Housing Affordability

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (14:57): My question is to the Minister for Housing. Is the government aware of any funds from the federal government allocated towards affordable housing and other housing needs? With your leave, Mr Speaker, and the leave of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr McBRIDE: It was well known through the Marshall years, when we were seeing the beginning of this housing issue bubble along and get worse and worse, that the federal government and the housing minister had $700 million at their disposal and didn't do anything with that $700 million, contributing to why we have ended up where we are today. Can the minister elaborate?

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION (Taylor—Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Housing Infrastructure, Minister for Planning) (14:58): I will have to get the exact figures for the member but, as he is aware, there was a range of funds set aside by the Morrison government—I think the quantum was slightly smaller than that—for infrastructure for housing. One of the great pities is that the Morrison government, I think, did allocate that money in good faith and they wanted to find projects that they could put infrastructure in, but, sadly, those funds were not allocated. It seems incredible that we could have a national housing crisis and we could have this issue that we are all feeling in our own electorates, and that money could go unspent.

I notice that with the HAFF and with other funds, the Senate has delayed them. It has been the Liberals and the Greens, which is a strange combination, but we have seen that in other areas in recent times, too, a strange combination of political foes, that join together to oppose progress. If you like, this government has a very strong disposition towards the supply of land and infrastructure to unlock that land because, as the member knows, there is no point in just rezoning land. That is a step but it is one of several to deliver homes. We all know that that is complex and we all know that that takes time. It has always taken time. It took time to found Elizabeth, it took time to build Marion and other places post war.

We are absolutely committed to accessing the funds set aside, and there are various different funds, and I have talked to both Minister Collins and Minister King at the federal level about what South Australia might do to get its fair share of those federal funds. Of course, I have an open door to the honourable member and, indeed, any of the other members if they want to talk about regional housing.

It is pressing in the regions. In many places, the rental vacancy rate is really less than zero. I think in sections of the honourable member's electorate, in Bordertown, there was one vacancy that was listed—one in the entire town. There is unrelenting demand, mainly driven by the workforce requirements of the meatworks and many of the other really dynamic employers there as well in the industrial park just outside Bordertown.

We are starting behind the eight ball because money that had been allocated was not spent. There was land that could have been rezoned in the last period of the Marshall government. Concordia could have been rezoned, could have begun, we could have been further along the pathway to getting that land to market. That work has to be done now. We know that not a day goes by when the Premier doesn't press me about the urgency to provide supply into the market. What we have done is unblock the pipeline and primed it with 90 code amendments, over 4,000 hectares of land under consideration, and we will keep doing that to bring both rents and prices—and to moderate housing prices so that people might get their foot into the market.