Housing Affordability

Mr TELFER (Flinders) (15:05): My question is again to the Minister for Housing. Has the time needed to save for a home deposit increased or decreased under Labor and how does the minister explain that to young South Australians looking to enter the housing market? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr TELFER: In March 2022, it took 10½ years on average to save for a house deposit in Greater Adelaide. In September 2025, that has increased to 13.1 years according to Cotality's November 2025 report.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION (Taylor—Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Housing Infrastructure, Minister for Planning) (15:05): The point I would make to the member for Flinders is that they strangled supply and added to demand, and now they are going to go back to that policy, they are going to switch off the lights at Renewal SA. They have already stated—

Mr TEAGUE: Point of order: standing order 98(a) expressly prohibits debate. The minister needs to answer the question.

The SPEAKER: Minister, I have counselled you over the last 18 months a little bit about maybe not winding up the opposition quite so much. The temperature seems to be lower when you don't do it. The noise is certainly lower. So maybe we will give that a go for the next three minutes and 55 seconds.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: Mr Speaker, as it's your last day, as I understand it, I will follow your directions carefully. I guess the point about it is we all know that there are people in the rental system, we all know there are people who want to get into home ownership, we all know there are a range of first starters and restarters and people who do not have the benefit of owning their own home who want to get into the market. The only thing that will provide them that opportunity is supply. Supply only comes if you put infrastructure in the ground, if you put civil work underway, if you release government land, if you do all the components that allow the private sector, Renewal SA and other government agencies such as the Housing Trust to deliver that housing to market. That is the only way.

This is a government that stopped the sell-off of public housing. We have empowered community housing providers, we have brought back the Housing Trust and reorientated it to provide housing on the ground through things like the rent-to-buy scheme, which is enormously popular and a very important initiative by this government. We have brought back regional housing through the Office for Regional Housing at Renewal SA, which the opposition have never acknowledged was a good policy for regional South Australia, an innovative one, which has helped rural councils, which has helped rural communities, which has helped government employees in rural communities getting out there to the regions. They have never acknowledged that that is a good policy and they should, and they should give it some certainty going forward.

They have never backed a single government project, whether it be at Southwark or whether it be at Seaton or whether it be at Playford Alive or the work we are doing at Noarlunga. All they want to do is admire the problem and then add to demand. It will be a choice. Mr Speaker, I note your direction and I note it very carefully, but there will be choices to be made and the choice when people look to the government is they know we are adding to supply: the supply of public housing, the supply of community housing, the supply of rent to buy, and the supply of private market housing. What we want to do is push the market and push the developers and push the residential builders to do even more because that is the policy that will work. There will be other voices out there who are trying to do other things, but what we are focused on is the supply of homes to South Australians.