Housing minister, roundtable keen to take red pen to 3000-page building code
By Paul Sakkal, Shane Wright, Millie Muroi and Brittany Busch
Business bosses, unions and ministers have agreed Australia must strip away red and green tape to speed up home construction, as momentum builds to overhaul Australia’s complex building code, but some members warned the move could stop households reaping the rewards of home batteries.
As the government scrambles to meet its housing targets, Housing Minister Clare O’Neil briefed the productivity roundtable on day two and won support for simplifying the National Construction Code. She described the code as “ridiculous” in its complexity to this masthead last week, but outspoken Labor MP Ed Husic warned against a pause in updating building standards, arguing Labor would be repeating a “bad mistake” of the last Coalition government that did not lead to more homes being built.
Housing Minister Clare O’Neil, centre.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Attendees agreed on the need to pause any additions to the code that were unrelated to quality and safety, according to business lobbyists Innes Willox and Andrew McKellar. Finance Minister Katy Gallagher confirmed the roundtable was discussing the idea of totally rewriting the code.
Federal officials in charge of the construction rules are currently weighing up a suite of additions to the code in a triennial review, but the government could hit pause on any such changes. They include installation of EV charging stations at homes and apartment blocks, and other electrification measures that Australian Council of Social Service boss Cassandra Goldie said were key to achieving climate targets.
The government is estimated to fall 260,000 dwellings short of its target of building 1.2 million homes by the end of the decade, spurring demands to simplify building standards.
The move, aimed at reducing the time it takes to build a home, mirrors a policy taken to the last election by the Peter Dutton-led opposition that Labor claimed at the time would lead to poorer quality homes.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers at the Economic Reform Roundtable on Wednesday with Treasury secretary Jenny Wilkinson (left) and Productivity Commission chairwoman Danielle Wood.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Boosting housing supply was a key debate during the last election when the opposition promised a $5 billion fund for the roads, sewerage and power needed for new housing developments, while Labor said it would pay for first home buyers’ 5 per cent deposits.
Another regulation that O’Neil and builders argue has proved a roadblock for construction is the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Labor failed to streamline the act last term, but roundtable participants lent their support to simplifying the green laws to speed up the building of housing and energy facilities.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the roundtable achieved consensus on streamlining regulations to build more homes and seize the opportunity presented by artificial intelligence.
Willox claimed the Australian Council for Trade Unions was “talked around” on its previous position to create new laws to regulate the new technology. Another roundtable source backed Willox’s interpretation and said Chalmers committed to conducting an analysis on which existing regulations needed to be adapted to grapple with AI, as opposed to writing brand new laws.
McKellar, from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, believed there was broad consensus on cutting regulations that prohibit home building.
“I think there’s a recognition that it’s incredibly complex, that it overreaches at the moment and makes the process unwieldy,” he said.
While there was widespread support for overhauling the construction code, Goldie raised concerns that it could leave new home owners in poorer quality accommodation. She said the newest version of the code, which has yet to be approved by the Australian Building Codes Board, should be introduced, not halted.
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, Woodside board member and former Western Australia treasurer Ben Wyatt and Treasurer Jim Chalmers arrive on the day two of the Economic Reform Roundtable.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
“Any pause on the next code residential update, due in 2028, should be brief and the work should start now to ensure updated standards support zero-carbon all-electric homes, and that implementation occurs quickly,” she said.
The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council in May warned that Labor’s National Housing Accord was set to fall 262,000 short of its target of building 1.2 million new homes by the end of the decade.
Since the pandemic, housing construction costs in Australia have jumped by 30 per cent, according to CoreLogic’s Cordell Construction Cost Index.
Metricon chief executive Brad Duggan said last week that changes to the code, which has roughly doubled in size between 2011 and 2022 from 1500 pages to nearly 3000 pages, have driven up the cost of building a home.
“A single-storey home now costs about $8000 more than what it would have been before the current NCC, and a double-storey home about $20,000 more,” he said.
Former NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler argued against a code freeze but said it needed reform.
“There’s an opportunity to tidy up the code,” he said. “Why don’t we just ... focus on making the codes more usable, rather than just signalling to everybody that we’re taking our foot off the priority of having high-quality standards for construction in Australia.”
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