Interview with Ross Greenwood, Sky News Australia

Event: Interview with Ross Greenwood, Sky News Australia

Date: 8 July 2026, 4.40pm AEST
Speakers: Denita Wawn, Master Builders Australia CEO

Topics: Building activity, approvals, National Housing Accord, Federal Budget, trusts, tax increases.

E&OE

Ross Greenwood, Sky News Australia host: Well, the Government discovered today that it remains woefully behind in its plan to build 1.2 million homes between last year, 2025 and the end of this decade. Now, to achieve 1.2 million homes in that time, it needed 60,000 new homes to be started each quarter of each year, so for every three months. Now, under three months ended March 31, just over 48,000 homes were started, and the impact of the Reserve Bank rate rises can be seen with private sector housing starts down three and a half per cent, and other private sector projects, mainly apartments, down more than 20 per cent. Let’s bring in here Denita Wawn, the Chief Executive of the Master Builders Association. Always good to chat to you, Denita. It’s tough out there for builders right now. If interest rates are going up, you’ve still got the cost of materials, wages going up, and it becomes hard to justify the building that the Government wants to say to help at least maintain some leveling of home prices.

Denita Wawn, Master Builders Australia CEO: Hi Ross, absolutely, we’re really concerned about where we’re at the moment, and we’ve got to recognise that the figures that have been released today only give us to the end of March. We know that the market has softened even further since the federal budget announcements. There’s real concerns about the compounding impact of those announcements during the federal budget on creating a softer market for building and construction at a time when we can least afford it. So, we’ve got grave concerns that we’re going to fall well short, and certainly we’ve got early indications, hopefully reflected in our forecast in September, that we will fall even further behind in achieving that 1.2 million homes over five years.

Host: Well, see, the other thing I spotted today was that rents are starting to rise, so that’s a function of not having enough housing, and so really, if you’ve got vacancy rates in most capital cities around about one to one and a half per cent, maybe 1.7 per cent, it again shows that there’s going to be pressure on rents, which causes pressure on inflation. It seems even that the Government’s strategy around negative gearing and capital gains tax has genuine consequences for the cost of housing.

Denita: It has indeed, and we, through our independent modeling, showed that if you curtail property investment in the rental market, then you will see a decline in the supply of rents, rental properties, and as such, you’ll see an increase in the cost of renting. The resolution of these housing problems and housing affordability Ross is really simple: we need to increase supply. We simply cannot pit one investor class over another. We need to actually harness the investment by all of those interested in property investment, and so we find it incredulous that you’ve had decisions from the Federal Government that create tax hikes that bring people out of the property market. So, we will be looking at those figures closely and holding Government to account, because by our forecasts we will see a decline in supply of housing, but more importantly, the Federal Government themselves in the federal budget papers said there’d be a decline in the supply of housing as a consequence of these tax changes. So, it is not good news for the housing market over the next 12 months or so.

Host: Denita, you and I both know that’s not the rhetoric coming out of Government. What they’re saying is this is giving first home buyers and investors a chance to go and buy a new property built by one of your members, but the fact of the matter is, while that member can’t make a profit putting up a new construction, putting out a new home, it makes it harder for that person to justify building it in the first place.

Denita: Unfortunately Ross, I would suggest that there’s been a slight of hand here on the policy initiatives. On the face of it, people would say, “Oh, yes, well, the focus on ‘new’ means that we’ll continue to see a focus on increasing supply, but as I said, the Federal Government’s own calculations said that the supply of new homes, as a consequence of the changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing, despite keeping those tax opportunities for ‘new’, will still see a decrease in the supply of new homes. Why? Because there is just not an incentive in comparison to other asset classes of people staying in the property market. So, for us this should be a reversal of the laws that just came into place recently, and of course we haven’t even talked about the compounding impact of the proposals around trusts. We know that nearly 20 per cent of the industry is currently using a trust arrangement, and that will have a considerable impact on their capacity to continue to operate in a viable manner, and certainly the transfer costs into a company structure are far, far bigger than what the Federal Government has forecast in the budget papers.

Host: I tell you what it’s pretty sobering stuff I’ve got to tell you Denita, it’s always good to get your insight. Many thanks for that. Denita Wawn is the chief executive of the Master Builders Association.

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

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