Interview with Rachel Hayter, Newsradio Drive

Event: Interview with Rachel Hayter, Newsradio Drive

Date: 14 April 2025, 5:10pm AEDT
Speakers: Denita Wawn, CEO Master Builders Australia
Topics: Housing supply and demand, and skill shortages.

E&OE

Rachel Hayter, Newsradio Drive: Denita Wawn is the CEO of Master Builders Australia. She says the policies will help first home buyers.

Denita Wawn CEO Master Builders Australia: Well, certainly it’s from our understanding a policy to, A, help first home buyers and then B, increase the supply of housing. And any initiative that seeks to increase supply is good. And so we see it as positive. There are income caps on it, so it won’t be necessarily available to all first home buyers. But nevertheless, it was good to see a focus on new builds rather than just the purchase of existing builds to assist us get the supply that we need to house all Australians.

Host: And the Coalition’s migration policies, they say, will also impact the housing market. What’s your view on migration?

Denita: Well, we understand that there is a view that we need to decrease migration to reduce demand on housing. But there’s a big however, and that is that we need to supplement our shortage of trades with skilled tradespeople from a migration point of view. And so, we have asked both major parties to include in their policies a specialist skilled trading pathway. We don’t have that at the moment, and it is precluding a significant additional number that we need to resolve our skill shortages, which will actually enable us to build the surge in demand that is expected from both of these policies.

Host: I want to talk about that tradie visa in a minute. But just on Labor’s policy, they want to expand the First Home Guarantee scheme and invest 10 billion for the construction of 100,000 new homes. What’s Master Builder’s position on Labor’s policy?

Denita: Certainly, the deposit guarantee is a strong, good policy. The extension of it, including no income caps, the extension on prices, is a fantastic reprieve for first home buyers, there’s no doubt about that. In terms of the 10 billion on 100,000 homes, that is a significant number that goes towards the Labor Party focus to meet their housing accord stretch target of 1.2 million. At the moment, we’re saying that they’re probably about 200,000 odds short. And so, as a consequence, 100,000 into the market on new builds is certainly positive as well. So, both parties focused on a supply of new homes, which is good for our industry, but more importantly, good for Aussies trying to find a home to live in.

Host: You say we’re about 200,000 homes short of that target. Why are we so behind?

Denita: Well, the simple matter is is that we simply haven’t been building enough homes for decades now. We have been too slow, and it’s because there has been a rollercoaster ride of investment into the industry. Simply because, particularly in the last five years, we’ve 40 per cent increase in costs, which are putting a lot of investors on hold until they see a reduction in interest rates, but also a reduction in those construction costs. We’ve got a skill shortage in our industry. We need at least another 200,000 people now, if not more, to meet these targets, and that is escalating costs. But it’s not just about the building. And local governments are also struggling to get staff to get planning approvals through, building approvals through, the list goes on. And so we need a concerted effort to actually remove our capacity constraints if we’re going to respond to this additional support that’s come through the announcements yesterday.

Host: And Denita Wawn, you’re calling for a fast-tracked tradie visa to address housing supply. Could you tell us a bit more about how that would work?

Denita: Yes, certainly. We know that we’re competing in an international market for skilled tradespeople. New Zealand, Canada and the UK all have a specialist fast-track tradie pathway into their skilled programs. We do not. We make it very hard, very cumbersome and costly for people to come to this country if they’ve got a trade skill, despite the fact that they’re very well paid. And we don’t make it easy for migrants in this country either, who are skilled but find it again costly and time-consuming to get their skills recognised. And as a consequence, they’re working in lower-skilled jobs. So, there is a number of ways upon which we can increase the number of skilled people through the migration system and be on a competitive even keel with those other countries.

Host: Master Builders also says there are housing supply job shortages in local government. What’s going on there?

Denita: We hear from local government time and time again that part of the reason why they are struggling to meet their time KPIs of approvals is simply they do not have enough planners, they don’t have enough building surveyors. This is particularly acute for regional areas where they’re seeing massive growth. And so as a consequence, there is a need to support local government in making sure that they’ve got the people capacity to meet those requirements. That then resolves many of the bottlenecks that you’re seeing at the moment. And you hear particularly in those flood-prone areas of northern NSW and South East Queensland, time and time again, where it’s taking so long to get those approvals through. So, this is not just a matter of ask about people building, but it’s people right through the building supply chain. We need to actually get this work done.

Host: That’s Denita Wawn, the CEO of Master Builders Australia, talking housing.

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