Affordable Housing

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (14:59): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before addressing a question without notice to the Leader of the Government in this place on the topic of housing affordability.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS: Last week, Demographia released their International Housing Affordability Report, which showed that Adelaide is now ranked amongst the least affordable housing markets in the world. Adelaide placed 86^th out of 94 international housing markets and was ranked as less affordable than Brisbane, Toronto, Greater London and even New York. The report classified Adelaide as being impossibly unaffordable and demonstrates that Adelaide's middle income housing affordability has steadily declined for the past 40 years, with a steeper drop in the last two years.

Labor has been in government in South Australia for 26 of the last 40 years, and the Labor Party has made a number of planning decisions that have impacted on the current state of the housing market. My question, therefore, to the Leader of the Government in this place is: how does the government justify the decline in Adelaide's housing affordability under Labor's watch and when does it expect to see an improvement in Adelaide's ranking—or does it expect us to sink even further?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (15:00): I thank the honourable member for his question. I don't think the affordability and supply of housing is an issue that is unique to a state that has seen more Labor governments in this century than it has Liberal governments. I think we are seeing all around the world, but particularly around Australia, the emergence of very tight housing supply, rapid increases in the price of housing and increases in rental prices paid for housing.

I know that the Premier, along with the Minister for Planning and Housing, the Hon. Nick Champion, has already outlined a number of initiatives, including some very significant land releases for new housing. I will be happy to go away and bring back a response to have input from the Minister for Housing and the Minister for Planning in much greater detail about many of the initiatives that this current Labor government is working on to tackle particularly housing supply that then feeds into the affordability of housing in the state.