Joint Press Conference

Event: Joint Press Conference

Date: 17 August 2026, 9.00am AEST

Speakers: 

Denita Wawn, Master Builders Australia CEO

The Hon Angus Taylor MP, Leader of the Opposition, Member for Hume

Senator the Hon Jane Hume, Deputy Leader of the Opposition

Topics: Unintended consequences of the Federal Budget’s changes to trusts, negative gearing, SMSFs and CGT

E&OE

Denita Wawn, Master Builders Australia CEO: Good morning, Denita Wawn, CEO, Master Builders Australia. Welcome to Googong, and we thank McDonald Jones Homes for hosting us this morning. Today is all about housing. We know we need more homes, and if we’re going to get more supply of homes in this country, we need to resolve supply impediments. One of those impediments of a course is needing demand, and demand is going through the floor. Why? Because we’ve had impact after impact following the federal budget of the Albanese Government.

The housing industry has been hit by changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax, which has meant tax hikes, were seeing investors leave the housing market. We then also got hit by self-managed super funds restrictions to no longer borrow for residential investment. Again, another hit on the demand for residential building, and then finally, we also are seeing changes to the trust arrangements. Twenty per cent of building and construction businesses utilised a trust arrangement. They have gone into those trust arrangements with good faith. They’ve established their small business to ensure that they have the appropriate structures, and they are now being hit.

The government has changed the rules halfway through the game and they are in a no-win situation. They now need to either be faced with massive prices in tax or alternatively massive costs up to $180,000, to change their structure around. That is simply not fair.

The housing industry wants to build more homes for more Australians, but it is constantly being restricted by the Albanese Government in their decisions, which is totally contrary to their commitment to the industry during the last federal election. Thank you.

Senator the Hon Jane Hume, Deputy Leader of the Opposition: Thank you Denita, and thank you very much to Master Builders for hosting us today along with McDonald Jones Homes. The homes we saw behind us, there are so many of them going up but unfortunately demand is stalling. Demand is stalling because of failures of this Labor Government to establish the policies that are going to drive new home builds. We’ve seen 1.9 million people added to our population in the last four years. The vast majority of that has come through migration.

But unfortunately, our home building simply hasn’t kept up. That pressure from increasing migration has put pressure on our infrastructure and our healthcare, but particularly on our housing.

Now, the Coalition is the only party that has a genuine plan to fix the economy, to protect our way of life, but most importantly, to restore home building to the centre of our economic prosperity. Because let’s face it, without new homes, if we can’t house our migrants and we can’t allow young people to get into their first home, we’re simply going to go backwards. This has been a trifecta of failure from the Albanese Government. Between higher taxes, we’ve now seen rents going through the roof, we have seen uncertainty in the housing market and fewer new homes being built.

We need to make sure that we bring our migration programme down to match the number of new houses that are being built, but we also need to build new homes. That’s why we have a building infrastructure fund, $5 billion, to build the enabling infrastructure on a housing project just like this one. That’s sewerage, that’s electricity, that water supplies, NBN, so that builders can do what they do best and that’s build homes. But we also to simplify building homes.

The National Building and Construction Code has blown out to 2,000 pages. Used to be 200. You used to be able to fit the National Building Construction Code in a tradie’s glove box. Now you need a flatbed ute just to carry the thing around. It’s crazy the extent to which it’s blown out. If we can wind back all of the nice-to-haves as opposed to the must-haves in the National Build and Construction Code, we can reduce the cost of building a new home by $70,000. This is all part of the Coalition’s plan. The plan to fix the economy and protect our way of life.

The Hon Angus Taylor MP, Leader of the Opposition, Member for Hume: Well said Jane and great to be here with you and with Denita, and thank you for the great work that Master Builders is doing in the housing industry, incredibly important industry to this country and it’s great to here in Googong, in the great electorate of Eden-Monaro where I grew up and spent a great deal of time and we’re seeing rapid growth here but the truth is we are also seeing a housing market right now where there’s been a complete collapse of confidence.

Since the Budget, we have seen, as Jane just said, a trifecta of failure from Labor. We are seeing higher rents, we are seeing less housing construction and we are seeing a collapse in confidence in the market. Auction clearance rates down, we’re seeing story after story, telling us how much of that has happened, the collapse in auction clearance rates, also reduction in volumes of houses being bought and sold. And of course that collapse in confidence has a long way to run as Australians realise that this was a Budget which failed hard working Australians and most importantly young Australians who want to get into a home.

We’re seeing home loan applications down 5.4 per cent according to the Bureau of Statistics, 2.9 per cent for first home buyers. So, the Government crows and says this is better for first-home buyers. But first home buyers are taking out fewer loans. This is a complete and utter failure for Australians.

And of course, the Coalition stands for getting young Australians into a home, re-establishing the Australian dream of being able to work hard, get ahead, make sure that they can see that rising income over time, but most importantly, to be able to buy a house, raise a family, maybe start a small business. That’s the Australia we believe in, and that’s a dream which is evaporating in front of our eyes right now and we see that in the data.

Now, we have laid out a plan, a better way to fix this and we have a plan, a strong plan and a strong team that can turn this situation around, and that means first and foremost a strong economy with lower taxes, lower energy prices, more houses being built, immigration capped based on the number of houses we and putting Australians first, and let me focus on a couple of elements of that. Tax is a key factor in the collapse in the housing market we’re seeing right now.

Labor’s toxic taxes on small businesses, on investment, on houses, on widows, on divorcees, and we know this is collapsing confidence in the economy but also in the house market. And that’s why we will axe Labor’s toxic taxes. We will slash the red tape. Including the National Construction Code and we heard that from Jane a moment ago. Two thousand pages telling a builder how to build a home. Well, builders don’t need 2,000 pages telling them how to build a home and they won’t have that under a Coalition Government.

But we also need to bring down energy prices and we see reports today of the complete failure of Labor’s so-called capacity investment scheme. This is Chris Bowen’s dream that is driving up the price of electricity, 40 per cent increase. He promised a $275 reduction. This is a scheme that’s demanding $900 million of Indigenous investment. Well, we want to see Indigenous Australians better off around this country. But the purpose of energy programmes is to bring down the cost of energy, and that hasn’t been the focus or the achievement of this Government, and that’s why we’ll slash Labor’s capacity investment scheme. We’ll slash Net Zero, scrap Net Zero which has been a complete failure for this country.

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

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