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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-12-01 Daily Xml
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Coober Pedy Housing

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (14:39): My question is to the Minister for Human Services regarding poverty. As the minister responsible for assisting vulnerable South Australians, what exactly has the minister done to address extreme poverty and hardship in Coober Pedy where residents report that they can't afford the essentials of housing, utilities and food?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:39): I thank the honourable member for her question, which is quite similar to one which has already been asked. Indeed, we have provided a large amount of support, statewide—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: —across South Australia to assist people who may be experiencing all sorts of hardship, and I can go through all of those grants and all of the different programs that we have been running throughout COVID which operate across the state, and I can repeat myself in terms of the remission of people's South Australian Housing Trust rents, if that is the right term. So Centrelink granted extra payments—

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN: Point of order, Mr President.

The PRESIDENT: Point of order, deputy leader. The minister will resume her seat.

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN: In terms of relevance, the question was specifically about Coober Pedy not about statewide programs.

The PRESIDENT: I will remind the minister—the minister has a range of issues to cover, which I am sure she is doing, but the question was in this case quite specifically about Coober Pedy. So I will ask the minister to continue.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: I am sure that there are programs such as Foodbank and a range of programs which operate in various regional areas that have been providing direct support. I can go back and work out which agencies exactly have coverage at Coober Pedy, but there would be several. There would be many in the non-government sector which have received funding through the Department of Human Services.

There is also coverage through the South Australian Housing Authority, so anybody in particular who has been residing in a South Australian Housing Authority property did not have an increase to their rental income from the boost that the commonwealth government provided through COVID. That was quite a deliberate policy on our behalf to ensure that people had extra money in their pockets.

So when members opposite are asking about South Australian Housing Trust tenants who reside in Coober Pedy, they were the direct beneficiaries of this policy which would have directly assisted them to have more income during the COVID period.

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