UDIA NSW welcomes the commitments to tackling the housing crisis announced at yesterday’s National Cabinet’s meeting, including the strong focus on improving state planning systems.
The revised national target to build 1.2 million new well-located homes over five years, from 1 July 2024, is a welcome increase and signals a genuine commitment by the Commonwealth and State Governments to build the new homes we are so desperately lacking.
In NSW this will mean an additional 378,000 new homes over the five-year period, or 75,600 new homes per year. This level is 3% above what NSW delivered during our housing peak in 2018 and would require us to sustain this output for 5 consecutive years. Supply will need to increase across the whole housing continuum and particularly for apartments which will need to more than triple from current completion levels to reach the new target.
Given the NSW Department of Planning has only forecast 180,000 new homes over this period, building new homes must now be the NSW Government’s most important focus if we are going to build more than we have ever done and sustain that for five years.
The Commonwealth Government’s announcement that it will match this ambition with Commonwealth Funding is welcome and long overdue. Incentivising States who exceed targets, through the $3Billion NEW Home Bonus fund, is also supported.
“While targets are great at galvanising support, the NSW Government must now ensure it acts quickly to turn on all the available mechanisms and get the policy settings right so industry can move quickly to build the houses needed. UDIA has consistently advocated for increased funding for enabling infrastructure like water and sewerage to unlock new homes and the $500 million Housing Support Program will allow local governments to kick-start housing supply in their local area,” said Steve Mann, CEO, UDIA NSW.
UDIA NSW welcomes National Cabinet agreeing to a set of overarching planning principles to deliver new housing, many of which the Minns Government has already committed to and UDIA is working with Government to ensure we get the detailed policy settings right.
At the same time we need to ensure that Government’s don’t introduce measures that unintentionally undermine the shared national objective of delivering 1.2m new homes.
In NSW we are deeply concerned the NSW Government is set to introduce several new contributions, levies and taxes which together will add up to $110,000 on a new home.
Government’s must ensure their very genuine commitment to deliver new housing aren’t undermined by unnecessary and ill-timed new housing costs which will simply put the great Australian dream further out of reach for prospective home buyers.
UDIA has developed a comprehensive suite of policies in our Housing Crisis Action Plan and through our pre-budget submission. which together chart a path for NSW to deliver its share of the national housing target
We look forward to continuing to work with the Minns Government to deliver these ambitious targets.
Media Enquiries:
Deanna Lane 0416 295 898 or dlane@udiansw.com.au