HomeBuilder Program

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (14:48): My question is again to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer offer any assistance or reassurance to Rosanna? With your leave, sir, and that of the house I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr COWDREY: Rosanna saved, while renting, for a deposit for an apartment after being persuaded by marketing to use the HomeBuilder grant to support her purchase. In November 2021 she received an email from RevenueSA warning her to submit the title to her property by 30 April 2023, even though construction on her apartment will not be completed in that time. Without an extension to the HomeBuilder deadline, Rosanna is worried that she will have to take $25,000 out of her retirement savings.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer) (14:49): Again, I sympathise with Rosanna and others in circumstances like hers. As for what can be done for Rosanna and her particular circumstances, again, I make the same offer to her and to the member for Colton to make Revenue SA officers available to see the particulars of her circumstances and whether anything can be done within the existing precepts of the scheme.

Outside of the HomeBuilder grant, yes, of course, we would be very happy to look at ways that we can help Rosanna, and indeed other South Australians who are seeking to get into housing, whether it is in terms of the housing solution itself or increasingly what we are very pleased to be providing to South Australians is improved housing finance options.

Further to the Leader of the Opposition's question at the beginning of question time with respect to inflation, there are many people who are experiencing much higher mortgage rates at the moment and correspondingly much higher repayments on their mortgages.

People are seeking where they can to refinance, or for those people who are in situations similar to those that the member for Colton has just articulated—for example, people who are renting and who have saved and saved in an effort to try to get a deposit together so that they can get a loan to get into housing in one form or another—we have made it clear that there is a viable in many respects, and in many cases a much more affordable way for people to get into housing finance, and that is through HomeStart.

For those people who are unable to get a deposit together of the order of 20 per cent, or even 15 per cent or 10 per cent, which is required by the banks (and once you get under 20 per cent, of course, with the intendant Lenders Mortgage Insurance), an alternative is for them to check with HomeStart to see whether one of their loans is available, because HomeStart offers loans to South Australians from as low as 2 per cent deposit with no Lenders Mortgage Insurance.

That may not fit the bill for the people that the member for Colton raises, but in terms of the full tranche of additional housing options to get thousands of South Australians into housing and to have more affordable housing finance are some of the ways that we are trying to help South Australians.