Article by Oliver Lane, courtesy of The West Australian
07.06.2025
Federal Housing Minister Clare O’Neil has declared it’s to hard to build a home in Australia and has outlined a new plan to push State and local governments to slash red tape.
The Federal Government has ambitious goals of addressing the national housing crisis which has seen the price of properties balloon beyond what many first-time home buyers can afford.
Ms O’Neil said red tape was a major challenge to getting homes built.
“It is too hard to build a house in our country today, and one of the reasons for that is that over a 40 year period, the Commonwealth, state and territory and local government have been putting in place rules and regulations that are slowing us down and holding us back from building the housing we need,” she said on Saturday.
“When I talk to builders, they talk to me about this thicket of regulation that they face with every single aspect of trying to get a house off the ground.
“Now, if we are going to seriously confront the housing challenges faced by Australians, we’re going to have to tackle that construction productivity problem.”
Ms O’Neil said having all housing parts under the same portfolio will help streamline the Federal Government’s approach and lobbying of State and local governments.
“For the first time under our government, the different parts of housing have been brought into one portfolio and put under my control,” she said.
“For the first time, I’ll be leading the planning ministers council, I’ll be leading the business ministers council, and I’ll be leading the housing ministers council.
“This is going to give the Commonwealth a really unique opportunity to sit down with those other levels of government and say, we’ve all done too much regulating here.”
Building regulations are largely a State and local government issue, with the Federal Government left with limited ways to address the issue.
WA Planning and Housing Minister John Carey said his government was already slashing red tape, and intended to cut more.
“Western Australia has been leading the nation in terms of planning reform, we have streamlined and cut red tape from major density development right down to granny flats,” he said.
“We have a significant development pathway for major density housing projects so that we can be a facilitator and an enabler.
“We are further committed to more reform, I’ll be flagging the reform over the next few months but we do want to see how else we can build on the success already of what we’ve delivered.”
Despite the positivity by both State and Federal governments, the industry has issued a warning on the current progress.
Master Builders Australia chief executive officer Denita Wawn said all States and Territories were behind schedule to build 1.2 million well-located homes nationally by mid-2029, agreed upon at National Cabinet in 2023.
“Under the Master Builders Australia forecast, we are saying at the moment no State or Territory will meet their 1.2 million target in the five year period of the accord,” she said.
