Regional Housing

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (14:50): My question is for the Minister for Housing and Urban Development. How is the government addressing the housing crisis faced by regional communities and, importantly, in my electorate of MacKillop?

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION (Taylor—Minister for Trade and Investment, Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Planning) (14:50): Thank you to the member for MacKillop, who has been a really strong advocate right from the moment I became Minister for Housing. I think the first time I visited Bordertown with him in the district of Tatiara was in June last year, when we had the first country cabinet. Of course, we returned there on Friday to make a very important announcement.

Right the way along, the member for MacKillop has been a very strong advocate whether he was on the opposition front bench or now on the crossbench, a very strong advocate for people in regional South Australia. We know the regions face a really tough set of situations: high building costs, unusual financing arrangements thrust upon them by the banks—

An honourable member: A Labor government.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: The opposition makes an interjection. You did nothing for four years.

The SPEAKER: Minister, you will not respond to interjections.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: That is why, when I became Minister for Housing, we found a zero rental vacancy rate in the country and no policy architecture to deal with it—no policy architecture to deal with it at all. You spent four years ignoring your own heartland—four years—and that is why the member for MacKillop is sitting over there, because he tried when you were in government to get your attention in a policy sense and no-one cared.

That is why, when we went to Bordertown, we listened to the local council. We listened to the CE, Anne Champness. We talked to them about partnership. What the council have done is buy a big parcel of land in Ramsay Terrace in Bordertown of 5.8 hectares, up to 60 homes—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: —and we are making a $2.7 million investment to get that first stage of 15 homes going. We are going to build five homes—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Florey!

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: —for doctors, nurses, police, government workers who we know in the regions we need to accommodate. We are doing that in a number of regions: the Copper Coast, the South-East, the Riverland. We are doing it in the Riverland. I have not heard any complaints from you about that—not one complaint.

So let's just get this straight: what we are doing in places like Bordertown is partnering with the council, listening to them and investing early to get their project up off the ground, the first 15 homes, partnering with local businesses so that they might get the next 10, and building in bulk to gain efficiencies. We have put in place the Office for Regional Housing. We have identified up to 35 homes for government employees. They are sensible investments in partnership with local government.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: I would have thought the member, as a former local mayor, would have celebrated this. I thought you would be supportive of it. I thought you would be mirroring the policy, but instead all we get from those opposite is no and complaints and, most importantly, no confirmation that they will match our strategy, no confirmation that they will back in the member for MacKillop in his important advocacy for regional housing not just for his own electorate but for the whole Limestone Coast, the whole of the South-East, the whole of regional South Australia.

It is really important. I would have thought those opposite would take a much more agreeable, a much more bipartisan, approach to this, but we now know from their interjections and their complaints that, from the word go, they intend to ignore the heartland of South Australia again if they were ever to return to the Treasury benches.