Housing Supply

Mr BROWN (Florey) (14:31): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier inform the house of any steps the government is undertaking to address housing supply?

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:31): I thank the member for Florey for his question. I recall, prior to either of us entering into parliament, having a rather lengthy discussion some time ago with the member for Florey about how important housing supply is to intergenerational equity within society writ large. This has been a source of passion for him for some time.

I am very pleased to advise the house that only earlier today I was with the Minister for Housing at a new development in Aldinga, in your electorate, Mr Speaker. This is a really exciting new development that will see 800 homes being built in Aldinga, immediately adjacent to the rail corridor that this government saved and immediately adjacent to the brand-new super school that you advocated for over some period of time, Mr Speaker. It will see 800 new homes being built over the course of the next few years, 25 per cent of which will be affordable housing.

The Hon. V.A. Tarzia: When?

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: I will get to that. Twenty-five per cent of those 800 homes means that 200 homes will be built that will be available to the market for $490,000 or less, which is fundamentally important to ensure that home ownership isn't something that is completely beyond the reach of working people within our state.

The construction of those homes will start next year, and it is all but one component of the Housing Roadmap that we announced a number of weeks ago. The Housing Roadmap is a concerted, across-government policy effort to ensure that we are pulling every lever at our disposal to get more homes built in this state—not houses, but homes. That has been a substantial and comprehensive exercise, one that we know was lacking under the former government, as has been acknowledged by the former Leader of the Opposition, who made it clear on the record, to his credit, acknowledging that this was something that didn't enjoy the effort that was required by the former government.

Now, what are we doing? There is the land release. There are rezonings that have taken place following that land release, some of the most comprehensive number of rezonings in this state's history. Then, of course, we have seen tax reform. We haven't cut taxes around housing supply—an issue that matters to every young person in this state—but we have abolished them.

If you are a first-home buyer in this state who builds their own home, you will not pay a single dollar of stamp duty. This is now the envy of other jurisdictions around the country, which is probably why the Housing Industry Association and the BCA, amongst other organisations, say that if you are going to be a young person trying to buy a new home you had best live in South Australia because it has the best, most equitable tax regime in the country for young people wanting to buy new homes.

On top of that, we are now investing in the critical infrastructure that has been underinvested in for too long that is mission critical to getting a house coming out of the ground. Of course, none is more important than water supply. How many dollars were spent over the course of the four years of the Marshall Liberal government on housing infrastructure? I will tell you: $172 million is the number that I have been advised of. How much money is this government spending over the same length of period? $1.5 billion is the amount that we are spending on critical water infrastructure.

It is fair to say that this won't be seen, it won't be touched, it's not like a road that you can drive on, but it does matter to making sure that we have more houses built in this state at a pace we haven't seen in the past so that young people have the opportunity of home ownership to live in their state that we all want to call home.