National cabinet: Property bosses back ‘gamechanger’ housing plan

Property industry chiefs have welcomed national cabinet’s ‘ambitious’ housing plan as a key step in meeting accelerating demand for new properties.

Master Builders Australia chief executive Denita Wawn says MBA forecasts showed that Australia needed at least 200,000 dwellings built each year to meet demand. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Crosling

Property industry chiefs have welcomed national cabinet’s “ambitious” housing plan as a key step in meeting accelerating demand for new properties, with current forecasts showing a sharp decline in construction.

Housing Industry Association deputy managing director Jocelyn Martin said the government’s target of 1.2 million homes over five years was ambitious but needed.

“All the economic indicators are pointing to a slowdown in the commencement of new homes,” she said on Wednesday.

“Since the first increase in the cash rate, sales of new homes have fallen sharply and are 41.8 per cent lower than at the same time last year and 26.2 per cent lower than at the same time in 2019.”

Master Builders Australia chief executive Denita Wawn said the national cabinet plan was a “game-changer” that would boost housing supply.

Ms Wawn said MBA forecasts showed that Australia needed at least 200,000 dwellings built each year to meet demand.

“We need to go to the root of the supply problem, getting projects off the ground which are lagging due to a combination of high costs, a declining investment appetite from rising interest rates, and delays in approvals,” she said.

Property Council of Australia chief executive Mike Zorbas said the body backed a “commitment to strategic and sustainable planning of our cities that accounts for population growth and aims to be agile, accountable and co-ordinated at the state and territory level”.

“National cabinet is tackling our housing supply deficit in a co-ordinated way for the first time in a long time. It is taking a big picture approach to housing supply improvements that, if successful, will boost access to housing for all Australians,” he said.

Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott said there was an “urgent need to fix planning systems that are restricting new housing supply”.

“The Prime Minister is absolutely correct when he says, ‘supply is key’,” she said.

Campbell Hanan, the head of property development company Mirvac, said boosting the construction workforce was critical to ensuring there would be enough boots on the ground to deliver the federal government’s new national housing target.

“At the moment we have a finite amount of construction workers in Australia that are being torn in two directions,” he said. “One is a record infrastructure spend by governments around the country and the other is obviously the shortage in housing. Both … can’t work together simultaneously with the workforce we have.

“Skilled immigration in construction would certainly help to alleviate some of those challenges with regard to construction itself.”

Mr Hanan said it was important that new planning regimens supported a mix of housing, and in particular affordable apartments and emerging housing types such as build-to-rent and land lease developments.

“Certainly when we look at the affordability of an apartment relative to a house we think that’s going to change the nature over time of how people think about apartment living,” he said. “We think build-to-rent is just another typology that allows people the security of tenure over a long period of time, which is really important for stability of rental markets.”

“We think that land lease is a really interesting asset class as well because it allows a different level of affordability in non-city locations, which by its nature I think is a really positive.

“I think we need all different housing typologies to play a part.”

Peter Huddle, the managing director of mall owner Vicinity, said the shortage of housing had presented opportunities for his company to consider more residential developments on its sites.