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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-09-08 Daily Xml
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Public Housing

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (15:05): My question is to the Minister for Human Services regarding housing. After The Advertiser reported on Sunday of this week that the public inspection policy for public housing was active, can the minister advise when the policy was actually first approved, when exactly did the policy first come into operation, and how many inspections have actually occurred to the date of today?

The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink: Inspections?

The Hon. J.E. HANSON: Open inspections.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (15:06): I thank the honourable member for his interest in this particular area. The change to the policy should come as no secret to anybody, given that it's part of the reforms that we published. I think this document goes back—it is certainly very dog-eared—to 2019, Our Housing Future 2020-2030. The fifth strategy anticipates a range of changes to the social housing system to ensure that we are improving the time frames and doing what we can to make sure we are doing things much more efficiently.

It is also because the South Australian Housing Authority is a statutory body. These matters are approved as policies through the South Australian Housing Trust. So my advice is that we have gone through quite an extensive consultation process with a range of stakeholders, and I may be able to include some of them, if I can find the right piece of paper in a short enough time. People who have an interest in this area were made aware that we were considering this before we did it, as we are the model consultant. We are very transparent in terms of what we are considering before we undertake implementation. I had been kept briefed throughout the process as to what was taking place. We also were required to train staff, because it's a different approach to what has taken place before.

I think the new housing allocation trial has been welcomed by most stakeholders, apart from the Australian Labor Party, and, as I said earlier this week, we wait with anticipation as to what they intend to do to improve allocations from our public housing to people on the waiting list.

I might actually reflect on some of the comments that were made by Labor members yesterday in question time, where they have tried to imply that there are vulnerable people who are going to miss out as a result of this, without realising that anybody who receives an allocation under this process is somebody who is on the Housing Trust waiting list.

Clearly, they have a dual need in their own minds as to which prospective tenants are more needy than others. As I said yesterday, when we do the interview process, we take into account all of the prospective tenants, or whether they are transferring tenants, etc., all of their personal details, so whether they have mobility limitations, whether they have particular areas that they are more interested in and we therefore try to make this process—

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Point of order: I have been listening intently but the minister has not come anywhere close to answering the question: how many open inspections have occurred and when was the policy initiated? How many open inspections have occurred?

The PRESIDENT: I think the minister has been fairly broad in her answer and in fact I am sure she has answered some aspects of the member's question. I will call the minister. The minister's time is concluding soon so I would ask her to be aware of that.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: Mr President, I am very disappointed to hear you say that you think my time is concluding because I could talk a lot longer on this matter.

The PRESIDENT: I want to get to other people.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: Indeed, this policy was anticipated quite sometime ago—

The Hon. K.J. Maher: When did it actually start?

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: —through Our Housing Future, and—

The Hon. K.J. Maher: You don't know, do you? You don't know when it started.

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: I will look forward to providing more details—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. K.J. Maher: Do you even know what's going on?

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Opposition Whip was on his feet on a point of order wanting to get certain information and now he doesn't listen to the minister.

The Hon. I.K. Hunter: There's no information coming.

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. I.K. Hunter: None!

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: I will look forward to releasing details of this in the quite near future, which I am sure—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: No, I do know the answers, but we are just confirming some details about some of our early successes. I know the Labor Party is on the edge of their seat and they are really, really keen to find out how it's going—

The Hon. K.J. Maher interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: —and the answer is: really well, but you will just have to wait a little bit longer for some of the detail.

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