National Rental Affordability Scheme

Submitted by Louise Sales on Tue, 17/05/2011 - 15:20

Extract from Hansard
[COUNCIL — Tuesday, 17 May 2011]
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Hon Lynn MacLaren; Hon Simon O'Brien

NATIONAL RENTAL AFFORDABILITY SCHEME — PROPOSAL REJECTION

Hon LYNN MacLAREN to the minister representing the Minister for Housing:

I refer to the Western Australia government’s recent rejection of a proposal by Westridge Australia and
Providence Housing to construct 3 550 homes for low-income earners under the national rental affordability
scheme—NRAS—claiming that there was no demonstrated need for the proposal.

(1) Can the minister confirm that the project would have provided 500 low-cost dwellings in the local
government area of Cockburn, 500 in Stirling, 350 in Swan, 500 in Wanneroo and 700 in Melville?

(2) Is the minister aware of the recent Bankwest key worker housing affordability report that found that all
of these local government areas are viewed as unaffordable for key workers such as police, teachers,
nurses, firefighters and ambulance officers?

(3) Is the minister aware that the average house price in these areas is between 5.2 and 9.4 times an average
key worker’s annual salary?

(4) How is the state government measuring housing need in these local government areas?

(5) What resources has the government allocated to analyse what housing is needed in these local
government areas?

Hon SIMON O’BRIEN replied:

I thank the honourable member for some notice of this question.

Again the answer is a lot shorter than the question, which is probably giving me an undeserved reputation for
brevity! Notice of the answer provided by the Minister for Housing to the member’s question was given on
13 April and this answer is current today.

(1) The NRAS has been very successful in this state, demonstrated by the fact that we have 17 000
applications vying for the remaining 1 900 places.

(2) Yes.

(3) Yes, the Minister for Housing is aware that the average house price accounts for a large percentage of
WA workers’ salaries, including those earned by key workers.

(4)–(5) The state affordable housing strategy, which the minister will announce shortly—bear in mind this was
an answer given some time ago—promotes affordable, available and appropriate housing in all regions
within the state.