Interview with Tom Connell, Sky News Australia

Event: Interview with Tom Connell, Sky News Australia

Date: 26 June 2026, 2.45pm AEST
Speakers: Denita Wawn, Master Builders Australia CEO

Topics: Self-managed super funds, skilled migration, workforce shortage, Federal budget.

E&OE

Tom Connell, Sky News Australia host: Well, the Government’s tax changes are still being discussed. Anthony Albanese believes everything will die down once the details are out there. Joining me live now is Master Builders Australia CEO Denita Wawn. Thank you for your time. It’s still been a changing policy with the Greens getting a change to no longer allow self-managed super funds to purchase houses. Interested in what stats you have. The figure I saw was about 0.5 per cent of annual residential purchases a year are through self-managed super funds. Is that the figure you have and what impact do you think this would have on new builds?

Denita Wawn, Master Builders Australia CEO: Yeah, Tom, we’re still trying to allocate and understand the data. Certainly, early indications are that it’s at least that, if not more. I think it’s important to note that it really does have an impact. We understand on new developments, particularly for medium and high-rise density developments that are critical in terms of meeting housing record targets. So, when you look at the compounding nature of these tax hikes, that’s when we’re concerned that by the Government’s own calculations, we’re going to have a decline in supply by 35,000 homes over 10 years. We’ve now got to determine what this additional measure is going to add to that decrease in supply.

Host: So to that, the main way of ascertaining that, I suppose, is around the anecdotal report so far that when we’re talking about large builds, so a big apartment block is put up, and before they actually go ahead with that, you need a certain number of presales. It’s been reported that in some cases these presales have a large per cent of self-managed super fund purchases. Is there any way you can show evidence of that, or is that just a theory being put forward or anecdotal at the moment?

Denita: That’s the evidence we’re getting from the marketplace at the moment Tom. I think the important thing is that we’ve done that independent modelling on the initial policy, we now need to look at it in the context of the deal done with the Greens to get this through. But more importantly, now that the legislation has actually gone through Parliament, the big issue will be what’s actually going to happen in practice. We’re already seeing a significant shift in consumer sentiment when it comes to property since the budget, that is alarming for the property sector. We now will need to keep a very close eye on the statistics going forward to determine whether or not the realisation of our concerns is correct or has it been exacerbated by these additional measures, and that’s what we’ll be holding the government to account on as the weeks and months proceed once this comes into effect.

Host: Wanted to ask around a couple of policies from the Coalition and One Nation on immigration. One Nation’s first, so 130,000 total visas per year, migrant visas, that’s total versus what high 500,000s at the moment, that lots of people say that’s too many, but is there any way that we could have 130,000 visas a year still maintain construction. Obviously with limitations such as, you know, Kiwis are meant to come each year, family reunion visas, university students, and so on.

Denita: Tom, I think we’ve got to look at the fundamentals here. From a Master Builders’ perspective we look at the immigration issue from two fronts. One is that the projections are that we need to build at least about 250,000 homes to meet population projections, and that is under the housing accord of 1.2 million homes over five years. Conversely, we also need more skilled labour to build those homes, and if you look at residential simplistically, not infrastructure, we need an additional about 115,000 workers that we’re not going to necessarily get from domestic workforce, and so for us our focus is on the component of migration that is about skilled migration that is simply not high enough, and we then if we have the right number of people building, we will be able to build the homes that are necessary in whatever the population increase may be going into the future.

Host: All right, very quickly, the Coalition aspect, when they talk about matching migration with houses built, when’s the earliest each year an indication could be built on those houses? September, earlier, when would you be able to go ‘here’s how many will build’?

Denita: Well, we’re updating our forecasts in September, but from our perspective, we’ve got an understanding in terms of that National Housing Accord target that we are falling over 200,000 short already, and so if we do not have additional workforce, if we do not resolve some of the additional supply hurdles that we have, that number is going to decrease. But we will be, as per usual, providing our new forecast in September.

Host: Denita Wawn, appreciate your time. Thank you.

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

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