O’Neil says she’s not a YIMBY, but here’s how she plans to help fix the housing shortage

Planning laws are placing the interests of anti-development residents above Australians who want affordable homes, federal Housing Minister Clare O’Neil has declared as the government faces falling short of its own promise to build 1.2 million homes by the end of the decade.

O’Neil said she expected Labor’s $10 billion election promise to build 100,000 homes specifically for first home buyers would be fast-tracked through the states to avoid the quicksand of planning rules. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has handed her more responsibility to help fix the housing shortage.

Housing Minister Clare O’Neil and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visit a housing development in Adelaide during the election campaign.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

O’Neil’s second-term focus to overhaul planning schemes and drive up construction by slashing building regulations represents a shift from Labor’s first-term agenda centred on social housing and its shared equity scheme.

“Planning laws at the state level are being used much too much to protect existing residents, and not enough to address the fact that we’ve got millions of people who are in housing distress,” O’Neil said in an interview with this masthead.

“We need more housing of all kinds, and medium-density housing in the middle-ring suburbs is obviously going to be a really important part of the mix.”

Slow and rigid planning regulations are a key reason that most analysts estimate Labor is on track to fall more than 200,000 homes short of its 2022 budget target to build 1.2 million properties between 2024 and mid-2029.

A major problem is that planning laws are the domain of state and local governments. O’Neil pledged to use every tool at her disposal to shift the dial to reduce what she described as the “thicket of regulation” builders faced.

“There is a lot of work that we’re all going to need to do in the next three years, and I’d include the Commonwealth in that. None of this is an attack on the states. We’ve all been a part of this problem, and we all need to be a part of the solution,” she said.

The NSW and Victorian state governments are trying to simplify planning rules, but have run into opposition from local councils, community groups and vested interests.

In Melbourne, for instance, the Banyule City Council recently rejected an “off-the-shelf” three-storey apartment building approved by the state government. In Sydney, the Australian Turf Club last month rejected a state government plan to turn the Rosehill racecourse into 25,000 homes.

Treasury has taken greater control over housing, bringing together elements that have been in other parts of the government, including social security. The change means O’Neil, rather than the industry ministry, will now take charge of federal-state ministerial taskforces to simplify building rules.

O’Neil has also been made minister for cities, a portfolio she said would focus on planning.

O’Neil said she would not use the term YIMBY – “Yes, In My Backyard”, a counter to the anti-development NIMBY culture – to describe herself.

“We need to sit down with the states and understand whether there are ways that we can reduce some of the restrictions that we’re putting on builders,” she said.

Centre for Independent Studies housing economist Peter Tulip has said local planning laws and community consultation processes encouraged a loud minority of anti-housing residents to override the views of the quiet majority who support new developments.

Liberal frontbencher Andrew Bragg says the government has done little to boost housing across the country.Credit: Oscar Colman

Labor took a big-spending housing agenda to the last election after much of its first term was occupied by feuding with the Greens on stalled policies, including a social housing fund and a shared equity scheme, that eventually passed the parliament.

Its election pledges included an expansion of the first home buyer scheme to allow people to enter the property market with a 5 per cent deposit from January 1.

Coalition housing spokesman Andrew Bragg said O’Neil’s remarks about cutting red tape in building was “too silly for words”.

“Labor is the red tape champion: last parliament, Labor enacted 1500 new regulations in the treasury and infrastructure portfolios where housing policy resides. Labor’s killing the dream,” he said.

The Productivity Commission, the government’s independent economic think tank, is overhauling the national occupational licensing scheme so that tradespeople can transport their skills around the country more easily.

In a submission to the commission’s inquiry, the Plumbing Industry Climate Action Centre said a national licensing system would deliver considerable benefits to the building industry.

It noted that, under current laws, plumbers had to hold individual licences in every state and pay fees to each regulator, while accusing state building ministers of not harmonising regulations.

“Industry is strong in its view that there is real potential and opportunity to improve productivity through greater regulatory harmonisation,” it said.

“However, driving up the level of regulatory harmonisation will require a level of leadership and policy intent which has not been evident to date.”

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