Housing to be a focus at the upcoming economic roundtable
JIM CHALMERS, TREASURER: We have got a very big, broad, ambitious housing agenda, which is about building more homes, because that's the best way that we provide more affordable options for people who are trying to get a toehold in a difficult market.
JACOB GREBER: But it's in places like the Wollondilly region on the outskirts of Sydney where rhetoric splits from reality.
Cassandra Mast and her siblings used an inheritance from their mother to invest in land believing it would be the pathway to building a new, affordable home.
CASSANDRA MAST, HOME BUILDER: We wanted to do something that would honour her, and she was always about welcoming people into her home, making sure anyone in trouble had a place to stay.
JACOB GREBER: After buying a half-acre block last year almost two years after the previous owners began the process of subdividing it – the project remains mired in red tape.
CASSANDRA MAST: We've had to remove so many trees and so many plants for the fire regulation even though the fire rating was downgraded, in between the time first application was made and us starting construction.
JACOB GREBER: Anyone doing a renovation or building a home knows exactly how Cassandra Mast feels.
CLARE O'NEIL, HOUSING MINISTER: We've got too much red tape and regulation; we are not seeing enough innovation in housing.
JACOB GREBER: Housing Minister Clare O'Neil has been touring the country in the leadup to next week's roundtable talking to home builders, who've been telling a familiar story.
CLARE O'NEIL: We had a good chat with one of the builders here before and he said to me, you know, a decade ago, the hard part about building a house in this country was the actual building. The problem now sits in the approvals and the delays.
JACOB GREBER: Building houses in Australia has become more challenging, tangled in paperwork, and costly.
According to a recent study by the Housing Industry Association, almost half the million-dollar cost of a house and land package in Sydney goes into regulatory fees, taxes, and delay.
JOCELYN MARTIN, HOUSING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION: It is made up of cascading taxes like stamp duty and GST. It can take up to almost 12 months for a planning approval to take place and then of course for the build itself to take place.
JACOB GREBER: Few dispute that housing has become one of the worst inter-generational fairness issues of our time.
But unlike previous efforts to fix the problem via demand-boosting incentives like first-home buyer grants - the benefits of which have often flowed to older generations of sellers - the emphasis today and next week's roundtable is about increasing supply.
JOCELYN MARTIN: We are hoping that there will be discussions around how to make the delivery of housing more productive, how to address significant amounts of regulation and red tape, to look at all the things that are holding back the delivery of housing supply.
JACOB GREBER: The much-hyped economic roundtable is all about momentum building. Three days of talks have been scheduled.
The only problem? The government 's messaging over how ambitious they should be has risen and fallen like the tide.
JIM CHALMERS (17 June): I expect, I anticipate, I welcome tax being an important part of the conversation.
ANTHONY ALBANESE (7 August): The only tax policy that we're implementing is the one we took to the election.
JACOB GREBER: The whiplash has stoked speculation of tension between the Prime Minister and his Treasurer. Though both are denying it today.
SALLY SARA, RADIO NATIONAL: Are you and the Prime Minister in lockstep about what this roundtable will ultimately achieve?
JIM CHALMERS: Completely.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: We talk every week, almost every day. We talked yesterday. We talk every day, either in person or exchange messages.
JIM CHALMERS: I think it has been a very worthwhile thing that we are shaking the tree for ideas and the Prime Minister and I are aligned in the way we go about that.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: We are up for big reform, whether it's strengthening Medicare, the changes to childcare, the benefit to education.
JACOB GREBER: Despite the bold talk and the Prime Minister and Treasurer's media blitz of the last few days – almost pre-budget-like in its intensity - it's far from clear what the roundtable will ultimately achieve.
For now, major tax reform is off the table, unions are pushing for regulation of artificial intelligence and a four-day work week.
But as we've seen, it's in housing where hopes are highest.
JOCELYN MARTIN: It is a slow ship to turn around, but we are seeing some changes.
JACOB GREBER: For people trying to build homes now, it can't happen fast enough.
CASSANDRA MAST: If we can add a home, and someone else can add a home, and someone else can add a home, we won't have a housing problem. We don't need huge developments.
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