Public Housing

The Hon. I. PNEVMATIKOS (15:00): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Human Services regarding housing.

Leave granted.

The Hon. I. PNEVMATIKOS: On 5 September, The Advertiser reported on a new public housing policy:

Public housing will be thrown open to a 'first in, best dressed' system of open inspections, after the state government lost patience with fussy prospective tenants...

My questions to the minister are:

1. How, exactly, is a prospective tenant being fussy if they can't live near their abuser or another serious threat to their safety?

2. How, exactly, is a prospective tenant being fussy if a home doesn't meet their medical or disability needs?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (15:01): I thank the honourable member for her question. It gives me an opportunity to outline what the implications of the Housing Authority allocation trial mean. I think I probably have addressed a number of these issues on the public record, as I have done a couple of radio interviews, but I'm happy to go through them again. Indeed, we have initiated a trial for public housing allocations in the space of what we call our difficult-to-let properties, which generally speaking include walk-up flats and cottage flats.

Walk-up flats can be seen as less desirable because they are often in larger numbers. Some of them have some notorious histories, which we have been working on turning around through improving the amenity by reducing the outdoor laundries, or demolishing the outdoor laundries and internalising those; removing spaces where people can squat and get up to nefarious activities; improving lighting, landscaping and the like; and also initiating night-time patrols for customers. So we think that's going to improve the amenity of a number of those.

In relation to cottage flats, I suppose a lot of people consider that they are suitable property for older people, so younger people may not be interested. Indeed, I do note that overall with our public housing profile, the stock is generally geared towards two to three-bedroom properties. The profile of tenants going forward, which I think reflects the general population, is that there tend to be more people who are single person households, and then we have some larger families, so that can be harder to match the dwellings.

We do have fewer people on the category 1 list than we had under Labor. That has gone down to something in the order of 3,300 from 4,400, it might have been, under Labor. So we are certainly improving the allocation process for people on the highest list. The allocation process, as it operates for people, is that somebody will have an appointment with Housing SA. Housing SA will determine their needs.

I think the honourable member, in her line of questioning, was either misunderstanding the policy or misrepresenting it in that anybody who does have specific needs, whether that be some form of mobility limitation or they need a more secure property in a particular location, all of those factors are taken into account at the point of the interview. People select the areas in which they are prepared to look at a property. Clearly, I think it goes without saying that the larger the number of areas that somebody is prepared to look at, the greater the likelihood that they will be allocated a property. We do take into account, for instance, that somebody may have the need to be closer to a particular hospital, so those things are all part of the intake process.

What the trial will mean is that rather than the current process, which means that it's quite extended, where somebody can be offered a property, they will then go and look at it and they may then take some time to decide whether they want to accept it or not; if they don't accept that property, then another party will look at it, and so that process can be repeated for some time. This is much more of a targeted approach for those hard-to-let properties. People are provided with 48 hours to view it. If there is more than one party, then it will go to the people who are on the most urgent list, who have been on the waitlist the longest.

We think that this is going to reduce the amount of time that some people stay on the waiting list and the amount of time that any potential properties are vacant. Bear in mind that at any one time a third of properties are under offer or about to be offered to someone, or else somebody has vacated and the property needs to be repainted. There is then another third that either might need more work or are on the list of properties that we have decided we are not going to retain because they are too old or something of the like.

The PRESIDENT: The minister ought to bring her answer to a conclusion.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: I am sorry, Mr President; I will wrap up. It is interesting, however, that the Labor Party has already chosen to oppose this particular policy, although they have made some, I think, fairly unfair criticism of vacant properties. I am not sure what their proposal is to address these particular issues, but we do await their policy. We hear the crickets from the Labor Party in terms of their housing policy, but I think the entire South Australian community will be interested in knowing what they intend to propose within the next less than 200 days before the election.