Housing Supply, Copper Coast

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (15:03): My question is to the Minister for Housing. Can the minister confirm whether the 10 new Housing Trust homes in the Copper Coast are completed and tenanted and also provide an update on the nine key government worker houses that are being built?

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION (Taylor—Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Housing Infrastructure, Minister for Planning) (15:03): I thank the member for his question and his passion about regional housing. I can confirm that the Housing Trust commissioned the building of 10 homes on the Copper Coast last year: three homes in Moonta, three in Wallaroo and four in Kadina. All of those homes were built by South Australian builder Constructwell and Constructwell have now handed them to the trust.

All of the homes are two bedrooms, built to the silver standard, which means they are meeting the NCC standards and have fully electric heat pumps installed for the hot water. All of the homes have been allocated. Four have been moved into just this week for next week and two are tenanted and they are working with the tenants about an appropriate moving day. In the regions generally, just to let the house know, the Housing Trust has completed 107 properties and 77 are in the construction phase now. Overall, 182 will be built largely to replace ageing stock, and that was part of the government's election commitment as well.

In terms of regional housing for government employees, this is an initiative that this government created essentially through Renewal SA. Renewal SA had not done much work in the CBD and they hadn't done any work really out in the regions, so this is a very important program I think for both the regions and for government in terms of government employees. We are building nine homes on the Copper Coast, four in Moonta Bay and five in Kadina. They have all been constructed by a South Australian builder, Country Living Homes, which is based in Moonta.

Education have taken four leases in Moonta Bay, the South Australian Ambulance Service has committed to three out of the five homes in Kadina and we are still working on leases for the other two homes. We intend to put those properties out into the market with a government lease attached. The Office for Regional Housing, which is of course based within Renewal SA, it's whole reason for being is to build homes, lease them to government employees and then push them out into the market so that we can recycle the capital and build more homes in the regions.

We know that that's one of the ways that we can build stock in markets that it's very hard to build stock in. Particularly, these markets are attractive once the houses are constructed. Investors don't want to take the risk to construct the house, but what we have found is that they are quite happy to buy into these communities when they can see a government lease with a stable tenant who is employed by the government. It's a pretty attractive investment proposition. That helps the government recycle capital and it helps us build more homes as we are going forward.

The Office for Regional Housing is obviously working with local government in the regions and local government have really stepped up to the plate. I would certainly like to thank all of the regional councils that have a passionate desire to see housing in their areas. Often they have a bit of ability, either through their own land or through their own initiatives, to push housing out and often they just need a bit of help from the government.

Of course, there have been previous allocations in previous budgets around regional housing to do both those things: to construct housing for government employees and also to assist councils in their endeavours to push supply into markets which often have market failure. There's high demand, but the market is unable to respond because of high construction costs, high civil costs or other barriers to housing supply. I thank the member for his question and will keep endeavouring to resolve some of the issues in his electorate.