7 June 2024
Master Builders is urging the Queensland Government to utilise the State Budget as an opportunity to achieve our shared goal of delivering more homes, sooner, and more affordably, to tackle the housing crisis head-on.
12 months on from the last budget, the challenges for the building and construction industry largely remain the same.
Master Builders CEO Paul Bidwell said continued labour shortages, ongoing regulatory changes, including those under National Construction Code (NCC) 2022, and the rebuilding work following extreme weather conditions are expected to prevail for some time yet.
“We have welcomed the Miles Government’s Homes for Queenslanders plan, including a key pillar to ‘deliver more homes, faster,’ setting a target of one million new homes by 2046 – but we maintain it will be difficult to meet this target under the existing conditions,” Mr Bidwell said.
“The April building approvals figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) confirm just how far Queensland is falling behind in housing supply.
“The 12-month total is sitting at 32,000, still well short of our state’s National Cabinet target of 49,000 per year for the next five years – while household growth is closer to 55,000 per annum. These are eye-watering numbers.
“Our industry also faces an unprecedented pipeline of projects to deliver for the benefit of our communities, including those for the 2032 Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games, the government’s health capital works program, transport infrastructure, houses, schools plus renewable energy and water projects.”
Ahead of next week’s state budget, the government has committed to spending $27 billion in the next financial year alone, calling it “Queensland’s biggest decade of infrastructure investment”. This will put more pressure on an industry already struggling to deliver, further driving up the cost of construction in the face of trade shortages and falling productivity.
The industry remains one of the largest providers of jobs, employing over 271,000 Queenslanders. In the last financial year, the output from the construction industry totalled $52 billion. Every $1 spent on construction then goes on to generate $3 of wider economic activity.
“At the same time, the ABS tells us that over the past three years the cost to build a house has skyrocketed by 40 per cent,” Mr Bidwell said.
“On top of the initiatives already announced, budget day is the government’s chance to pull every lever at its disposal and take immediate and decisive action on the housing crisis.
“We’re calling for the cap on the First Home Owner Grant to be raised above the existing cap of $750,000 for house and land packages to help more Queenslanders enter the soaring property market, and take advantage of the grant which the government doubled to $15,000 last November.
“We also need government to invest in the construction industry. The government’s stamp duty take has increased significantly with rising house prices. Some of this increase should be reinvested into programs to help us build more homes faster.
“This includes supporting modern methods of construction. The already-announced budget commitment of $2.8bn for 600 new modular homes is a great start; but needs to go further and support investment in locally manufactured and sustainable building components. Prefabricated building components, such as wall systems, and floor and roof cassettes, can greatly reduce construction timeframes and over time reduce costs.
“Government should also invest in getting more boots on the ground. We welcomed the recent announcement of the Queensland Skills Strategy 2024-2028, addressing the skilled labour shortage.
“The expansion of fee-free vocational training is vital, but the cost to businesses must also be part of the conversation. Support for business taking on apprentices would go a long way. Many of these are small and family operations who need to pay their employees’ wages while they’re at TAFE and provide vital training to them on-site as they learn.
“Finally, we need to roll back red tape that is slowing things down, and better invest in programs to speed things up, without cutting corners on build quality, or placing worker safety at risk.
This needs to start with the unwarranted changes in NCC 2022 and scrapping project trust accounts which simply do not work.
“We need more flexibility in the Best Practice Industry Conditions, to ensure government projects over $100 million and large high rise unit developments can be delivered on time and on budget.
“Our calls aren’t just for the benefit of industry. We need the Miles Government to invest in helping us deliver the buildings and infrastructure needed to grow our state for the future.”
Read our State Budget 2024 pre-submission here.
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