Question Time

Housing Construction

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:04): My question is to the Premier. How many homes have been built on the land releases announced by the government in February 2023? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: On 12 February 2023, the government announced land releases in Hackham, Dry Creek, Concordia and Sellicks Beach.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION (Taylor—Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Housing Infrastructure, Minister for Planning) (14:05): I am happy to update the opposition about this very important initiative by the government. What you should be aware of is that we have rezoned Hackham, now known as Onkaparinga Heights. That is rezoned. The infrastructure deeds for stormwater, roads and all that important infrastructure are in place, and that is now out for the private developer to engage with local government to go through land division and then release housing allotments onto the market. That's the way the rezoning process works when you are doing it correctly.

The code amendment for Concordia should be finalised by late this year, along with Sellicks Beach. For both of those, we have announced that we will be doing infrastructure schemes rather than infrastructure deeds. This is because of the multiple owners and the length and time of these projects. Of course, we have initiated a code amendment for the land on Dry Creek.

The SPEAKER: Point of order from the deputy leader.

Mr TEAGUE: The minister has had a whole minute. It was a straightforward question. Standing order 98(a): the question is not about the process that has led to it, but a straightforward question. How many homes have been built? The minister needs to answer the question.

The SPEAKER: He has a further three minutes to answer the question.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: The honourable member makes an intervention but, of course, he has been a former Minister for Planning in the last government, and what I would say to the opposition—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Members on my right will come to order.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: —is if you wanted houses at Concordia now, perhaps you should have rezoned it when you were in government. They begged you. The Concordia Land Trust begged the previous government to rezone the land in Concordia. They begged you to rezone the land in Concordia, but you sat on your hands for four years.

Mr TEAGUE: Point of order.

Mr Brown: Explain yourselves!

The SPEAKER: The member for Florey, you probably picked a really quiet moment to yell out, so you are on a warning.

Mr TEAGUE: It's standing order 98(a) again, of course, and now the minister has proceeded to further defy your ruling by debating the matter. The question relates to the 2023 announcement and homes built since then.

The SPEAKER: He didn't defy my order, but he probably needs to stick to maybe not yelling out accusations at the opposition.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: Speaker, I always pay close attention to your rulings, but it is impossible to properly analyse land divisions without talking about the history of those land divisions and, of course, on Concordia there is a long history of governments not acting.

This government has acted to bring that land to market, and how? We have gone through the code amendment process. It's a comprehensive process. We are doing all of that. It will be complete by this year and then that land, with all of the infrastructure agreements in place and a provision for water and sewer, most importantly—which, again, there is a difference in approaches by this government to previous governments. We believe in putting in place water and sewer to make land development-ready. You can see this in action in Elizabeth North and on Supple Road at Angle Vale. You can see large sewer mains going in. This makes for development-ready land.

We are rezoning land. We have already exceeded, more than doubled, the previous government's record of just 190 hectares. We will keep that pace going. We have already rezoned around 500. By the end of this year, that will be a much higher figure because Sellicks Beach will be rezoned, Concordia will be rezoned, and we will be well down the pathway of rezoning Dry Creek as well.

So what you see is steady, measured progress to bring land supply to market. There are a lot of houses being built at the moment in South Australia. We know we are on a good thing. It's not me who is telling the opposition: it's the Housing Industry Association, which gives us a nine out of 10 for our housing policy. We are acting and bringing houses to market in the immediate term, in the medium term and in the long term.

Members interjecting: