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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-06-26 Daily Xml
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Question Time

Housing Trust

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (14:40): My question is again to the Minister for Housing. Will the SA Housing Trust engage in formal consultation with residents living near Drew Court, Oaklands Park in relation to the upgrade? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr COWDREY: In estimates, the minister confirmed that no letterbox drops were undertaken and that consultation had been limited to social media. Residents have raised concerns about the lack of direct engagement.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION (Taylor—Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Housing Infrastructure, Minister for Planning) (14:41): We traversed this in estimates yesterday, and I gave the honourable member my answer, so I refer him to that particular engagement. I think I was happy enough to undertake a letterbox drop. I do not think that is difficult. The Housing Trust, as the member indicates, has been doing some online engagement. We do live in a digital world, but of course it is always good to remember that a good old-fashioned letterbox drop does not do anybody any harm.

We are always interested in hearing from local members of parliament. Members of the government write to me all the time, and of course occasionally members of the opposition as well, about particular sites and about the improvement of them. If we are undertaking upgrades or if we are building new public housing, communities often have views in the same way they have views about all developments. Of course, we do our utmost to listen to them and take their suggestions on board.

We have recently done it with Camden Park. Car parking was raised with me and there was anxiety about antisocial behaviour, and we are responding to both. We are improving the car parking offering because we understand that is important to the local community, and we have undertaken to think carefully about the allocation policy. As a parliament and a community, we are going to have to think carefully about allocation policy, because we need to make sure that the tenant is the right fit for the housing and the right fit for the community. We have to think carefully about how we are going to properly house people who have issues.

I just urge the opposition and everybody else to remember the Housing Trust is a landlord. It is public housing. It is not a referral. We cannot force our tenants to seek mental health treatment. We are not the police. We have capacity to deal with antisocial behaviour through the leasing arrangements, but we are required to go to SACAT to do that. Often, when we are going to SACAT, much of the behaviour accelerates.

I totally understand the community's attitudes to antisocial behaviour. We understand people's anxieties around it. We are doing our very level best. The Housing Trust and its officers do an excellent job every day dealing with a very difficult task in allocating properties and in deciding compliance action. Of course, where we are building new public housing, we want to give to the local community the utmost confidence that we are listening to them in terms of the nature of our developments and the ongoing tenancy. We are keen to be good neighbours and positively impact people's local neighbourhoods.

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