Stockland, APA call for productivity policy reforms
Major business bosses say it is essential the Albanese government deliver at this week’s productivity roundtable. Their wishlist, if realised, poses solutions for housing supply, energy reliability and reinvigorating office towers.
Australia’s leading chief executives have asked Labor to make it easier to build more homes and save the east coast from running out of gas.
And the rest of the productivity wishlist? They’re willing to share the slack, like fund manager Magellan which said it’s taking the return to office push into its own hands.
The country’s largest home developer, Stockland, demanded Labor implement major reforms to speed-up building approvals and turbocharge the pace of housing construction.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers will move to implement a freeze on the National Construction Code and turbocharge prefabricated and modular home manufacturing to help achieve Labor’s goal of building 1.2 million new homes by mid-2029, according to The Australian.
Stockland said “a serious national conversation” about improving productivity was long overdue. It has called for reform of the state planning systems to boost time frames on delivery and fixing the significant backlog of federal-government housing environmental approvals.
It also wants a review of state and national tax and investment settings to lift foreign institutional investment.
“More broadly, addressing the skills shortage in building and construction, would also ease the handbrake on production pipelines,” Stockland chief executive Tarun Gupta said.
“We welcome a review to drive productivity reforms, to bring-forward growth and improve performance across the housing and property sector.”
The company on Wednesday flagged that falling interest rates were stimulating the market, with once laggard state Victoria seeing a material improvement in inquiries and sales in the last quarter, while there was continued demand and sustained price growth in Queensland.
Australia’s biggest gas distributor, APA Group, said the focus of the summit has to be on ensuring Australia had the right regulatory and policy arrangements in place amid continued wrangling over an east coast gas crisis thwarting the ambitions of heavy industry.
“Energy is going to be critical to productivity. You have seen some big customers come out with their results over the last few days and they have been talking about the importance of low cost gas for the viability of industry and manufacturing in Australia,” APA boss Adam Watson said.
BlueScope Steel on Monday warned Labor’s Future Made In Australia manufacturing policy will not exist unless an urgent intervention is made in the nation’s east-coast gas market to free up supply and cut prices, casting doubt over a reboot of the embattled Whyalla steelworks.
“We think the biggest lever to achieve that is to bring more gas supply to the market. There is no point trying to bring LNG imports when the cost is going to be twice that of domestic gas,” Mr Watson said.
BlueScope, which is considering a buyout of the troubled Whyalla plant in South Australia, said Australia no longer had a functioning gas market and also revealed concerns over Abu Dhabi’s $30bn takeover of Santos.
The Australian Energy Market Operator has warned the country’s east coast will experience a material shortfall of gas by 2029, prompting calls for urgent action.
In the transport sector, Transurban sought ongoing calls for changes to road user charging as a means of boosting productivity.
“The federal government has put that on the agenda, which I think is encouraging, because we think it’s important for fair and sustainable road funding,” chief executive Michelle Jablko said. “Trials tell us that when customers and road users can see side-by-side with transparency the difference between excise and road user charge, they do think it’s a fairer system, and that they really like getting data on their own usage.”
Separately, fund manager Magellan said it was focused on its individual work reforms.
“We continue to focus on things like getting people back into the office and getting the right balance and getting the right tools in, so we as a business can be as productive and as collaborative as possible, but I’ll probably leave the bigger discussion today to those who are at the conference,” chief executive Sophia Rahmani said.
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