Mr. John O'Connor:

The serviced sites fund would be critically important for the delivery by local authorities, approved housing bodies and the LDA of affordable purchase housing and cost rental housing. On the purchase side it is one way of reducing the cost for the purchaser, along with the use of land. That would involve the continued and perhaps more flexible use of the serviced sites fund, which is currently primarily focused on infrastructure. If local authorities are given more flexibility in its use, which the Department and Minister are considering, that will be important. Its use in the future will be very important.

The Senator referred to the LDA. Delivery on State and local authority lands, supported by the LDA, will be very important. It ties into the land aggregation scheme. Lands which were purchased by local authorities are now being fed into the LDA. There are three specific sites that between them will deliver around 1,500 homes.

The price paid by local authorities was the price of land at the time. The important thing now is that we utilise land and start delivering on scale on those lands. The major advantage of the LDA is that it is able to deliver on big developments and can deliver mixed-use developments. A major focus for the LDA will be affordable housing, namely, cost rental and affordable purchase housing.