The Federal Government’s announcement last week of the HomeBuilder stimulus package is the kind of confidence building measure we have been strongly advocating for a number of months.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the Australian economy we were facing a significant drop in new construction activity in coming months.
The coronavirus threatened to significantly worsen an already pessimistic outlook, particularly when the massive cut to immigration over the next few years is added to the equation.
There’s certainly some room for improvement to the design of the scheme and we are taking this up with the Federal Government on behalf of our members.
This includes the requirement for construction to commence within three months of contracts being signed which clearly mitigates against new apartment projects, and indeed could prove challenging for new houses given the timeframes required for planning approvals and land titling processes.
State and territory governments have a critical role to play in delivering on the stimulatory promise of the HomeBuilder scheme by clearing away planning and approval roadblocks, as well as making their own budget contributions through grants and stamp duty concessions.
Pleasingly, a number of state and territory governments such as the ACT, Tasmania and WA have already made announcements in this regard.
Our next livestream event on how we turbocharge Australia’s economic rebound from COVID-19 will examine some of these measures in more detail. I hope you can join us this Friday to be part of this important conversation.