Affordable Housing

The Hon. T.T. NGO (15:09): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Human Services about affordable properties.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.T. NGO: Last week, the minister recycled a media release regarding affordable properties for women over the age of 50. In her original release of 30 August 2019, she stated that:

The house and land packages have a maximum price of $407,100.

However, in the minister's release dated 4 November 2019, the minister states that:

…land packages range between $320,000 and $395,000.

Can the minister tell the council why the package prices have been reduced by about $12,100?

The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink: Sorry—reduced?

The Hon. T.T. NGO: By about $12,000.

The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink: Sorry, I think I must have missed the first part of your question.

The Hon. T.T. NGO: Okay, I will start again. The original press release says land packages have a maximum price of about $407,000 and the recent one says between $320,000 and $395,000.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (15:10): I thank the honourable member for his question. As he has correctly identified, the original release talked about a maximum price of $407,100. That is a maximum price, clearly. The first nine home and land packages that are going to be made available as a bit of a pilot, if you like, for single women over 50 through the Affordable Homes Program range from between $320,000 and $395,000. Those will be located in Findon, Kidman Park and Woodville West. As I stated earlier this afternoon, we are expecting to begin construction in February 2020.

The Assist program, which is the shared equity product, reduces the purchase price for people. On my calculations, which I can double-check, the amount of equity that somebody would need to work towards is between $208,000 and $260,000, which is clearly much more affordable than Adelaide's average house price, which I think is in the order at the moment of about $420,000 or $450,000.

Clearly, this program puts the purchase price much more within the reach of people on low incomes and people who, for a range of reasons, as I outlined previously, may not have the same equity available as other people. HomeStart has been a very useful vehicle for a range of South Australians to get into the housing market and continues to be a useful vehicle for this partnership with Housing.