Construction red tape freeze to speed up housing push on economic roundtable agenda

A freeze or re-write of the national construction code is on the cards as a way of speeding up home building after discussion on the second day of the economic roundtable.

Talks in the Cabinet room on Wednesday morning focused on red tape and housing, with the topic expected to turn to environmental approvals after the brief morning tea break.

Housing Minister Clare O’Neil joined the discussion, which canvassed the possibility of freezing the construction code.

The 1500 pages of rules builders have to comply with is due for an update next year anyway, but there was consensus that further changes other than those dealing with urgent defects or safety issues could be put on ice while the whole thing is reviewed.

The Government has a target to build 1.2 million homes in the five years to mid-2029, but Treasury and the housing sector say that won’t be met at the current rate of construction, in part because of the amount of red tape.

Business Council of Australia chief Bran Black pointed out it took an average seven years to develop an apartment building, meaning there could be three updates to the construction code before the project was finished.

“We need to take a look at whether the code is fit for purpose, and certainly for the period of that review, you’d be looking at making sure that there is no further change,” he said.

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry head Andrew McKellar called the construction code “incredibly complex” and said it “overreaches at the moment and makes the process unwieldy”.

“It’s about, how do you get a process underway to reform that (construction) code, to make it simpler?” he said.

The Australian Council of Social Services opposed the bid in the room, but several people said that other than there, there was a broad agreement.

“There is pretty strong consensus emerging that that is a sensible step forward,” NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said.

After the meeting wrapped up for the day, Dr Chalmers said there was “a real prospect of a useful consensus emerging on a number of key reform areas”.

“Day two of the Reform Roundtable was really dominated by how we can boost housing supply, how we can responsibly reduce and improve regulation and speed up approvals… We’re enthusiastic about some of the policies that participants put on the table,” he said.

The Coalition took a policy to the election to freeze the construction code for a decade, but the proposal expected to come out of the roundtable isn’t expected to be as long as that.

The Dutton-era policy was initially backed by the Property Council but it then distanced itself, saying the code needed regular reviews.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley on Wednesday backed a pause “where the National Construction Code is unhelpful”.

However, former industry minister Ed Husic said he didn’t want to see the code frozen.

“I’d be concerned about a pause to the National Construction Code, because we would be successfully repeating the bad mistakes of the coalition,” he told the ABC.