‘Nothing off the table’: Libs offer rare olive branch to help Labor fix housing crisis

NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman says he will approach a rare meeting with Premier Chris Minns about how to jointly tackle the state’s planning woes “without demands or prerequisites” but stressed that his commitment to bipartisanship would not give Labor free rein.

Speakman will meet Minns on Tuesday afternoon to plan how Labor and the Coalition could work together on overhauling the state’s planning system, which both leaders see as a major roadblock to meeting NSW’s housing demand.

Despite criticising many of the government’s attempts at housing reform, the opposition has proposed a new bipartisan approach, starting with a meeting with Minns ahead of a roundtable with industry in a bid to overhaul the state’s 45-year-old planning legislation.

NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman and NSW Premier Chris MinnsCredit: James Brickwood, Edwina Pickles

Speaking to the Herald on Monday, Speakman said the meeting, which he requested, was a “great chance to set in train a bipartisan process to reform our slow and complex planning system”.

“That said, the opposition will still hold the government to account on its failure to stand up to Canberra on immigration, the effect that its taxes and charges are having on the financial feasibility of actually building new homes and its lack of supporting infrastructure,” Speakman said.

He stressed Tuesday’s meeting should be focused on “what we potentially can agree on”.

“Nothing is off the table, there are no demands or prerequisites, although we think the principles that underpinned our 2013 proposed reforms are a useful starting point,” Speakman said.

In 2013, then planning minister Brad Hazzard was blocked in his attempt to pass planning reforms that aimed to streamline development by forcing councils to approve projects in some high-growth areas within 25 days if they met requirements such as heights and environmental standards.

The proposed legislation was controversial in part because it would have limited the community’s right to object to projects in some cases. It was abandoned after it faced opposition from Labor and some crossbench MPs.

Speakman said it was “in the overwhelming public interest to get the planning system sorted out”.

“We have a housing crisis for renters and buyers, and it’s simply unacceptable that, unless you have the bank of mum and dad, very likely that if you’re under 40, you can’t afford to buy a home in Sydney,” Speakman said.

“There may be some cynicism about the politics of all this but when we hopefully come back to government, we want to be governing with a planning system that is working.”

In a letter accepting Speakman’s offer of a new approach, Minns said it was clear that both leaders shared the common goal “that more housing should be an urgent priority for NSW”.

“The NSW government has already introduced a series of reforms to meet this goal, including the Transport Oriented Development program, the establishment of the Housing Delivery Authority, and the rollout of low and mid-rise housing reforms,” Minns’ letter said.

“However, there is an opportunity to entrench these changes into law and look to other reforms that could be included.”

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