Interview with Peter Stefanovic, Sky News Australia

Event: Interview with Peter Stefanovic, Sky News Australia

Date: 13 May 2026, 6.35 AEST
Speakers: Denita Wawn, CEO Master Builders Australia

Topics: Federal Budget, tax increases and workforce shortage.

E&OE

Peter Stefanovic, Sky News Australia Host: For some early reactions this morning, let’s bring in Master Builders Chief Executive Denita Wawn. Good to see you this morning Denita, thank you for your time. So, let’s start off with your thoughts on the budget and the broken promises.

Denita Wawn, CEO Master Builders Australia: Well, a series of broken promises here. First and foremost, the Prime Minister said repeatedly during the election and immediately after the election that his focus was on the supply of homes. We’ve got a target of 1.2 million, we’re falling short by 200,000. The second broken promise he would not touch negative gearing or capital gains tax. The Government, by its own calculations, is saying that will reduce supply of homes by 35,000 so that is simply unacceptable. It’s a broken promise, and it goes totally contrary to their policy priorities of increasing supply.

Host: Is that 35,000 figure about your estimates?

Denita: We think it is an optimistic reduction in supply. We’ve literally got our modelling team starting today on assessing the decisions of Government around negative gearing, capital gains tax so we can put our own evidence to the Senate when it considers this legislation. The Government says that its other supply housing measures provides a net outcome of around 30,000 homes and we say that that is simply negligent. We need hundreds of thousands of new homes and of course, we haven’t even discussed the fact that once you start taking property investors out of the property market, rents will subsequently increase. So, the focus is all wrong here Pete. We need to be increasing the supply of homes, so affordability becomes real for all Australians.

Host: Yeah, interesting. You’ve doing your own research. Property Council’s doing its own research as well. It’ll be very interesting to see what that turns out. Now on the question of costs, on average, how much has the cost build gone up Denita?

Denita: Well, pre the Middle East conflict, it was sitting just under 50 per cent increase in costs over the last five years. We’re now estimating that’s well over 50 per cent because of the compounding nature of the cost being passed to builders that can’t be passed on. So, it’s over 50 per cent over five years, people are already to put open their wallets to build new homes, this last night just makes that…

Host: So, that’s doubling it in a lot of the cases?

Denita: Yeah, absolutely. We’ve seen just year on year on year of cost increases, and people are saying we want homes, we can’t afford to build them, and so we were hoping for a budget that really saw a significant decline in those costs. Disappointingly, virtually nothing on workforce needs of the industry. We need another 300,000 people in the industry, and they’ve actually put less money into apprentices, not more, and nothing on skilled migration. So, really disappointing last night, beyond the CGT and Pete, I haven’t even started on the tax implications. Huge number of tradies rely on the tax arrangements as well. So, we’ll be modelling not only the tax decision, but also the holistic package on its impact on the street.

Host: I’ll come to that in a moment, because I asked you about the cost of a build, how much of that has gone up with the next question in mind. So, you say 50 per cent of the cost of a build has gone up since COVID. By restricting negative gearing to new properties, will that help in the build or supply of new properties at all? So will buyers help you, so to speak?

Denita: No. Pete, unfortunately, you would think that’s the case, and that’s unfortunately, I think, a sleight of hand by the Government. By the Government’s own admission last night, these tax hikes, and that’s what they are, they are a tax hike on property, we’ll see a decline of the supply of homes into our market by 35,000 homes, and so we are already behind in our supply. This will make it worse, and the additional measures that they have introduced last night will not stack up, as far as we’re concerned.

Host: And just backing up on the number of builders, did you say we’re 300,000 short?

Denita: We are around 300,000 workers short in the industry at the moment, we currently employ 1.4 million. We’re 300,000, about 115,000 additional workers needed to build to the Housing Accord targets that we are going to fall very, very short of, but an additional about 200,000 odd required for the infrastructure building that is anticipated over the next five years. So, nothing in there and in fact, the only minor adjustment was an adjustment downwards when it came to apprentice support,

Host: Right? Okay, so when the Government points to its migration levels, which is ticked up a bit. I mean, would that help you or not?

Denita: Well, we say there needs to be significant adjustments to the skilled migration focus of Government. We need a focus on tradies. We need streamlined pathways. I acknowledge that they’ve spent a bit of money on assisting migrants already in the country get their skills recognised, but that’s a small number, less than 20,000. We need a change in the migration mix to meet the skill needs of this country. If we’re going to build those 1.2 million homes that Government wants us to build, we need more skilled workers. Focus on migration needs to be on skilled workers.

Host: Alright Denita, good to have you with us as always today. Thank you. We’ll chat again soon.

Media contact: Dylan Hafey, Media Advisor

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