Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The election in South Australia is just nine days away, on 21 March. Housing has been a very significant issue in the election to date, and it's no wonder. House prices in Adelaide are up 40 per cent in the last four years. Rents are up 33 per cent. There are record low rates of vacant housing available for renters, and homelessness is up 10 per cent across the country, including in South Australia. This election campaign has seen no end of photo opportunities for the Premier and others for announcements around housing. It's so important that we actually get a plan and some action that will work.

Let's just have look at the record of Labor in the last four years on housing. We've got some new research on this that was recently published by some of Australia's best housing experts, Hal Paulson and Chris Martin. Their study reveals that over the last four years, while Labor's been in power in our state, there has been a net loss in public and community housing—a fall of one per cent on the level of public housing in 2020. Shame on Labor. That is appalling, especially in a period when public housing of this kind has increased by 11 per cent in Victoria, by 15 per cent in Tasmania and by nine per cent in Queensland. It can be done, but it's down by one per cent in South Australia at a time when we've got nearly 14,000 people on our public housing waitlists.

On top of that, the South Australian government has let Shelter SA collapse after 49 years due to a funding shortfall. It's outrageous that, in this period of a housing crisis, our homelessness peak organisation has gone to the wall. We need real action on housing in our state. We need a massive investment in public and social housing. We need to cap our rents, and we need a public housing builder that builds 20,000 new public homes to meet the demand that is there in a massive housing crisis.