Jim Chalmers doubles down after Treasury advice revealed Albanese Government can't meet 1.2m housing target

West Australian

3 days ago

The Government will not meet its 1.2 million homes target and cannot fix the budget without raising taxes and cutting spending, according to leaked advice from Treasury bureaucrats.
In advice released by mistake in a freedom of information request, the Treasurer's department warned in its post-election ministerial briefing the target to build 1.2 million by mid-2029 'would not be met' and suggested changing it.
The briefing offered ministers options to speed up housing construction and better leverage existing grants to States, identified a 'dysfunctional' funding model for infrastructure such as water and sewerage connections, and said there were challenges with the responsiveness, capability and speed of key agency Housing Australia.
It also advised 'tax should be raised as part of a broader tax reform' and 'improvements to the budget will need to come from economic growth, additional revenue and spending reductions'.
Another crackdown on superannuation tax breaks for wealthy Australians was suggested.
The information was released to the ABC, which was asked to delete the document released under freedom of information laws after it realised it had not blacked out several headings and subheadings from redacted sections.
The ABC said it decided to publish details because they provide insight into the department's thinking of key economic issues facing Australia.
Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Monday said he was 'pretty relaxed' about the accidental release of the document, which also canvassed tax reform and global economic volatility.
'The point that the incoming government brief makes is the same point that I've been making (Housing Minister) Clare O'Neil and others have been making, is that we will need more effort to reach that substantial, ambitious housing target,' he said.
'We're investing tens of billions of dollars. We're working well with the States and territories and local governments. We're engaging with the industry. We're trying to get the capital flowing. I've changed the tax arrangements for build-to-rent… but we'll need to do better, and we'll need to do more. And the advice just reflects that.'
Master Builders Australia estimates, based on housing approvals figures from May, that the nation will build just over a million homes by mid-2029 at the current construction rate.
This falls short of the target by almost 160,000 homes, or 13.3 per cent.
In WA, Master Builders estimates more than 125,000 homes will be built over that time, falling short of the State's share of the target by 3.4 per cent.
Dr Chalmers insisted the target could still be met and said it wasn't a mistake to aim so high.
'We'd rather have a big, ambitious, difficult target, and work around the clock to meet it in all of the ways that I've run through today, than to continue the approach of our predecessors, which was to build too few homes,' he said.
'It's not the worst thing from time to time for it to be understood in the broader community that this will be a difficult target to meet, but if we all do our bit, we all play our part … then we can build the homes that people desperately need.'