We are an evidence-led organisation. We call government out when they do the wrong thing and lend our strong voice in support when they do the right thing.
We are not building enough homes. The situation is especially acute in our capital cities.
Federal Housing Minister Julie Collins agreed with these points and the need for more housing of more diverse types when she launched our thought leadership piece A Stark Reality with me in Parliament House at the beginning of the month. It was a similar acknowledgment when our Queensland Division encouraged the Queensland state government to convene a housing summit last year.
Our proposals in A Stark Reality are simple. They are long term unfinished business for the nation.
Set national planning and housing targets with local accountability. Create a national housing and planning scorecard with incentives attached. Be willing to step in where governments fail to meet their supply obligations.
In addition to planning and housing supply improvements, get the national and state settings right for community building options around concentrations of transport, jobs or government services. Retirement living, build-to-rent or purpose-built student accommodation can each move the needle on supply and lower prices across the housing spectrum and age cohorts.
The politics of meeting the broad housing needs of each state and the nation often get derailed in the local politics of planning.
In South Australia Premier Malinauskas agrees too, he is intent on significant new supply of greenfields housing. However, as he said to our South Australian Division lunch this month, the Premier agrees with the self-evident Property Council point that people need choices to suit different phases of their lives and that density done well is welcome.
Enter Premier Mark McGowan and his Ministers. Last week premier McGowan stood in front of 755 people at our WA Division event and announced a decisive series of evidence-led reforms that set the national benchmark for housing productivity.
The Western Australian government, like many others, has struggled to meet its own infill objectives over the decades, and the repercussions are real, with a rental vacancy rate of less than one per cent.
The Premier’s proposal includes a new permanent assessment pathway that would allow for an evaluation and determination in 120 days, as well as making the state’s Development Assessment Panels (DAPs) a wholly opt-in process for any development worth more than $2 million, allowing proponents to seek approval from the relevant local government if that is their preference.
The Premier should be commended for carefully increasing the productivity of the planning system in order to unlock more choice and more housing supply. This will apply downward pressure on the cost of buying and renting homes across Western Australian communities.
The reform comes at a time when all state and territory governments have signed on to a federal Housing Accord, which established a five-year goal of building one million new houses from 2024.
Market supply should take care of 900,000 or more of these and yet it will be incredibly difficult to achieve one million homes by 2029 without decisive planning reform and a serious commitment to state housing targets.
Premier McGowan has raised the bar, let’s see if other state government leaders can match him.
