Federal government to fast-track environmental assessments on 26,000 homes

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The federal government will pause changes to the National Construction Code and fast-track the assessment of more than 26,000 homes waiting for approval, in its latest effort to boost housing supply. National affairs correspondent Jane Norman has the latest on these changes from parliament house in Canberra.

Transcript

00:00What these changes are designed to do is to get homes built more quickly and to also reduce the

00:07costs associated with building homes. So the first big change, and this is something that came out of

00:12the Economic Roundtable last week, is to pause changes to the National Construction Code. Now

00:18this is what's become, we're told, an unwieldy 2,000 page document, which is both complicated

00:25and also something that changes every few years. So it's hard for builders and tradies to keep up

00:32with. So the government's seeking to address that by pausing any further changes for the next

00:36four years. And it should be noted that that excludes anything relating to essential safety

00:42and quality. But while the changes are paused, the government will look to simplify that code and make

00:48it easier to read and interpret for the people who actually need to be reading that document.

00:53And the second change announced today, the housing minister in conjunction with the

00:58environment minister will fast track the assessment of more than 26,000 homes that are currently stuck

01:04in the federal environmental approvals process. So by fast tracking the assessment, it doesn't mean

01:09that these homes will necessarily be approved, just that the government will actually get to a yes or a

01:14no more quickly than is currently happening. But on the changes to the National Construction Code,

01:20Labor has copped a bit of criticism from the coalition and fairly so, because in the May

01:26election, the opposition took to that election a policy to freeze changes for 10 years. And at the

01:32time, Labor criticised those changes and said it could lead to a catastrophic outcome. Well, the

01:37housing minister today has defended Labor's four-year pause, noting that while most changes will be

01:44paused, they are excluding anything relating to essential safety and quality changes. Here's Claire O'Neill.

01:50What Labor's proposing here is a really balanced approach. What the Liberals took to the last

01:54election really threw the baby out with the bathwater and said that we're going to put quality

01:59and safety to the side. And that's not the right answer for Australians. We want Australians to live

02:04in high-quality homes. And that's why we've got the balance right here. A four-year pause, but most

02:09importantly, the opportunity for us to streamline and make this code usable. At the end of the day,

02:15what we want here is builders doing what they do best, and that is building high-quality homes for

02:20Australians. We don't want them stuck in the back office as they are today, filling in forms and

02:24dealing with bureaucracy. And Jane, this was the government's first concrete action following

02:30the economic roundtable. But the Treasurer is indicating that tax could be the next area of

02:35reform? Yeah, there's been an interesting shift in language here, because after the May election,

02:39the Prime Minister made it really clear that Labor wouldn't get ahead of itself and that the party

02:44would be focused on delivering the commitments that it took to the election. And when pressed on

02:49tax specifically, the Prime Minister said the only tax policy Labor would implement in this term of

02:53government was the one that it took to the May election. So that includes income tax cuts,

03:00plans to increase taxes on super balances worth more than $3 million. But after last week's economic

03:06roundtable, there seems to be general consensus that, in Jim Chalmers' words, the tax system is

03:12imperfect, that there are issues to do with intergenerational inequity that need to be

03:17addressed. And so there seems to be more of an appetite for reform. And Jim Chalmers is now saying

03:22that that might take place in this term of government. And, you know, obviously there could be larger

03:28changes taken to an election. So in terms of what is on the table, that is still a little bit unclear.

03:34But what we are starting to see is a bit of shift in language from the government, really softening

03:38up the public to the prospect of more tax changes to come sooner, perhaps, than had previously been

03:45indicated. And here's how he responded on Insiders this morning when asked if there might be tax

03:50changes in next year's budget. Well, it remains to be seen. I mean, there is a lot of policy ambition

03:56around the roundtable last week. And there's a lot of policy ambition in the government from the

04:00Prime Minister down. And our primary focus is on delivering tax reform in all of those ways we

04:07took to the election. As I keep mentioning income tax cuts, considering road reuser charging,

04:11the standard deduction. These are important features of our existing tax agenda.

04:17Now, as I said, I think in the immediate aftermath of the roundtable, I think there are more steps to

04:24be taken on tax reform. And that was the Treasurer Jim Chalmers there. And we await the government to put

04:29some meat on the bones of just what those steps are.

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