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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-02-18 Daily Xml
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Social Housing

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (14:56): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Human Services a question regarding the state's housing strategy, labelled Our Housing Future 2020-2030.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.E. HANSON: The National Housing and Homelessness Agreement was signed by the Premier and the minister in June 2018. The agreement provides approximately $110 million per annum to South Australia. Section 17 of that agreement states:

Consistent with section 15C of the [Federal Financial Relations] Act, each State will be required to achieve the following conditions to be eligible for funding under this Agreement:

(a) for the period set out in clause 18 the State will have a publicly available housing strategy that:

i. indicates the level of housing supply needed to respond to projected housing demand, and outlines the reforms and initiatives that will contribute to meeting this need;

ii. includes planned or expected levels of social housing…

The National Housing and Homelessness Agreement delivers approximately $110 million per annum to South Australia in line with that. Ironically, the agreement doesn't actually require any improvement to housing affordability or social housing; however, under federal law, states are only eligible for payment if they are honest about the planned and expected levels of social housing. My question to the minister is this: where in the housing strategy, or any public document anywhere for that matter, is the government's planned or expected level of social housing?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:57): I thank the honourable member for his question, and I thank the honourable member for congratulating us on a very thorough strategy which has been very well received by the sector and in the community generally. It has a particular focus, which includes affordable housing. This was driven by our pre-election promise to do an assessment of what the housing pressures were for South Australians. That showed that there was certainly a level of unmet demand in the affordable sector which is for people who are on middle and lower incomes.

We certainly know that people in those income and household brackets struggle to get into home ownership, so we have had a very strong focus on ensuring that we are addressing assisting those people in that particular segment because, as we know, housing is a continuum. If people are struggling with getting their foot into the housing market, that puts pressure on the rental market. If there are a lot of people competing for the same rental properties, then that impacts on the community and public sector as well.

We also know that there are people who fall into particular circumstances where they may have a relationship breakdown, they may lose their job or they may suffer a severe episode of mental illness, and therefore they lose their security in their housing situation. So we are addressing all of those areas across the spectrum in a very thorough manner.

In our discussions with the commonwealth government, I think they see South Australia as a leader in this respect, in that we are addressing the genuine problems that we have in South Australia. I think it's interesting that, in the 16 years of Labor being in office, they didn't talk about affordable housing as being an issue. Lo and behold, when we commissioned the AHURI report, there it is: there are a lot of people struggling to get into the private rental or the affordable purchase market. Therefore, we are addressing those matters through this strategy.

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