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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 211 asked in the Legislative Assembly on 5 April 2022 by Dr D.J. Honey

Parliament: 41 Session: 1

PUBLIC HOUSING — WAITLIST

211. Dr D.J. HONEY to the Minister for Housing:

I refer to public housing stock —

Several government members interjected.

The SPEAKER: Order, please!

Dr D.J. HONEY: Is there some issue?

I refer to public housing stock, which fell during the last term of this government, and the 32 000 applicants on the waitlist.

(1) Given the minister's statement that he was waiting for the boom to finish before commencing the $522 million special housing package, how will he balance demand with decreasing stock?

(2) What is an acceptable wait time for a public house in our rich state?

The SPEAKER: Minister, just before you answer, I ask the Ministers for Finance, Industrial Relations and Health to not interject while questions are being asked.

Mr J.N. CAREY replied:

(1)–(2) Member, respectfully, I am disappointed. I note that you make that claim without actually quoting the source, which is totally misleading. It saddens me that we are seeing this persistent approach by the opposition to mislead Western Australians. I will give another example. The opposition previously released a media statement—there was another one over the weekend—in which it talked about only a certain number of properties available under $400, and in its previous media statement, it referred to $450. What the opposition failed to mention is that it only looks at houses rather than the total stock.

Dr D.J. Honey: I specifically said houses. You're misleading Parliament.

Mr J.N. CAREY: Member, I showed you respect by listening to you; perhaps you would like to do the same.

The opposition has persistently misquoted to provide the worst dire picture. It selects only those houses under a certain value and then puts them in a media statement, ignoring the other types of properties that are available in the market. I do want to get to the waiting list. I am deeply proud that this government has made the biggest investment in social housing in our state's history. We did not rely on Kevin Rudd and a commonwealth funding boost to deliver social housing. I note that the federal government has completely disappeared from the remote communities space and other policy areas, and we are making a huge investment. But I have also been very clear on the record that we are undertaking unprecedented approaches to accelerating delivery right now. It is absolutely misleading and dishonest for the opposition to make the claim that we are not delivering social housing now. That is false —

Dr D.J. Honey interjected.

The SPEAKER: Member for Cottesloe, if you would like to be able to ask a supplementary question, I am going to urge you not to continuously interject.

Mr J.N. CAREY: That is false. As the Minister for Housing, despite the heated construction market, I am doing everything I can to accelerate delivery. That includes a specific modular program for the regions, moving to timber frames, an ambitious spot-purchasing program and the review of Government Regional Officers' Housing to get vacant stock back into the system. I have also reviewed procurement procedures and practices so that we can move faster to deliver social housing. There is substantial work being done right now. We have also set aside $500 million to provide a pipeline of work once the housing boom is over. I note that that has been welcomed by the Master Builders Association and many other stakeholders in the construction industry, because they want to see that pipeline of investment as the boom recedes. We have taken the right approach: up-front investments through a number of different strategies and then a social housing fund that is there for a pipeline of work once the housing boom recedes.