Affordable Housing

Mr TELFER (Flinders) (14:34): My question is to the Premier. Has the Premier reviewed the current affordable housing criteria and, if not, why not? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr TELFER: It was reported on 15 March that 62-year-old Jakki's rent has almost doubled since 2023 and she is now spending more than half her $35,000 income on rent. She wants to move to available affordable housing in her area but the existing rules mean she will need to earn more to be eligible.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION (Taylor—Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Housing Infrastructure, Minister for Planning) (14:34): I am very glad to get the question. The first thing I would say is that people like Jakki are at the forefront of what we are trying to do. If you look at Prospect Corner, we are providing 100 affordable rental apartments through a community housing provider, or if you go down to Bowden, there is Uniting on Third; we are going to do 80 affordable rental apartments at Bowden as well on top of a project we've got there. We are at the moment constructing Tucker Street, which will be run by the Housing Trust, expressly for over-55-year-old women who are at risk of homelessness. We are very concerned about people in the position that Jakki is in as they age.

In regard to the rules the honourable member raised, these are the rules that applied for the entirety of the previous government—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: —well, just listen to this; just bear with me—the whole of the period in which those rules applied. Those rules apply at a national level. They are part of our national agreements. They apply right across the country.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: Are you going to listen or are you just going to bark across the chamber? It is important. The application of the rules that you are talking about is about making sure that three-bedroom homes are allocated to families. That is essentially what the rules are in place to do: to allocate three-bedroom homes to families and allocate single people to single-bedroom or double-bedroom apartments. It is an attempt to make sure we get the best use of our housing spend.

That is why previous Liberal governments kept those rules in place; that is why previous Labor governments kept those rules in place. They are important rules. I agree that they could be better expressed on the HomeSeeker website. I am going to talk to my department about that, because I think it is reasonable that Jakki looks at it and says, 'Well, what's going on here? I would like an explanation.'

It is not a good enough excuse, however, from an opposition who should be looking at the policy behind this and thinking, 'That's right, we endorsed this exact policy for the entire period of being in government but now what we want to do is to pretend to Jakki that we are going to change things when we're really not.' At the same time, as best as I can tell, you oppose the very supply measures that we are proposing.

You are opposing water infrastructure going into the north. That is what you are going to do, because you are going to rip up stumps on our infrastructure package because you won't have the money to do it. You announced that yesterday. You are going to rip up stumps on Two Wells. You are going to rip up stumps on Roseworthy. That's what you are going to do. You are going to put all of the cost of the provision of water and sewerage onto the home owner out at Roseworthy and Two Wells and constrict supply.

It is very hard to tell what the opposition's policy actually is, because they are disavowing things they did in government. Only yesterday we had the sort of gyrations of the Leader of the Opposition around infill—

Mr TEAGUE: Point of order: it is standing order 98(a) and I might say it is straying into standing order 127(1) as well. There is digression and there is debate writ large. This is a straightforward question: has there been a review of the criteria? The minister needs to answer the question.

The SPEAKER: The member for Flinders asked a question and then for the next 3½ minutes hasn't stopped yelling at the minister. So I remind the deputy leader that interjections are disorderly, and if the minister is responding to some of those interjections they shouldn't be made in the first place.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: What this government is doing is expanding supply, and especially for people like Jakki. We know that in a tight rental market people like Jakki are the most vulnerable people. We want to expand supply of affordable rental apartments, of market rental apartments, of market sale and of land more generally because we know supply is the answer to the housing crisis.