Interview with Chris Kenny, Sky News

Event: Interview with Chris Kenny, Sky News
Date: 15 April 2025, 5:20pm AEST
Speakers: Denita Wawn, CEO of Master Builders Australia
Topics: federal election; housing crisis; first home buyers

E&OE

Chris Kenny, host Sky News: Let’s go to Denita Wawn now, who’s with the Master Builders Australia. She’s the chief executive joining us live from Canberra. Denita, tell us about the housing policies. You’ve got a big focus from both sides of politics at their launches and their campaigning so far this week. Which is your preference?

Denita Wawn, CEO Master Builders Australia: Well, it’s interesting, Chris. I think the Coalition is a tad in front. They’ve got their tax deductibility. On the flip side, the ALP, are talking about $10 billion for 100,000 new homes, utilising government-owned land. That’s not a huge amount of detail there, and they’ve both committed to an expansion in different ways, of the deposit scheme, five per cent deposit scheme for first home owners. What’s disappointing us, though, for really both sides of politics is that we need the capacity to deliver and if we’re going to build these homes for all Australians, as you quite rightly point out, we’ve got a housing crisis, we do not have enough homes, then we also need people to do it. We also need to get rid of the quagmire of planning and building approval delays that is just costing us money.

Chris: Let me jump in there. We’ve got plenty of people coming into this country, but obviously, we need to improve the mix. We need to get prioritised construction tradies coming into the country, rather than all the other categories that are there. And also, I hear what you’re saying about planning. Federal government can’t do much about that. State and local governments have to make it easier to get planning approval for construction. But don’t we need the state governments to free up more land as well to develop?

Denita: Absolutely, Chris. We know that there is greater capacity in this country. We’re a large, large country, geographically, with not a huge amount of people in it. And we know it takes forever for suburbs to be approved. We know it takes forever to then get the critical infrastructure in to actually ensure we can then subsequently build homes. Now, both parties have got some policies in relation to those things, but not a huge amount. They’re not holding state governments to account. The federal government gives billions and billions of dollars to state governments every year through a variety of partnership agreements, and they do not hold them to account. I’m old enough to remember the Hilmer reforms, where we got huge changes in the 1990s under regulation change because of a carrot and stick approach that was provided by the federal government. More needs to be done, and we’re asking both these major parties to really stump up. Stop tinkering around the edges, and let’s get real on planning, let’s get real on people and to ensure that we can build because at the moment, construction costs have gone up 40 per cent a lot of it to do with people and planning.

Chris: Thanks for joining us, Denita, I appreciate it.

Media contact:
Dee Zegarac
National Director, Media & Public Affairs
0400 493 071
dee.zegarac@masterbuilders.com.au