Housing heats up as key election issue: BCA calls for $10bn reform fund

The Coalition is also calling for construction workers to be placed on the immigration skills priority list as the Albanese government faces mounting pressure on housing.

The Coalition is mounting pressure on the Albanese government on housing, calling for construction workers to be placed on the immigration skills priority list. Picture: iStock

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The Business Council of Australia is calling for major policy interventions by state and federal governments to boost housing supply, including a national reform fund worth at least $10bn to overhaul stamp duty and streamline planning and approval processes.

As battle lines on housing take shape ahead of the federal election, the Coalition is demanding home construction jobs be prioritised on the immigration skills list.

Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley said the Albanese government should prioritise professions like bricklayers, painters and roof tilers under the skilled migration program.

“Under the current draft Core Skills Occupations List, developed and signed off by (former immigration minister) Andrew Giles, (former home affairs minister) Clare O’Neil and (former skills minister) Brendan O’Connor, many key construction tradies including bricklayers, painters, roof tilers and stonemasons are not in line to be prioritised,” she said. “Instead, wushu martial arts and yoga instructors are.

“That must change. Labor must guarantee today that they will list all construction trades on the Core Skills Occupations List and ensure they are prioritised for visas under the skilled migration program. Industry sources suggest that the brief is sitting on (Home Affairs Minister Tony) Burke’s desk for decision.”

Mr Burke acknowledged a “skills shortage is one of the many challenges we face after the previous government neglected housing supply for a decade”.

“Jobs and Skills Australia was established to help overcome those years of neglect,” he said. “If the Dutton opposition cared at all about housing supply, it should stop voting with the Greens party to prevent new homes being built.”

The BCA will ask federal and state governments to enact “serious changes” to meet the Albanese government’s target of building 1.2 million more homes in the next five years.

Key among the BCA’s proposals is a national reform fund it said would have to be “at least $10bn” to tackle stamp duty reform across the country.

A report to be published on Monday by the big business peak body will focus on the need to streamline planning and approval processes through a government-funded national reform fund.

BCA chief executive Bran Black. Picture: NewsWire/Christian Gilles

BCA chief executive Bran Black said Australia’s housing supply crisis needed “urgent ­action from all levels of government … Our prosperity is being held back because many Australians can’t buy a home or are paying too much rent, and fixing this issue means putting hard but important policy changes on the table.

“We want the federal government to create a new national reform fund, like the one created in the 1990s, that incentivises states to fix regulation and planning bottle­necks that hold back homes being built.

“Governments at all levels have recognised the importance of supply as the real solution to our housing challenge. We back many of the measures already being rolled out, but the scale of the task … remains immense, and we need every good reform on the table if we’re to hit our targets.”

Murray Watt on Sunday again failed to rule out changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount amid continued speculation about housing tax ­arrangements.

Senator Watt, the Employment and Workplace Relations Minister, said negative gearing had been “the established position in Australian politics for some time” and the government had not “received advice to change that”.

He and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher also criticised the ­Coalition’s pre-election pledge unveiled at the weekend to use a $5bn infrastructure fund to unlock up to 500,000 new homes as one already being rolled out by the Albanese government.

“(Peter Dutton is) kind of picking up one of our policies, so we’ve already got one about enabling infrastructure,” Senator Gallagher told Sky News. “One constraint at the moment is particularly on greenfield development … the drains and gutters, all of that enabling work that councils and state governments need to put in. We’ve already got a program that does that. So it looks like it’s essentially copying that. ”

Opposition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume said the ­Coalition plan was different because of the time expectations that would be attached to the funding. “That’s just gone directly to the states and has stalled and the rest is for plans, not for shovel-ready projects,” she said. “This is about additionality.”