling economic and social effects, so we support anything that is going to improve those outcomes. We do not dispute the need for more affordable housing in the market, but it is how they are going about it. We have an ever-dwindling supply of public social housing. We have a government and a minister out there huffing and puffing saying, 'We will stop the sell-off. We will make sure we maintain the levels.' I am sorry, but you are not, and we have seen the evidence in the questions that have been answered.

While they go some way to providing some affordable housing—which, again, there are rules around and I will talk about that later—this further reduction in public housing/social housing over the next three years, which totals 632 properties, is not insignificant. We are losing 632 in total while they are selling off to build public housing, affordable housing and market housing on it—mixed purpose, and again no dispute—but no other houses are being built elsewhere to make up for this. In fact, we asked how many houses are being built this year and it is 192 or thereabouts; is that right?

Dr Close: Yes.

Ms COOK: Yes, something like that. If the Marshall Liberal government truly wants to make affordable housing available, it should just simply buy land, build houses and sell them. If it wants to be a property developer, do it like that. Do not use the public land; use the public land for public housing. Let's use it for what it is there for. We are cannibalising the carcass of public housing by reducing stock numbers.

Again, it seems this project is another screen for flogging off public housing. I do not think it is what the public expects, it is not what I expect and it is not what we want to see happen. We want to see the levels at least maintained. How can the government talk about ending homelessness if they are not increasing the available supply for people to go into and exit from homelessness?

We have issues here in terms of the pricepoints offered. I will be interested to see whether they target specific people because, within the housing strategy the Marshall government has delivered, they have not talked about these numbers. They have not talked about who they are targeting and how they are going to do that.

This project plan, in particular, does not do anything to solve this housing crisis. It speaks very clearly to a deficit in a department led by the minister, who is potentially trusting the executive that everything is peachy. Well, to need the schoolteacher to tick off on your submission three times speaks buckets about the culture and the lack of skills that have been left behind in a department that has lost some excellent operators. That is disappointing.

Mr CREGAN (Kavel) (11:35): I note the comments of the member for Hurtle Vale in her contribution to the debate on this report. I also emphasise the commitment of the minister in the other place to ensuring that there is a real focus on turning around the neglect of public housing under the former government and ensuring there is sufficient funding for social housing as well as for maintenance for social housing, which fell behind under the former government .

The former government sold off $1.5 billion worth of social housing; that is approximately 7,500 homes. By way of important examples, in the 2011-12 financial year 642 houses were sold off and in the 2012-13 year 541 houses were sold off. This is a government that is making a very substantial investment in social housing, and this is a minister who is absolutely committed to social housing and improving outcomes for tenants in social housing—so much so that $550 million has been invested in the Our Housing Future project.

We have absolute confidence in the minister and we are delighted with their service. We are particularly delighted with their commitment to improving a sector that has been long neglected by the former government.

Motion carried.