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

Contents

Social Housing

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (15:04): A supplementary arising from the original answer: the minister, in answering previous questions, referred to a document to deal with the 'unmet demand'. Minister, what proportion of unmet demand will the state government's housing strategy provide for over the next four years?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (15:04): The AHURI report estimated that there were some 56,000 households that had unmet demand in that affordable housing space. We estimate that there will be some 20,000 affordable housing solutions. Of course, when we start to highlight the issue of affordable housing I think the market takes notice. As I mentioned in a previous response, I think in the time that I have been here when Labor was in government they had not referred to anything to do with affordable housing as being a particular challenge in South Australia, and we have certainly highlighted that that is the case. The development community is much more acutely aware than they were previously.

My colleague the Hon. Stephan Knoll also has carriage of part of this responsibility, both through HomeStart but also through the affordable housing targets. Of course, we have the community housing sector in South Australia which has a significant number of both properties that remain in ownership, are under lease from the South Australian government, as well as their own properties and they do quite a bit of work in this space as well. It is a significant dent into that particular area. It is one that has been ignored, swept under the carpet—if you excuse the pun—in the past, and one which we are keen to address for first-home owners and also people who have been in those situations that I have referred to who may have had a relationship that ended and find themselves having to start all over again.