Federal Budget falls short of transformative housing reform, says HIA
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Photo by Pavel Danilyuk
The Housing Industry Association has criticised the Federal Government’s latest Budget as a missed opportunity to address Australia’s housing supply crisis, warning that modest measures will not be enough to meet the national target of 1.2 million new homes over five years.
HIA managing director Jocelyn Martin said the Budget again failed to deliver the structural reforms needed to fix deep-rooted issues affecting the residential construction sector.
“The Albanese government’s fourth Federal Budget provided a critical juncture to double down and pull out all stops to address the nation’s crippling housing crisis, but, yet again it was a case of focusing on small target solutions,” Ms Martin said.
“It was pleasing to see boosting housing supply as one of the key policy areas for this Budget, but the polices announced have missed the mark on addressing the key structural reforms needed.”
Ms Martin said Australia needs to deliver 250,000 new homes annually to keep pace with population growth and alleviate pressure on housing and rental affordability. However, the current trajectory points to a shortfall of more than 70,000 new homes each year.
She cited government-imposed barriers, labour shortages, and regulatory burdens as the primary reasons for this gap.
“Instead, we are facing a shortfall of new home delivery in excess of 70,000 year on year due to government induced roadblocks, chronic skills shortages and the outrageous level of taxes and regulatory barriers being imposed on home building and new home buyers,” she said.
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While acknowledging initiatives such as the expanded Help to Buy scheme and new funding for prefabricated housing, Ms Martin said these would not be sufficient to shift the dial on long-term supply constraints.
“Expansion of the Help to Buy (shared equity scheme) and increased funding to support greater uptake of prefab housing are helpful initiatives, but in themselves are not going to shift the dial on addressing the two decade long housing challenges the industry faces,” she said.
To meet the federal target, HIA is calling for a more ambitious and coordinated response, including:
- Treating housing as a national priority and critical infrastructure
- Long-term funding for last-mile infrastructure
- Removing supply-side barriers
- Addressing the industry’s skills shortage—estimated at more than 83,000 tradies
- Reforming financial settings to support home ownership
“Governments can’t just keep doing more of the same and think it will solve the situation; rather bold and courageous leadership is needed and unfortunately this Budget has missed the mark to deliver a truly transformative package of housing reforms,” Ms Martin said.