Interview with Lorna Higgins, ABC News TV

Event: Interview with Lorna Higgins, ABC News TV

Date: 22 October 2025, 5.30pm AEDT
Speakers: Denita Wawn, CEO Master Builders Australia
Topics: Build times and the National Housing Accord

E&OE

Lorna Higgins, ABC News TV: Analysis of the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics building activity by the peak construction body shows building a new detached house is 35.8 per cent slower than it was a decade ago. Master Builders Australia says the government needs to address planning constraints and invest in skilled labour. Denita Wawn is the chief executive of Master Builders Australia and joins us now live. Denita, evening to you, thanks for joining us. So, we are getting slower, why?

Denita Wawn CEO Master Builders Australia: We are much slower than what we were before Covid. The good news is that we’ve actually slightly retracted in that slowness. So, the statistics that came out last week were showing slightly better statistics, but nevertheless still not good. It’s taking us a considerable amount of time to build detached homes, townhouses and high rise. So, we need a concerted effort at all three levels of government to resolve those constraints that we know are driving the slowness and of course we know in our game, time is money, so the quicker we can build, the costs of construction will go down.

Host: Denita, what are the constraints? I know there are several. Let’s start with regulation. 

Denita: Regulation is really critical and actually good timing. We understand that the building ministers have been meeting today to consider some changes that have been proposed by the Federal Government, including just taking away the constraints of overregulation through the National Construction Code. So, we’re hoping for a good news story there. Equally, the government is looking at speeding up proposals for property development under federal laws and asking likewise of state and territory and local governments. So, regulation really hinders things. I only heard a story yesterday of something like three months to wait for new units to be strata titled so they can then go on to the market. And that is simply not acceptable. So, everyone needs to do an uplift in terms of streamlining regulation, but more importantly, speeding up approvals so we can get houses to market more quickly.

Host: There’s a concern about the access. How much skilled labour is out there? Is there not enough people in the workforce?

Denita: No, unfortunately, there’s not. BuildSkills Australia estimated the other week that we need an additional 115,000 workers in the sector to meet the 1.2 million homes under the Housing Accord that is predominantly with trade related work. 40 trades are required to build a home, and we’ve got shortages in every single one of those trades. So, we need more assistance when it comes to apprenticeships, including a response from government around the employer incentives program that soon concludes. We need to increase the number of completions in apprentices. 50% of apprentices who start don’t complete, which is simply unacceptable. Of course, we need to focus more on skilled migration and easier pathways for people with the requisite skills to get into this country and they are conversations we are having, consistently, with the Federal Government at the moment.

Host: Wow, is there light at the end of the tunnel, if you like. I mean, that’s a long-term proposition, isn’t it? Getting that many labourers into the workforce.

Denita: It is and it’s been a problem that has really occurred through the decades. We have consistently been warning over at least the last 10 years that we were simply not getting enough apprentices through the educational and training system. There is too much emphasis on university and certainly the message we’ve got for people is, wouldn’t it be great to get paid to train, as opposed to incurring a massive HECS debt? There is huge number of career opportunities if you go and do a trade in building and construction. That’s our key message at the moment to school leavers as they’re entering into their final years of school, is to look at trades as a significant opportunity. But we need to do more across the board in terms of completions, and that’s a matter of not only for government, but also for industry in looking at why we don’t have high completions than what we’ve got at 50%. Although I might add, Industry Training shows a completion rate of about 80% which is a significant uplift.

Host: Denita, there’s this government aim of building 1.2 million homes in five years. 1.2 million homes is fair enough, but infrastructure has to go with that. Are the infrastructure projects keeping up with the amount of house building?

Denita: The enabling infrastructure isn’t keeping up. You know, it’s great to see bridges and roads and rail and new airports and so forth. But when it comes to housing, we need to ensure that housing enabling infrastructure is there in the first place. It’s not sexy, but it’s the water, our sewage, our electricity connections. It’s the roads in and out. It’s ensuring that when we’re looking at upgrades in our middle cities when you’re demolishing a few houses to put a high rise in there, what’s happening with the substation and the water in that area? We’re well behind in our enabling infrastructure. So again, we need a greater amount of resources and time and commitment focused on enabling infrastructure. And then, of course, once you’ve completed the home you need that electrical connections and so forth. So that is also hindering us. We consistently are hearing frustrations from developers and builders alike that we haven’t got the right enabling infrastructure in place to move this number to 1.2 as quickly as possible. We’re forecasting that we will get to 1 million, but it’s going to be a hard stretch to 1.2 million under the Accord, if we don’t get these three factors sorted sooner rather than later.

Host: I keep hearing this phrase, we need to find ways to build better what does that mean? 

Denita: Well, certainly, what we’re finding is it’s still very much traditional methods of construction that is the most cost-effective way of constructing at the moment. There’s a range of examples overseas around what they call modern methods of construction, but really it is more prefabrication from a manufacturing point of view, as opposed to doing it on site. We’re all supportive of innovation in the industry, but what we’re finding is, unless you get a long pipeline of consistent work for prefabricated buildings, it simply doesn’t stack up from a financing point of view. So, we’re in discussions with government about how modern manufacturing methods and prefab in our factories can work. But again, you need certainty of commitment from clients if you are going to stand up the manufacturing systems that you need to ensure that this is a viable proposition in the long term.

Host: People who are just about to start or, you know, companies that are just about to start must despair when they read reports like this and hear of what all the hiccups along the way might be. But it’s not all bad news is it. Time from approval to completion has actually gone down, hasn’t it?

Denita: It has, and we’re seeing some green shoots. As I said, we’re seeing those times slightly improve. The Federal Government has committed to housing as part of its economic reform agenda. Many of those things were announced post that meeting in Canberra a month or so ago to really try and streamline the housing construction we need. This is a problem that is probably 40 years in the making, we have not been smart as a country with all three levels of government working collaboratively together to resolve the housing crisis. We are now seeing that green shoots are now appearing, but we need again for this additional new uplift to really get to that 1.2 million homes. We think it’s achievable, but we do need to see more people in the industry, greater enabling infrastructure and those regulatory reforms that have been promised actually hitting the ground.

Host: Denita Wawn from the Master Builders Australia group.

Denita: Thank you.

Media contact:
Dee Zegarac
National Director, External Affairs and Engagement
0400 493 071
dee.zegarac@masterbuilders.com.au