Housing Authority

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (14:39): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Human Services.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN: The then Marshall opposition took to the last election a commitment to establish parameters for a new housing authority amalgamating the functions of Housing SA and Renewal SA. Given we are now around halfway towards this self-imposed deadline, would the minister update the house as to what parameters have been established concerning this proposed amalgamation?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:40): I thank the honourable member for her question, and I did refer to this, I think, on the first sitting day, that we have a project team which has consisted of joint members of Renewal SA and Housing SA to determine what the new housing authority should look like. They have considered a range of options, and there is also an external person who is from the community housing sector on that as well. They are still working on the particular range of options.

The chief functions of it are really, as I stated in relation to a previous question that the honourable member raised, improving services, because we have this disparate arrangement which has existed, I think, since 2014, under the previous government, where the assets were managed under Renewal SA and the housing tenancy arrangements were managed by Housing SA and they somehow fit within the Housing Trust Board. I think members of the Housing Trust Board struggle to get the two parts of the system to work together.

So, it is about providing a much more streamlined, unified service into which we will incorporate a range of those functions. Clearly, there are machinery of government changes that will be required. Potentially legislative changes, but it is a significant rearrangement so the team is still in progress. They are represented by different parts of the housing spectrum, if you like, from the homelessness and crisis sector through to the people who manage the assets, and I think because they are working well together and because they understand the different parts of the system, they will come up with a very good proposal which I will take to cabinet and that will be a decision of cabinet.