Housing Supply

Ms SAVVAS (Newland) (14:39): My question is to the Minister for Housing and Urban Development. Can the minister inform the house of any federal housing policy commitments which will affect the supply of housing in South Australia?

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION (Taylor—Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Housing Infrastructure, Minister for Planning) (14:39): I thank the member for Newland for her question. Of course, we face a national housing crisis and a national housing debate. We have seen that debate flow out over the last federal election campaign. Of course, the commonwealth government has a very important policy, the Housing Australia Future Fund, a fund that provides $10 billion that is managed by the commonwealth government and provides $500 million per year to flow into community housing projects, into essentially affordable rental projects all over the country and here in South Australia, too.

That is vital to the supply of affordable rentals. Many of those projects will not add up if they do not receive HAFF funding. The HAFF was delayed, for almost a year, by a strange coalition in the Senate of Liberal senators like Senator Antic and Green senators like Senator Hanson-Young. It was a strange coalition of people who sought to delay the very housing supply that might provide relief to those in the rental market and ultimately give them the capacity to save a deposit and get their own home. We know that the Housing Australia Future Fund is at risk if there is a change of government, because Peter Dutton has said that he will get rid of it, he will stop it.

He will stop those projects, that flow of money, the flow of $500 million every year into affordable rental projects around the country, and that will have a very real effect on the rental vacancy rate in South Australia. It is worthwhile thinking about what that delay cost us, because delay in housing is death. It is the death of projects. It is the stalling of vital supply to the market. What we want to see is Labor's new policy, which is all about $10 billion to partner with state developers and industry to build 100,000 homes for new homebuyers, $2 billion in grants to states and $8 billion in zero-interest loans.

It is a very, very good policy by the commonwealth government and one that will sync perfectly with our plans for Renewal SA, plans that are opposed by those opposite at Southwark, at places like Prospect, at places like Noarlunga. These are all places that would benefit by having new homebuyers being facilitated into the market. They are all projects that those opposite are stated to oppose. They oppose all of them. We were down at Prospect Corner the other day with the Premier and the Prime Minister, and what did we see there? We saw 208 dwellings, 108 townhouses and 38 per cent of those going to new homebuyers.

They are all being built. You can go down there and see them for yourself. Go down to Churchill Road and have a good look at them. There are also 100 affordable rental apartments. They will be at risk if we have a change of government at the commonwealth level. What is the federal opposition's policy? It is to stimulate demand. It is an inflationary policy to stimulate demand, to raid people's super accounts, to overheat the market, to cause inflation and to close down supply, because they are going to get rid of the HAFF.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Hammond!

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: You constrain supply while you inflate demand. We know how that went. We only have to look back to HomeBuilder to know how that went: homes not completed and a building industry that was in crisis.