Latest news with #HousingAccord
Perth Now
14-07-2025
- Business
- Perth Now
Chalmers backs ‘ambitious' 1.2m homes goal
Jim Chalmers has doubled down on Labor's ability to build 1.2 million homes by June 30, 2029, after accidentally published advice from Treasury said the deadline would not be met. Partially unredacted files released to the ABC through a Freedom of Information request showed Treasury warning that the National Housing Accords would 'not be met,' and suggested a review of Housing Australia, the national housing agency. While Labor has committed to building 1.2 million well-located homes in the five years to June 30, 2029, the target is already 55,300 homes behind following its first year of operation. Recent data compiled by the Institute of Public Affairs has also revealed that in the decade between 2014 to 2024, the time it took to build a freestanding home had increased 50 per cent, from 8.5 months to 12.7 months. In the same period the cost of building materials had also soared by 53 per cent. Jim Chalmers backed Labor's ability to reach the 1.2 million Housing Accord target. NewsWire/ Martin Ollman Credit: News Corp Australia Despite the slow start, Mr Chalmers backed Labor's ability to reach the target, adding that he was 'pretty relaxed' about the accidental FOI slip. 'Under current trajectories, we would fall short. But that doesn't mean that between now and over the course of the next four years, that we can't consider ways and work with the states and territories and others, local governments and others, on ways to build more homes,' he told reporters on Monday. While he acknowledged the government needs to 'do more' and 'do better' to reach the 1.2 million figure, he said the ambition was warranted given that housing is one of the 'defining challenges in our economy'. 'It's not the worst thing from time to time for it to be understood in the broader community that this will be a difficult target to meet,' he said. 'But if we all do our bit, we all play our part, as the Commonwealth has been willing to play, then we can build the homes that people desperately need.' Under the policy, Australia needs to build 1.2 million well-located homes in the five years to June 30, 2029. NewsWire/ Gaye Gerard Credit: News Corp Australia Acting Coalition housing spokesman James Paterson said the advice from Treasury has 'confirmed what Australians already know'. 'Labor will fail to build the 1.2 million new homes they promised,' he said. 'Under the former Coalition Government, Australia built an average of 190,000 new homes per year. Under Labor, that figure has dropped to barely 170,000. To meet their own housing target, Labor needs to build 250,000 new homes annually. 'Instead of building housing, Labor are obsessed with building housing bureaucracies.' Housing Minister Clare O'Neil has previously vowed to cut red tape and regulation to supercharge the number of homes coming onto the market. Housing Minister Clare O'Neil has vowed to cut red tape and regulation. NewsWire/ Martin Ollman Credit: News Corp Australia Like Mr Chalmers, she said the Productivity Roundtable in August would help identify ways to improve planning policy. 'It's just too hard to build a house in this country because we're not innovating enough and because we don't have the workforce we need,' she told the ABC earlier this month. 'So, the roundtable in August is going to be a really important opportunity for me and other people in this sector to come forward and say we need to make some big decisions about how we are going to shift those dynamics so we can get better housing outcomes for Australians.' Sharing more details of the highly-anticipated talks in August, Mr Chalmers said business leaders, unions and regulators would be asked to focus on resilience, productivity and sustainability across the three days. RBA governor Michele Bullock will speak on the first day of talks, while Productivity Commissioner Danielle Wood and Treasury Secretary Jenny Wilkinson will respectively take charge of days three and four.
Perth Now
14-07-2025
- Business
- Perth Now
Shock tax hike advice to Treasurer
Accidentally published advice from Treasury has revealed Jim Chalmers has been advised to increase taxes in order to return the budget to surplus, with the government also warned it will not meet its 1.2 million homes target as part of the National Housing Accords. First reported by the ABC, the details were mistakenly revealed in an unredacted Freedom of Information request submitted by the broadcaster and shared in an incoming government brief issued by Treasury after Labor won the May 3 election. Although Treasury requested the documents be deleted and unpublished after noting the error, the ABC said the details were 'in the public interest'. While no specific taxes were identified, the Treasurer was told he would need to identify 'additional revenue and spending reductions' in order to put the budget in a 'sustainable' position, the ABC reported. The papers said 'tax should be raised as part of broader tax reform,' and suggested 'indirect taxes' and superannuation taxes as a potential avenues. Treasurer Jim Chalmers has been urged by Treasury to increase taxes in order to return the budget to a 'sustainable' position, unredacted documents have revealed. NewsWire/ Martin Ollman Credit: News Corp Australia This comes as Labor intends to double the taxes on superannuation accounts above $3m, from 15 to 30 per cent, with Mr Chalmers stating the move would only affect 0.5 per cent of people. However the Opposition has opposed the tax as the $3m threshold will not be indexed, with the tax also affecting unrealised gains, penalising people who hold property and other assets in their super portfolio. In the unredacted papers, Housing Minister Clare O'Neil was also advised to 'adjust' Labor's 1.2 million homes target, which it currently must meet by June 30, 2029. Ms O'Neil was urged to look at how migration and skills training could boost the construction workforce, and reassess how to best use state and territory grants as 'leverage' for improved home building rates. Speaking on ABC RN on Monday, Environment Minister Murray Watt said it was 'not unusual' for a minister to receive advice from government departments. He also said Labor remained committed to the Housing Accord targets. 'I, of course, haven't seen them (the Treasury advice documents) myself, but you will have seen that we've taken a lot of steps already to ensure that we can meet that housing goal,' he said. 'We recognise that it's ambitious, but it's certainly our intention to meet it.'
Sky News AU
30-06-2025
- Business
- Sky News AU
Australia 'lagging' behind insufficient 1.2 million new homes target, REA Group senior economist Anne Flaherty declares
Aussies desperate to break into the nation's housing market have been delivered a devastating reality check as Labor attempts to boost housing supply. The Albanese government has promised to build 1.2 million new homes by 2029. However, construction efforts in Australia have not matched up to the target which are also insufficient to meet the nation's housing needs, REA Group senior economist Anne Flaherty said. 'We are lagging,' Ms Flaherty said on Business Now. 'There are some positive signs that things are picking up a bit but if we continue on the trajectory that we're already on, we're looking at around a 20 per cent shortfall in the government's target of 1.2 million houses or homes. 'I should add to that … (Labor's) 1.2 million new homes is really what we need to keep the ratio of supply of homes to the population steady from where we are. 'With population growth continuing to outpace forecasts, that's likely to mean that this 1.2 million new homes - which we are unlikely to achieve - would already be below what we would actually need.' Ms Flaherty's warning comes as recent figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed the nation is falling well short of its 1.2 million new home goal. If the government were to achieve its target, it would need to ensure 240,000 are built each year. However, ABS figures show that since the Housing Accord began in July 2024, only about 90,000 new dwellings have been completed. There were 90,136 houses built from July to December 2024 under the Albanese government, almost the same amount delivered by the Morrison government over the same period in 2021. The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council has projected the government will fall short of its target by more than 250,000 homes—or roughly 20 per cent. In separate findings, the ABS found that younger Aussies are struggling more to get their foot in the door of the housing market compared to previous generations. About half (55 per cent) of Millennials are homeowners, whereas 66 per cent of Baby Boomers were homeowners at the same age. In 1984, the average Australian could buy a home that cost 3.3 times their annual income, while in 2025, the average person faces house prices 10 times their annual pay packet. In the lead up to the 2025 Federal Election, both major parties put the nation's housing crisis under the microscope. Labor pledged $10b to build 100,000 homes exclusively for first home buyers and promised to guarantee mortgages for homeowners that can put down a five per cent deposit. The Coalition said it would allow home buyers to take upwards of $50,000 out of their super to put towards a down payment and vowed to unlock 500,000 new homes through $5b of investment in essential infrastructure.
Daily Mail
12-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Ben Fordham unleashes withering spray as Albanese fails to meet housing target because of immigration
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his government has been slammed by radio host Ben Fordham over Australia's worsening housing crisis. It follows the release of a report from the Government's National Housing Supply and Affordability Council (NHSAC), showing Australia will miss its own housing targets. According to the report, housing construction is at its lowest point in a decade, with just 177,000 new dwellings completed in 2024, well short of the government's 233,000 target. The Council warned that housing is not being built quickly enough to meet growing demand and relieve affordability pressures. 'The Council's analysis shows that expected new housing supply will be insufficient to meaningfully improve housing affordability for all households,' the report stated. It forecasts that only 938,000 new dwellings will be completed across Australia over the five-year Housing Accord period ending 30 June 2029, far below the 1.2 million target. No state or territory is expected to meet its allocated share. On Thursday, Fordham lashed out at the government, blaming slow building rates and rising immigration for exacerbating the crisis. 'The Albanese government promised to build more houses, today they're building less. They promised to lower immigration, today, they're bringing in more,' he said. 'The PM will tell us he's bringing down the migration numbers... and building as many homes as he can, but we're not seeing it.' 'We simply can't build the houses fast enough. What we need is a sharp focus on skilled migration and coordination of housing supply policy with immigration numbers.' The NHSAC report also pointed to persistent challenges such as labour shortages, low productivity, and rising material costs as major factors dragging down new supply. Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness, Senator Andrew Bragg, has slammed at Labor's performance, saying the government had failed to support the very people responsible for delivering new housing. 'Labor has failed to get the houses built because they have done nothing to help the people who build houses: builders, tradespeople and developers,' Bragg said. He further highlighted that the government's flagship $10billion Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) failed to deliver a single new home during the previous term. 'Instead, it was acquiring existing housing, thereby making the supply problem worse... Labor's Housing Infrastructure Fund also failed to build any homes with $1.5 billion,' he added. Housing Minister Clare O'Neil last week pointed to bureaucracy as a major barrier to construction. 'It's just too hard to build a house in this country,' O'Neil told the ABC. 'And it's become uneconomic to build the kind of housing that our country needs most: affordable housing, especially for first home buyers.' One person arrives to Australia to live every 44 seconds according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Under the Albanese government, overseas migration reached record highs. In 2022–23, net overseas migration hit 536,000, the highest in Australia's history. While in 2023–24, it dropped to 446,000, and is expected to fall to 340,000 in 2024–25. As of March 2025, the national median dwelling price surpassed $1million for the first time, reaching $1,002,500, following a 0.7 per cent quarterly increase. The annual growth rate slowed to 5.9 per cent in March 2025, down from 9.5% the previous year New data about Australia's migration will be released on Friday.
Sky News AU
12-06-2025
- Business
- Sky News AU
‘Asleep at the wheel': Ben Fordham unleashes on Anthony Albanese for torching housing targets with excessive immigration intake
Ben Fordham has blasted Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in a fiery verbal spray, accusing the government of undermining its own housing targets by allowing in record levels of migrants. Sky News uncovered on Wednesday that the Albanese government would fail to reach it's target of constructing 1.2 million new homes over five years, with forecasts putting Australia 260,000 short by the deadline of June 2029. The State of the Housing System 20205 report forecast the government would only build 938,000 new homes by June 2029, well short of the 1.2 million repeatedly touted by the Prime Minister. Speaking to Sky News, Urban Development Institute of Australia President Col Dutton said that the UDIA National analysis found that Australia 'will actually undershoot the Housing Accord target by up to 400,000 homes', and that the accelerated immigration program had only made matters worse. Fordham said the Albanese government was deceiving the Australian public if it continued to tout its promise of constructing 1.2 million homes over five years, and that the current rates of immigration were untenable. 'The Albanese government promised to build more houses, today they're building less. They promised to lower immigration, today, they're bringing in more,' Fordham said on his 2GB breakfast program. 'The PM will tell us he's bringing down the migration numbers,' referencing the government's move to limit international student arrivals and 'building as many homes as he can, but we're not seeing it'. Fordham said Australia's housing build was "going backwards" due to the immigration surge. He said while Australians were not ant-immigration the "speed and the size" of the government's intake had caused angst in the community. Mr Dutton said factoring in immigration, UDIA data projections showed that the net losses in housing had ballooned to more than 1,500 every week. 'We simply can't build the houses fast enough. What we need is a sharp focus on skilled migration and coordination of housing supply policy with immigration numbers.' He also stated that the construction industry was being strangled by a myriad of challenges including rigid regulations and red tape, approval delays and a lack of coordination between all levels of governments on environmental laws. 'Supply is being choked by development approvals processes through councils and state governments, lack of funding for enabling infrastructure to service development ready land and cumbersome environmental approval processes lacking a coordinated approach between all levels of government," he said. ABS dwelling completion data showed that Australia had built only 166,000 homes in 2024, with 446,000 net overseas migrants entering the country that same year. With an average of 2.5 people per household, this created a housing shortage of roughly 12,400 in 2024 alone, separate from the existing shortfall.
