Interview with Nic Healey, ABC Victorian Statewide Morning

Event: Interview with Nic Healey, ABC Victorian Statewide Morning

Date: 14 May 2026, 9.20 AEST
Speakers: Melissa Byrne, National Director – Policy & Legal

Topics: Federal Budget, tax increases and workforce shortage.

E&OE

Nic Healey, ABC Victorian Statewide Morning: I want to talk a little bit further on from the budget chat we were having yesterday. Now, we know there’s ambitious housing targets right across Victoria, but Federal Budget kind of signalling a flow down in new home construction. Just to recap, Victoria’s housing target, 800,000 new homes by 2034. A target that a lot of analysis is saying it’s going to be missed, both in terms of numbers and deadline. But in terms of the tax changes from this week’s budget, that’ll lead to about 35,000 fewer homes being built, according to Treasury, although the idea is that some other funded measures will boost supply, lead to an overall increase in housing stock of about 30,000. It’s all numbers. It can all be very confusing, and at the end of it, people want to know, what is this going to mean for housing builds in their area? Melissa Byrne is National Director of Policy and Legal at the Master Builders Association. Melissa, thanks for being patient on the phone.

Melissa Byrne, National Director – Policy & Legal: No worries. Thank you for having me.

Host: Is this a budget that will help or hurt the housing industry?

Melissa: Well, I think the short answer is it’s going to hurt the housing industry. As your opening suggested, the budget papers admit a reduction in the supply of new homes as a result of these changes to capital gains tax, negative gearing, and it is absolutely not what we need right now.

Host: How tough has the industry been just given the overall expense change that we’ve seen when it comes to build.

Melissa: Well, it’s been significantly impacted by rising prices of building products. So, in the last five years, we’ve seen about a 50 per cent increase in the cost of building so that’s clearly not having the impact we want. In terms of, as you said, the Government’s ambitious 1.2 million homes target. We’re not going in the right direction at the moment.

Host: Melissa, Drill down a little. How would you describe the health of the regional Victorian building industry right now?

Melissa: Well, I think in the regions, things are almost tougher. We’ve got workforce shortages, which are more pronounced in the regions. It’s hard to attract people to regional areas. And so, what we’re seeing sort of holistically, I think in the regions, you get that exacerbated by, like I said, these workforce shortages and these building price increases.

Host: When we talk worker shortages, how specialised is the workforce we’re talking about that we’re having problems addressing.

Melissa: Well, I think that the point is, across the entire industry, we’re short across all trades. So, from carpenters to brick layers to the finishing trades, and they all do require specialised training, as you sort of indicated and so what we’re really need from Government, and what we didn’t see in this Federal Budget was some specific support for apprenticeships.

Host: You’re not painting a picture where we could feel confident that we’re actually going to reach any of these housing targets, be they on a state or a federal level.

Melissa: No, I know, and it’s unfortunate that the measures in this Federal Budget haven’t supported the delivery of more housing, which is what we’ve been asking for years, and is counter to the Government’s commitment to build 1.2 million homes.

Host: What would you wanted to see in the budget to fix this?

Melissa: Well, I think the first point is no changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing, as we’re as we’re suggesting during this conversation, it’s only putting us backwards. The other major piece of the puzzle, as I’ve indicated, is these workforce shortages, and we say that we need a lot of support in that space. Completion rates at the moment are about 50 per cent so there’s a lot more to be done in that space. We also need to see some improvements in skilled migration as well. As you can appreciate, the apprenticeship pipeline domestically takes some time to translate into actual people on the ground. So, in the meantime, to bridge that gap, we say that skilled migration is a really important piece of that puzzle as well.

Host: Does that get you concerned then when we hear from Angus Taylor that he’s going to tie housing and migration together, but migration is going to be capped to the housing built.

Melissa: Well, we’re looking forward to seeing the detail of those proposals, but as I said, we really are focused on skilled migration. That is what we see as one of the key pieces of the puzzle to support the workforce that we need to build the homes that everybody wants to live in.

Host: Melissa, final question for you. They’re also promising in the opposition reply tonight to slash the National Construction Code to reduce building costs. Will that be effective from your perspective?

Melissa: Look any reforms to the National Construction Code, we’re interested to work with governments of both sides of Parliament. The Government is currently undertaking a project to modernise and streamline the code, which we’re heavily involved in. So, any changes to the code, any reforms to make that more usable and easier to understand, we would be supportive of.

Host: Melissa, thank you very much for your time. Melissa Byrne is the National Director of Policy and Legal at the Master Builders Association.

Media contact: Dylan Hafey, Media Advisor

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