LAST month the Property Council of Australia welcomed Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ announcement of a $900 million productivity fund allowing state and territories to boost building approvals and other housing reforms.
The Property Council first proposed incentives attached to national housing targets in the mid-2000s.
The 2016 Property Council Deloitte Report, Federal Incentives for Housing Supply, undertaken by Professor Ian Harper AO, proposed a National Competition Policy for supply and housing incentives that could boost housing supply and spur state housing production within three years.
Property Council chief executive Mike Zorbas said premiers and planning ministers who put in the leg work on housing supply should be rewarded for their efforts.
“This housing crisis demands we pull every lever, and making our planning systems fit for purpose is the golden lever,” Mr Zorbas said.
“State premiers and planning ministers have a mighty housing supply challenge in front of them.
“We would have 1.3 million extra homes today if our planning systems retained the efficiency they had in the 20 years before 2001.
“Rewarding state and local government housing supply innovations should be top of mind alongside boosting last-mile infrastructure and addressing taxes that hinder investment and reduce affordability.
“With welcome and much-needed federal funding for social housing, planning reform and housing infrastructure, this new fund will help to cut through housing red tape and boost home construction.
“The Property Council also welcomes the additional focus on prefabricated and modular homes in the fund.
“We need large-scale supply chains, substantial investment and regulatory reform to put industrialised construction on the front foot in Australia.”
Current housing headwinds operating in most state markets include high cost and hurdles of financing, a decade of high new household formation, catch-up immigration pains, years of rising material and labour inputs, decreasing construction productivity, low market capacity, labour market competition and historically large infrastructure builds.
