LOUISE MILLER‑FROST:
My name is Louise Miller‑Frost, I’m the Member for Boothby and I’d like to welcome you here to Tonsley in the heart of Boothby. I’m here with Federal Minister Julie Collins, State Minister Nick Champion, and my friend Maria Palumbo, CEO of Junction. My background is in the housing and homelessness sector. So I’m always thrilled to be involved in any of these announcements. We know that we have a supply shortage for housing across Australia. It’s been a long time coming. But this government, state and federal, are working together to make sure that we actually address that shortage. Once we get that shortage, once we get more houses on the ground, that will help address affordability as well and quite frankly, we can’t do this fast enough. So I’m really thrilled to be here. And I’d like to invite my friend, the Federal Minister to make the announcement.
JULIE COLLINS:
Thanks, Louise. It’s terrific to be here with Louise our great Member for Boothby here in South Australia. My friend Nick Champion, the State Minister for Housing, and Maria from Junction Housing. This is a collaboration. This is a collaboration between state and federal government and community housing providers that will see over 350 homes delivered through the Social Housing Accelerator here in South Australia. It’s $135 million that has been provided by the federal government as part of our $32 billion Homes for Australia plan. We saw in the most recent budget, over $6 billion in new investment in housing, that brings the total to $32 billion. Here in Tonsley, around 50 homes. This is exciting for South Australia. But importantly, it’s exciting for the over 600 South Australians that will be housed in these homes. Because after all, this is about people on the ground that need homes. That’s what we’re focused on: more homes to buy more homes to rent, and more homes for Australians that need them, as part of our $32 billion Homes for Australia plan. We announced homes in Melbourne yesterday – over 100. Every week, we’re out and about in Australia, announcing more homes, getting under construction and delivering more homes for Australians that need them most.
NICK CHAMPION:
Well, it’s great to be here today with Julie Collins, who’s a really great Minister for Housing for this country. And the best thing about this announcement is that it’s pretty simple. $135 million. The state is helping to construct and helping to partner with CHPs to deliver housing on the ground. And you see here on this site, an at grade car park being developed by Junction Housing, into housing for South Australians, public housing, social housing, market housing, a great mixed use development. And this is what we want to see in this country. A new wave of investment in housing, right across the country, but particularly here in South Australia. To make sure that supply catches up with demand. We know that we’ve got a national housing crisis, we know that we’ve got a state housing crisis. And we know that some of this is driven by demographics, by the collapse of the household formation rate, the need for more single person housing, particularly as people age in house, in place, and particularly as the emergence of constellation families continues. So we’ve got a more complex group of people looking for housing, we’ve got pressures on our housing system. And we’ve got to make sure that supply, which is the key to ending the housing crisis, continuation of supply, matches demand. We’re going to do that in a variety of ways. But the federal government’s contribution of $135 million helps us do that, particularly for public social housing, and particularly for low income market housing. So this is a great announcement. And we look forward to partnering with the federal government on even more projects as we can.
MARIA PALUMBO:
My name is Maria Palumbo, and I’m CEO of Junction. And this project is something we’re incredibly excited about. Because you cannot do this without the government’s investment in us. And the contribution government makes, makes these projects work. There’s no way we could put this project up without the support of our government partners. And as everybody has said, today, we’re doing this together because the supply shortfall for people needing houses, it’s just too great. And so everybody’s really lifting – government, non‑government sector community housing. And so this project is something that is super exciting. We’re building a service hub, we’re building in community spaces, as well as the accommodation so that people can really have a place where they also feel supported. And this is going to be the start of a long program of housing that we’re investing in with government. Our goal is to get 2,000 houses in the next 5 to 7 years with the support of government. And so we know that that can happen. But that’s just one element, the community housing sector itself and the amount of projects being announced today is so exciting. And it shows that everyone’s thinking about how we can get housing on the ground, and as quickly as we can. So thank you to everybody here. Thank you for coming. We are so grateful for the support that we have with our government colleagues, to develop these projects. And thank you to our builder partners who are literally ready to go next week.
JOURNALIST:
I might just have some questions for Julie. So when is the construction supposed to finish and like the first set of people to move in?
COLLINS:
So we understand construction is likely to finish towards the end of next year, and then people will be moving in as construction is completed and sign offs are done. What happens here, of course, is that we fund the houses, state governments work with the Community Housing Providers to deliver the homes on the ground. As I said, $32 billion in new federal government initiatives since we’ve come to office to deliver more homes for Australians – more homes to rent, more homes to buy and more homes for Australians to stay each night.
JOURNALIST:
I guess just tell me a little bit about how important is this project for South Australians during this housing crisis?
CHAMPION:
Well look the list of projects that we’re funding under the Social Accelerator are all incredibly important, not just this project, which Maria and Junction are undertaking. This is a great project because it’s a mixed‑use project. It’s close to train stations, it’s close to the Tonsley Flinders Uni site. And so there’s employment here, there’s housing here, there’s public transport here. And that makes for a great outcome. Not just for social housing, but for the community more generally. But we’re funding a range of projects through CHPs, but also throughout the South Australian housing authority as well. Particularly the refurbishment of walk‑up flats, which are pretty tired, hard to tenant, and often have a range of issues. So the refurbishment of those flats in Glengowrie will help to house a lot of people, but they’ll also lead to, you know, a tremendous local uplift of the community. And a refurbishment of housing stock that’s now pretty old and pretty tight. So important for community housing providers but really important for our state public housing institutions as well.