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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-05-18 Daily Xml
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Regional Housing

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (14:54): My question is to the Minister for Human Services. How is the Malinauskas Labor government addressing the housing crisis in regional areas?

The Hon. N.F. COOK (Hurtle Vale—Minister for Human Services) (14:54): It is a really important question, and I thank the member for Giles for the question, who has been a member now for, what is it? It is eight years plus a bit, so he knows the regions very, very well. I have visited his area of Whyalla several times now as a member of parliament. I will be heading back up there again.

With respect to the housing stock in Whyalla, there are many properties that have been left to go to rack and ruin, I guess is the best way to describe it, over the past couple of years. I look forward to visiting that area again. As we know, regions matter, all regions in South Australia—

Mrs Hurn interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Schubert!

The Hon. N.F. COOK: —not just some. I know how attuned you are to social media, so it's not just some hashtag on social media. It is actually very important—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. N.F. COOK: —because when the reforms were done previously under the Liberal government in terms of the alliance restructuring for homelessness services words were put out into the media, such as, 'We will deal with the homelessness crisis in the areas, in the regions where people are from. They will then have the services—

Mrs Hurn interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Schubert!

The Hon. N.F. COOK: —all provided at that particular point—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for West Torrens!

The Hon. N.F. COOK: —but these commitments were made, as we know—

Mr Gardner interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Morialta!

The Hon. N.F. COOK: —under the homeless reforms with no extra money. In fact, the alliances were made to find money for alliance managers—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. N.F. COOK: Housing is homelessness. This is all relevant.

The SPEAKER: Minister, please be seated. There is a point of order.

The Hon. N.F. Cook: He doesn't understand, sir.

The SPEAKER: Order! I will hear the point of order as I am required to under 134. The member for Morialta.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for West Torrens! The member for Morialta has the call.

Mr GARDNER: Sir, standing order 98. The question was very clearly about a prospective use of what Labor is going to do in its term in office rather than looking back at the past. Context has been provided for almost two minutes and the question should now be answered.

The SPEAKER: Thank you, member for Morialta. There is some force in the point of order. I will draw the minister's attention to the question. The minister has the question.

The Hon. N.F. COOK: Resolving the housing crisis actually takes some work in reversing some of the decisions that were made under the previous government or adding further services to improve the offering now for people under those current services, so we are left with a choice.

What we are doing, rather than unpicking alliances that were put in place too quickly without extra money under the previous Premier's rule, is investing money into services like Vinnies, Catherine House and Hutt St over the next four years to add to the crisis and support services that are available.

The assertion under the previous model, put in place around about a year ago, was that services would be provided in the region where the person became homeless, but that is actually not able to happen in all cases, and people are still travelling to the city where they are able to get help from other providers that have capacity and providers that sometimes have got beds—not always, sometimes.

But, of course, again, as we know the alliance models were given without crisis beds to the numbers that are needed. We saw the defunding of Vinnies, which lost us around about 60 beds. We saw the defending of Catherine House, which also cost dozens of beds—

The SPEAKER: Minister, there is a point of order.

The Hon. N.F. COOK: —and people have—

The SPEAKER: Order! There is a point of order, and of course under 134 I am required to hear the member on a point of order and to determine it.

Mr GARDNER: Standing order 98, sir, for the same reasons as last time.

The SPEAKER: Very well. There is a degree of force. That being said, the question did contemplate a reasonably broad answer. We have had the body of a reasonably broad answer. I draw the minister's attention to the question.

The Hon. N.F. COOK: Thank you very much, sir. In terms of adding to that crisis end that will be addressed here within the metropolitan area and also other services in the regions. We are investing the $180 million to build 400 homes, and 50 of those—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. N.F. COOK: —I'm glad you asked—are in a group setting with support services. There will be 150 of those in regions, including Mount Gambier, including Whyalla, probably, I would expect in your electorate—

The Hon. G.G. Brock: I would hope so.

The Hon. N.F. COOK: —Port Augusta, yes, very good—across a range of reasons.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. N.F. COOK: Well, Narungga? I'm sure Narungga as well. We are currently doing the mapping process to allocate the 150—

An honourable member interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Mawson—

The Hon. N.F. COOK: Then there's the 350 brought back online—

The SPEAKER: —interjects out of his seat.

The Hon. N.F. COOK: —as well as 3,000 increased standard homes. So we are resolving—

An honourable member interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Hartley!

The Hon. N.F. COOK: —across the trajectory a housing crisis left to us.

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