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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-03-18 Daily Xml
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Public Housing

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (14:55): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Human Services regarding housing.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.E. HANSON: On 13 January, public housing residents were issued relocation letters regarding a rail project despite a government commitment to consult in February. The minister said on 4 March, and I quote the following:

The authority contacted the 15 affected tenants by hand-delivered correspondence on 8 January 2021 advising of the project. The correspondence advised that the authority would need to relocate them to alternative public housing by June 2021 to meet the requirements of the project.

This week, the Chief Executive of the Department for Infrastructure and Transport spoke publicly about this compulsory acquisition of public housing, and I quote:

Yes, these are the five properties.

And:

We gave the property owner the advice, which is SAHA, and I think our advice to SAHA was that we would need the property within 12 months. How they have subsequently communicated to their tenants is a matter for them…our practice is to doorknock.

He went on:

When it's compulsory acquisition, based on my experience both here and previously in New South Wales—

where he had worked—

there are very few life events that are more stressful than compulsory acquisition.

My questions to the minister are:

1. Why is the minister kicking out 15 vulnerable households when the Department for Transport says they only need five homes?

2. Why couldn't the minister's staff knock on these doors that were just metres away from the mailboxes where they allegedly hand-delivered the eviction letters of those people?

3. Why does the Department for Infrastructure and Transport, or the head of it, seem to have more empathy and understanding for residents than the minister does?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:57): I thank the honourable member for his question. I have outlined to the chamber what the particular process was in this relocation. My department was advised by DIT—I think that's the name of the department—that the crossing project would necessitate the acquisition of authority-owned properties at Hove regardless of the option selected for the project. So on that basis the South Australian Housing Authority has undertaken this process to notify the tenants.

I do agree with the honourable member that housing acquisition is a very stressful situation for people, but just on a technicality, the properties are being acquired from the trust. The agreements that we have with tenants are a rental arrangement, as is the case for all of our tenants, and my understanding is that all of the affected tenants have been contacted in person.

I think it is circumspect to actually give as much notice to tenants as possible to enable them to keep their options open so that they've got more time to consider. Over time, other properties may become available that they may be more interested in than if they were given a short period of time, so on that basis that's the way that has proceeded.

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