Question Time

Affordable Housing

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:10): My question is to the Premier. What is the Premier's answer to key workers who are shut out of SA's housing market? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: Adelaide is now Australia's second least affordable capital city to buy a home only after Sydney. A report by the SA Property Council released today, entitled Beyond Reach, found that house prices in Adelaide are 10.1 times the average median household income, making it out of reach for many key workers.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:11): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question because it goes to an incredibly important subject, one that this government has been at pains to take action on, as the minister has alluded to, just some of the policy measures that we have undertaken as a government. There is a crisis of housing supply in the state of South Australia. This government has probably done more than any other that has preceded it in terms of taking action to seek to address it in every number of different areas.

There was a bit of discussion around land division. But whether it be the significant tax reform that we have instituted as a government by abolishing stamp duty for all new builds, whether it be the investments we are making in public housing, whether it be all the work that we are doing around land division and releasing land and code amendments, but also, critically, probably one of the most important things that isn't immediately obvious to the Leader of the Opposition because you don't see it every day, as we speak, out in the northern suburbs of Adelaide we are laying some of the biggest pipes and the biggest truck infrastructure we have ever seen in the history of water infrastructure delivery in the history of the state.

Those pipes are literally, as we speak, being put into the ground. That is a function of a $1.6 billion investment in trunk water infrastructure—$1.6 billion. Just to give a bit of a sense of the size of that investment, the investment on the previous regulatory period, which members opposite would be well familiar with given they adjudicated over it, was a $150 million investment—so a tenfold increase in investment in water infrastructure, which is being rolled out as we speak.

Why does that matter? Well, it matters of course because we are playing catch-up—that's right, we are playing catch-up on your underinvestment; that is true—but what we are doing is getting those pipes in the ground as a matter of urgency simply because before a house can be constructed, particularly on newly released land or land division, they have to get what's called a DAFI. A DAFI cannot be issued by SA Water until they can honestly say that water connection is going to be in place. Can you imagine how many homes would be getting built right now if that $1.5 billion investment happened four years ago? It would be a big number.

So we are getting those pipes in the ground, and if any member of the opposition would like a briefing from SA Water about how that infrastructure is being rolled out, we would be very, very happy to facilitate it because it's important. We have arranged a group with industry who sits down with SA Water, I think every month—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —every two weeks—to actually get an update on where it's at so everyone is fully aware of where it is happening, and that is really important. But the other thing that we are doing on top of that, particularly in respect of key worker housing to which the Leader of the Opposition referred in his question, is that we are making investments ourselves, including specific investments in locations for key workers.

We know that our city desperately needs nurses, it needs police officers, it needs these essential workers in our city as much as in our suburbs, and people want to be able to live close to where they work, which is why we want to see key worker accommodation close to the city too. If you go just down the road from here, down at Southwark, what you will you see is Renewal SA buying that land so we can get it to market quickly. That's happening and there will be houses coming out of the ground there by the end of next year. And what do we know about the Leader of the Opposition's position in respect of what's happening at Southwark? He's opposed to it. So the contrast is stark. We are not just taking the needs seriously, we are taking the action seriously and we are getting on with the job.