HOUSING SA

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:41): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Social Housing a question in relation to the South Australian housing trust.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: On Thursday 26 April 2012, the government Gazette promulgated the transfer of 154 properties in Woodville West from the South Australian housing trust to the Urban Renewal Authority. The Woodville West Neighbourhood Renewal Project Community Information Sheet No. 1, dated January 2010, states that the project will involve 143 houses owned by Housing SA and will deliver approximately 423 new houses. My questions are:

1. How many of the houses being transferred are currently unoccupied and how long have they been unoccupied?

2. What proportion of the homes to be delivered by the project will become rental properties in the hands of the trust?

3. Why have the properties been transferred from the trust to the authority?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for Disabilities, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (14:42): I thank the honourable member for his very important questions. I understand that, of the number of properties that have been transferred over to the URA, certainly most, if not all, have been transferred untenanted. In response to his second question about proportions being available for rental properties later on, I will have to take that question on notice. The third question was?

The Hon. S.G. Wade: What is the purpose of the transfer?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: The purpose of the transfer is to provide a tranche of development for the URA to develop a new model for communities. Rather than building in one suburb, or one area of a suburb, a whole range of housing trust homes, what we are now doing is actually building whole communities around mixed tenure and mixed types of accommodation involving the private sector, the not-for-profit sector and the housing trust as well. That way, we believe that we will get a better outcome in terms of community mix and tenant mix and a better outcome in terms of a broader community feel, where people can feel safe on the streets and we have a mixture of tenants and tenures in those properties that more equitably reflects what happens in other suburbs around the state.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Wade has a supplementary.