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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-10-15 Daily Xml
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National Rental Affordability Scheme

Mr GEE (Napier) (14:44): My question is to the Minister for Social Housing. How will changes to funding from the National Rental Affordability Scheme impact on the South Australian community?

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay—Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (14:44): The National Rental Affordability Scheme is a commonwealth initiative which has been critical in assisting low and moderate income households to enter the private rental market. The scheme has helped to ease the pressure on the public housing sector by providing incentives to private investors to increase the supply of affordable rental dwellings and to reduce rent costs by around 20 per cent of the market rental rate for the area.

An important element of the scheme was to encourage large-scale investment and innovative delivery of affordable housing with a national target of 50,000 new dwellings by 30 June 2014, with South Australia's target being 3,800 dwellings. Thus far, South Australia has approved 3,740 incentives from the previous four rounds of NRAS.

This month the Australian Workplace Innovation and Social Research Centre released its report entitled Impacts of the 2014-15 Federal Budget Measures on South Australia. The report highlighted some of the significant effects of the commonwealth government not proceeding with round 5 of the National Rental Affordability Scheme. Specifically, the report clearly indicates the importance of the NRAS scheme in South Australia given the high number of applications for round 5 funding where over 100 applications were received in South Australia for over 4,900 dwellings.

Based on the requirement of seven jobs per NRAS incentive, round 5 would have generated around 2,800 direct and indirect jobs, providing a significant boost to the South Australian property and construction sectors. The state government had anticipated 395 allocations for NRAS-funded dwellings for round 5. Assuming an average dwelling cost $300,000, the direct investment in new construction would have been around $118 million, representing a significant stimulus to the property and construction sectors over the next few years, and a considerable drive towards renewing housing stock across South Australia.

South Australia is currently experiencing significant cuts as a result of the federal budget. These cuts are going to affect income support, health care, employment and education. These are all areas which feed into the demand for social housing and support services. We will also lose the economic stimulus to the property, construction, housing and employment industries provided by the development, maintenance and replacement of housing stock.

We will have residents finding it harder to pay their rent due to cuts to income support, we will have a higher demand for affordable housing and support services, and we will have decreased rental income to go towards maintenance and replacement of properties. Unfortunately, we are also experiencing uncertainty surrounding the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness. Under the current national partnership, the state and commonwealth governments contribute $8.6 million annually towards the funding of homelessness services in South Australia.

This assists around 76 homelessness services through 97 service outlets across the state and, without federal funding continuing, many will be forced to scale back the services they provide. I have written to the federal minister seeking assurance that national partnership funding will be continued for a further three-year period to provide certainty for the sector. So far his response on the issue has only fuelled our concern that the federal government is looking for excuses to not continue the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness.

The SPEAKER: Alas, the minister's time has expired.

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