Page 1584 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 12 August 1992
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actually completed. That is totally different. The figures would bear no relationship to the annual approvals because the Minister for planning and development told us only this morning - I think he confirmed it - that there is a continuing need for around 3,000 to 3,500 new residences every year. To that extent, the building industry is in a stable state. Three thousand to 3,500 new residential units have to be built every year.
Mr Connolly: But there were not when you were Chief Minister. Only 2,500 went for approval.
MR KAINE: We do not know, because you have never told us how many were actually built. The fact that 1,357 approvals for new residences were issued in a year says nothing about how many residential units were actually built in that year. There must have been 3,000 to 3,500 because we have known for at least the last five years, according to the demographic projections and the growth rates of population and the like, that that has been the annual need, and it has not changed. The Minister confirmed it this morning; it continues and into the foreseeable future will continue as a demand rate, that every year 3,000 to 3,500 residential units will be required.
Mr Wood: It jumped a couple of years ago.
MR KAINE: Yes, it jumped from about 2,700.
Mr Wood: Less than that.
MR KAINE: No. I can quote figures, too, and I have been the Minister too, do not forget. I do understand, Minister. The Planning Minister who preceded the one we have now did a far better job with this than the one we have now. I am very interested in the fact that the Minister for Urban Services does not tell us how many residential units have actually been built in any year, and I doubt whether he can tell me.
Mr Connolly: Building approvals is the statistic that is used in the national accounts.
MR KAINE: He is trying to talk me down, but I doubt whether he can tell me how many units were actually built last year or the year before. I found it very interesting. I have a long association with this. I remind members that I have been a member of precedent bodies to this one since 1974. The only person in this chamber with more experience is Mr Cornwell, and the only reason that he has more is that I was out of the country for four years and he continued to serve. In all of those years, as long back as I can remember, the Federal Government used to say, "We are planning so many housing starts this year", and at the end of the year we would say, "How many did you actually finish?"; but nobody could tell me, over the last 20 years, how many have actually been finished in any year.
This Minister cannot tell me either. He is too busy telling us how many were approved, because he thinks that those statistics give him an edge. They do not. People do not come in and ask for approvals to build houses just because Mr Connolly is the Minister. If he really thinks that, he is fooling himself. Let us have some real figures about actual building activity. That is the crunch.
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