In the right hands, AI can help solve the housing crisis

Last week the NSW Housing Delivery Authority (HDA) – the body created last year to fast-track major housing approvals – reportedly stood down a senior staff member for using AI software to collate and standardise planning data.

I don’t know the details beyond what I read in this masthead, and appreciate legitimate concerns around unauthorised tools and transparency – but I have to ask – is the HDA using every available tool, including AI, to speed up planning? And if not, why not?

Unlocking housing supply is critical to improving affordability – AI could make a difference. Credit: Sam Mooy

I think government departments across the country should be experimenting with AI to work out how it can be used to deliver better public services. And if they aren’t, they’re letting us down.

Community attitudes to AI vary, but Australians are alive to many risks – from misinformation, deepfakes and bias, to the impact on democracy, jobs and privacy, to the control of US big tech.

Robo-debt also lurks in our minds, and while that catastrophe didn’t use AI, it has generated widespread distrust of automated government decision-making.

The risks are real and complex, but we must also recognise and capitalise on the enormous potential – especially in the public sector. Because AI could unlock a step-change in quality and efficiency, and those benefits could flow to those Australians struggling the most.

Let’s take housing affordability – our country’s worst social issue with profound economic consequences, and which hits younger, poorer Australians the hardest. Only 2 per cent of rental homes are affordable to key workers and your ability to buy a home is now significantly dependent on the wealth of your parents.

Unlocking supply is critical to improving affordability and AI could make a difference. The Grattan Institute and others identify faster approvals as one of the simplest and most effective ways to unlock supply and reduce costs.

Accelerating planning approvals is exactly the kind of challenge where the smart use of technology, including AI, can improve public services. Planning approvals are a rules-based, document-heavy process – thousands of pages checked against standard criteria.

Local councils say their planning departments are under-resourced – the average development of more than 20 dwellings in Sydney now takes over 300 days to process.

AI could take a lion’s share of this burden, reviewing applications and making recommendations, while still allowing planners to make final decisions.

It is not impossible to imagine a world where AI could be used to increase transparency, track delays, and even give applicants early feedback on their likelihood of approval before they hit submit.

And the possibilities for AI extend beyond planning. What about fewer delays at Services Australia? Faster visa approvals? Education materials personalised to the maths curriculum your child is struggling with?

Australian companies like Harrison AI have already developed AI tools to review and flag thousands of radiology results, prioritising the most concerning for urgent human review, rather than leaving them languishing in the queue. If Australia’s government is leading AI adoption, it also will give more opportunities for Australian AI companies like Harrison to grow here, and export their innovation to the world.

And we need to do something. Because government budgets are constrained at the local, state and federal levels, but our population is ageing and our desire for better healthcare, education and government services only grows.

With inflation still high, we can’t spend more on public services without risking further inflation or negatively impacting the private sector. Our best chance of improved services is innovating to be more efficient on the things that can be automated and investing our resources for those critical things – such the care given by our teachers and healthcare workers – that can’t.

So, what would it take to unlock the upsides of AI and government innovation more broadly?

Our public services need to embrace opportunities, learn from the best in the world, consider how to manage the risks and be ambitious in their goals.

But to do this, it needs the Australian people to give governments permission to try things.

We’re conscious of the risks on automation epitomised in Robo-debt – but we need to recognise that Robo-debt had nothing to do with AI – it was a profoundly human mistake. A poorly designed automated system, based on false assumptions, enabled by political opportunism and bureaucratic cover up for all the wrong reasons.

We shouldn’t let bureaucratic timidity prevent us from using the latest technology to deliver the public services we need.

We may not want public servants to use home-made AI to tackle their jobs, but we do want our public service organisations to ambitiously roll out the best technology available to speed up their processes and decision-making and deliver the best service they can in the most productive and efficient way possible.

And that means Artificial Intelligence for the right goals, with appropriate human oversight.

We have to manage risk rather than shy away from opportunity.

Allegra Spender is the member for Wentworth.

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