Public Housing

The Hon. I. PNEVMATIKOS (15:11): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Human Services regarding public housing.

Leave granted.

The Hon. I. PNEVMATIKOS: On Friday 30 October, the minister spoke on FIVEaa radio about the 17,461 people on the public housing waiting list. The minister was quoted as saying, 'We just don't have enough properties.' Leaders of 10 major homelessness service providers have commented on the minister's housing strategy and reform agenda by saying that, and I quote, 'It appears to be silent on addressing the need for increased supply of accessible housing.'

The providers who said this included Baptist Care SA, St Vincent de Paul, UnitingSA, Junction Australia, Lutheran Community Care, Anglicare South Australia, Mission Australia, Uniting Communities, UnitingCare Wesley Bowden and Centacare Catholic Family Services. My questions to the minister are:

1. Why has the minister's own department put forward an affordable housing program that will result in a net reduction in public housing from five sites in Adelaide?

2. Does the minister still stand behind her reform agenda, given that it will result in less public and community housing for those most in need?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (15:13): I thank the honourable member for her question. Her assertion that we are effectively reducing the number of social housing properties by in effect converting them to affordable housing I believe is incorrect. Through our strategy we are actually projecting that there will be a net increase.

Once again, I just need to go back through history, not very far, quite frankly, for the years of mismanagement and abuse of the public housing assets under the Australian Labor Party. This was a sector which was effectively used as an ATM. When treasurers in the Labor Party needed additional money, they would sell more housing stock, they would reduce the cash assets or they would reduce the maintenance budget.

So quite frankly I am not about to be lectured by anybody in the Labor Party about the South Australian Housing Trust or indeed the many policies that existed which make absolutely no sense, including the capacity of people to be placed on a waiting list when they've got assets of nearly half a million dollars; people can be registered for the public housing system. Why these policies were never examined in their term in office is beyond me because, as I said on radio, there is always more demand than supply, and a large part of that reason is because Labor just abused the public housing system for such a long period of time.

If we go back to, I think, the 1990s, there used to be a particular program funded by the commonwealth government, which was known as SAAP (I can't tell you off the top of my head what it stood for). That used to provide a significant source of revenue to states and territories for their public housing systems. That ceased and as it has not been replaced by a similar program the current policy settings of the federal government are that they have their NHFIC, which is their investment into the public housing sector that particularly the community sector are often encouraged to access.

What we are doing with the public housing system is not only improved maintenance and improved works—and I do get this criticism from the Labor members on a regular basis, about our focus on affordable housing. They only need to look to the AHURI report to see the number of people who are in housing stress and who are effectively trapped, who, if they could access an affordable home option to purchase, would be on the pathway to improving their equity situation and their stability and would not be at the behest of a particular landlord in the private sector, who may for very reasonable reasons decide to sell or move in themselves—there is a range of reasons.

Home ownership is called the great Australian dream for good reason. We are not subsidising affordable housing. We are using our cash balance to very sensibly provide for a gap in the market that has been overlooked for a very long period of time and which is at the preventative end of assisting people who are in the private housing system into home ownership. I think the Labor Party focuses too often on particular points but doesn't view housing as a continuum and as a system where people enter and leave for various reasons at points in their life cycle.

As I said previously, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We are also reforming our internal policy so that we are improving the allocations process and the category 1 waiting list, which is the people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. That has actually reduced under this government.