Opening Statement – Inquiry into Financial support for state and territory infrastructure

Event: Parliamentary Hearing – Inquiry into Financial support for state and territory infrastructure

Date: 31 July 2026
Speaker: Darren Disney, Master Builders Australia National Director of External Affairs & Engagement

Opening Statement

E&OE

Thank you Chair and Senators for the opportunity to appear today. There is a lot of discussion about Australia’s housing supply shortage. And rightly so, Australia is facing a housing crisis, with the National Housing Accord forecast to fall around 204,000 homes short of its target of 1.2 million new homes by mid-2029.

A key driver of this challenge is the failure to deliver enabling infrastructure in a timely and coordinated manner. Transport connections, trunk water and sewerage, energy distribution and social infrastructure are too often delivered after land for housing has been rezoned or approved, rather than ahead of development. This mis-sequencing increases holding costs, increases risk and constrains effective housing supply, even where land availability and market demand are strong.

State and territory governments have demonstrated a persistent inability to align enabling infrastructure delivery with housing objectives. Commonwealth infrastructure funding therefore plays a critical role in shaping housing outcomes, not through planning controls but through funding conditions and sequencing requirements.

Where Commonwealth funds support enabling infrastructure, those investments should be explicitly linked to housing delivery milestones and sequencing obligations. Without this linkage, infrastructure spending risks exacerbating housing shortages rather than alleviating them.

Our sector believes current funding arrangements do not adequately account for construction capacity or the role of enabling infrastructure in unlocking housing supply. As a result, projects are too often delivered late, at higher cost and with poorer outcomes.

The industry is short 300,000 infrastructure workers. Yet this constraint is among those not adequately reflected in funding decisions. Master Builders believes Commonwealth funding decisions must move beyond project-by-project assessments and explicitly address sequencing, capacity constraints and delivery discipline. The Commonwealth is uniquely positioned to drive better outcomes through its funding leverage over states and territories.

Our recommendations are straightforward:

• Assessment processes should explicitly account for construction market capacity, delivery readiness and sequencing impacts across the broader infrastructure and housing pipeline.
• Transparency should be improved through clear disclosure of the assumptions, conditions and sequencing expectations attached to funding decisions.
• Independent assessment should extend beyond economic appraisal to include delivery viability, procurement models, risk allocation, contract packaging and local market capacity.
• Housing supply and affordability impacts should be treated as core economic and community considerations and,
• Oversight should focus on delivery outcomes, not expenditure alone.

Ultimately, if Australia is serious about addressing its housing supply shortage, we must recognise that housing cannot be delivered without the civil and enabling infrastructure that makes development possible. Getting infrastructure funding, sequencing and delivery right is therefore essential to getting more homes built.

Media contact: Dylan Hafey, Adviser, Media & Government Relations

0497 330 064 | dylan.hafey@masterbuilders.com.au