Interview with Laura Jayes, News 24

Event: Interview with Laura Jayes, News 24

Date: 12 August 2026, 11.30am AEST
Speakers: Denita Wawn, Master Builders Australia CEO

Topics: House prices, budget CGT negative gearing changes, SMSFs, trusts, skilled migration, apprentices, workforce shortages

E&OE

Laura Jayes, News 24 host: I now want to bring in Master Builders CEO Denita Wawn now. Denita, I’m not sure this is the message that you want with investors needing to get into the housing market to make sure more are built.

Denita Wawn, Master Builders Australia CEO: Absolutely, Laura. We know that the reason why housing prices have gone so high, that rents are continuing to escalate, is because we have a supply problem. For decades now, we have not been building enough homes, which has meant that prices have got out of reach of many Australians, whether they want to own a home or they’re renting a home and we have consistently said that changing the investor tax arrangements by hiking up taxes for investors is going to have a perverse outcome from renters, and we’re already seeing that happen. And we’re also seeing an increase in costs, which means less homes are now being built, and so that again is inconsistent with the supply focus that the Government took to the federal election.

Host: Okay, we’re speaking to all parties at the moment because the polls are so tight. One Nation has said that they would reverse all of these measures, CGT, and reverse the negative gearing changes. But what Pauline Hanson and One Nation would do would limit negative gearing to just two homes. What effect would that have?

Denita: Well, we know that whenever you put up a tax hike on investors in the property market, it means less supply. The Federal Government’s own budget papers said that supply would be reduced by 35,000 homes as a consequence of this tax hike, and that of course didn’t take into account the last-minute changes on self-managed super funds’ inability to borrow money for residential investment. That in itself is probably going to have a doubling of that figure, and then of course we’re not even getting into the trust arrangements and the impact that has on property investment as well. So, we say to all political parties, stop restricting investment in property. If we are going to have the capacity to build the homes we need, then we’ve got to make sure that all people willing to invest have got the capacity to do so, whether they are investors or they are owner occupiers,

Host: How many tradies short are you for building the homes that we need?

Denita: Just for residential building alone, BuildSkills Australia says that we need at least another 115,000 workers… If we put that in context, we currently employ 1.4 million. We need an additional 115,000, but scarily, we need an additional 300,000 to 350,000 to undertake the commercial and civil construction we need over the next five years. So, we need to nearly increase the construction workforce by nearly 400,000 to 500,000 workers over the next five years to undertake the work that we need. That is why we’re focusing so heavily on apprentices and so heavily on skilled migration at the moment. You know, if we’re going to be serious about meeting the housing supply needs in this country, we need to stop the tax hikes. We need to improve the number of people working in our sector, and we need to be real about what is holding up approvals for both development and building as well.

Host: Of those 450,000 to 500,000 extra workers, you need to build the homes, how many of those can be upskilled and trained, and what’s the breakdown between that and the skilled migration that you need?

Denita: Well, we know that there’s nearly 20,000 odd skilled workers in the country at the moment that are underutilising their skills in building and construction. We know it’s too expensive and time consuming for them at the moment, the way the system currently is structured, to get upskilled, so there is an easy fix with those 20,000 odd. We also need an easier pathway for skilled migrants to come into this country. We’ve also floated this week that we should have international students being extended to apprenticeships, not just in tertiary education. We also need more Australians going into apprentices as well, and it’s mind-boggling to think that the Government is actually reducing the funding towards the Key Apprenticeship Program for 2027. So, there’s a lot of things that political parties need to be addressing when it comes to really being serious about housing supply,

Host: Would a 130,000 permanent migration cap crash the market for you? Would it mean less homes would be built?

Denita: Well, we’re really concerned about the mix when it comes to skilled migration numbers. Skilled migration needs to be a priority of our migration system in this country at the moment. Building and construction are not on their lonesome when it comes to skill shortages, and so the migration system has to be heavily focused on skilled migration so we can in turn catch up on the need to supply those homes. There is no way that we are going to get to the 1.2 million Accord-focused targets of Government if we don’t get enough people immediately into the industry. It’s meant that the prices of construction have gone up. Just to put this into perspective Laura, it’s now costing us more than 50 per cent more to build a home than it was five years ago, and it is taking us nearly twice as long to build a home. So, they are stark figures, in part because we don’t have enough people, but also because of material cost increases, planning delays, building delays, and quagmire of regulation. These are known problems that we all need to address.

Host: Denita, thanks so much for your time today. Good to see you.

Denita: Thank you.

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

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