In Canberra this Monday past and again tomorrow.
Another press conference with pro-reform, pro-housing crossbenchers, Pocock, Chaney, Tink. Another push to get build-to-rent housing reforms through the Senate.
Historic opportunity. 105,000 rental homes the Federal parliament can unlock in the next decade. More than twice the number of homes from the welcome Housing Australia Future Fund (40,000 all up).
Pulling out all stops. Should be a national imperative to make investment in new homes as simple as the other property assets essential to our cities.
Experts remind us that GST remains a BTR barrier and equally state governments’ smug and supply-harming surcharges on ‘foreigners’.
Likewise excluding legacy assets from the equation would be a missed opportunity to create a more liquid and level playing field that would eventually allow local super funds to add to the supply of new rental homes.
And then there is the pressing need to include purpose-built student accommodation in the National Housing Accord.
Those ongoing imperatives do not detract from the fact that even passing the compromise version of this federal reform would significantly encourage BTR housing investment.
Such a reform would show that Australia is serious about adding to the choice and new supply of homes at the scale we need, in the centre of our cities and closest to opportunity.
Now to see how the final windy sitting weeks of the year treat the flickering candle of our rental housing hopes.
Sue Lloyd Hurwitz National Honorary Life Member
Last Wednesday night at the wonderful Capital Markets Forum Dinner it was a pleasure to bring to life the National Board’s induction of Sue Lloyd Hurwitz as a National Honorary Life Member.
A mentor to me, among many, Sue continues to be a generous leader and equally a leader of conviction. In our industry and beyond. Listen to this for some greatest hits.
Non executive director Rio Tinto Limited and Macquarie Group
Member of the Sydney Opera House Trust and the INSEAD Global Board
President of Chief Executive Women
Chair of the Australian Centre for Gender Equality and Inclusion@Work Advisory Board
Chair of the Federal Government’s National Housing Supply and Affordability Council.
Prior to this, Sue was Chief Executive Officer of Mirvac and a Director of the Mirvac Board from 2012 to 2023.
That was off the springboard of being Managing Director at LaSalle Investment Management in London and senior executive positions at MGPA, Macquarie Group and Lend Lease Corporation, working in Australia, the US and Europe.
There was some real joy in Sue’s speech. Just ask about the 93 Icelandic Australians on whom she wrote her undergraduate thesis.
However Sue’s real call to arms came below, courtesy of the top shelf transcription skills of son Dan Lloyd Hurwitz.
I stayed in the real estate sector because I was completely enthralled by it. I think many in this room would share the sentiment of why we work in this sector.
It is a sector that really matters.
It really matters to every Australian life, in so many dimensions.
It matters how people work, it matters how people shop to feed their families, it matters how people engage in leisure activities.
It matters over the structure of our cities in their entirety.
It matters how we get around in our cities.
It matters to the 170,000 households on public housing waiting lists.
It matters to the 120,000 people experiencing homelessness; and if you are a First Nations person, you are nine times more likely to experience homelessness than a non-Indigenous Australian. And for a nation with the wealth of ours, with an unbroken record of GDP growth for over 30 years with one very tiny COVID recession in there somewhere, how can that be a just outcome for our country?
And so what we do as an industry really matters.
It really matters how we run our companies and how we run our investments in this sector. It matters how we think about gender equality in what can be a very male dominated environment.
There it is. Few industries can give you that level of purpose, few leaders that vision.
Thank you Sue.
Next week: the emerging housing and planning Federal party platforms