\n<\/p>\n
The Albanese government has promised to cut red tape and fast track environmental approvals for new homes in an effort to address Australia\u2019s housing crisis.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, the government announced plans to pause further residential changes to the National Construction Code and to streamline the assessment of more than 26,000 homes under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.<\/p>\n
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The announcement follows the economic reform roundtable this week, at which housing was a focus. According to the government, there was broad consensus that \u201ccommonsense changes could reduce the regulatory burden for builders and boost housing supply\u201d.<\/p>\n
The housing minister, Clare O\u2019Neil, told Sky News on Sunday the changes were designed to give builders \u201ca bit of room to breathe\u201d and to ramp up housing supply.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want our builders doing what they do best, which is building high quality homes for Australians, not seeing them trapped in the back office, filling in forms and dealing with red tape,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The government said it would work with states and territories to pause further changes to the National Construction Code. It would then consult on ways to streamline the code, including the use of artificial intelligence to help tradies, small business and households in using the three-volume, 2000-page code.<\/p>\n
A new \u201cstrike team\u201d would be established within the environment department to accelerate the assessment of housing, with plans to use AI to \u201csimplify and speed-up assessments and approvals\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest issue we\u2019ve got in the code at the moment is just sheer complexity. This is a code which has ballooned out to more than 2000 pages,\u201d O\u2019Neil said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really about streamlining, about simplifying and making sure that we provide builders the very best opportunity to build more homes more quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
The environment minister, Murray Watt, said the measures would deliver faster decisions, unlocking new homes more quickly. \u201cFast-tracked projects will continue to be required to meet all environmental requirements,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The federal government said it would also progress other housing reform ideas, such as removing barriers to superannuation investment and increasing the uptake of modern construction methods like prefab housing.<\/p>\n
The shadow treasurer, Ted O\u2019Brien, said the Coalition was supportive of the changes, noting the former opposition leader, Peter Dutton, had taken a similar policy to the May federal election.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would have saved a lot of time, a lot of effort. If you know, [Labor] just put a post on social media saying, \u2018Thanks, Coalition, good idea. We\u2019ll take it up,\u2019\u201d he told Sky News.<\/p>\n
Under Dutton, the opposition proposed a 10-year freeze to changes to the code. O\u2019Neil described the alternative policy as a \u201cblunt force instrument\u201d that would have ignored \u201curgent safety and consumer issues\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Property Council of Australia, which has advocated for faster environmental approvals and the adoption of AI in planning, welcomed the announcement.<\/p>\n
Chief executive Mike Zorbas described the announcements as \u201csensible\u201d and a \u201cwin\u201d for housing supply.<\/p>\n
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Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/span><\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s also put AI to work turbocharging housing delivery. A smart rollout of AI into planning and assessment systems will give decision-makers the clarity they need and save valuable time in delivering new homes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Speaking this week on the sidelines of the roundtable, Daniel Mookhey, the New South Wales treasurer, supported a pause in adding new federal regulations to the national construction code, saying it would \u201ccertainly\u201d lead to more homes being built.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the national code is frozen it gives us a bit more time to get the interactions between national standards and state standards clear,\u201d he said, speaking this week. \u201cBut equally, it will give a lot of confidence to people who are looking to build right now.\u201d<\/p>\n But former industry minister Ed Husic said this week he was concerned about a pause to the code.<\/p>\n Husic said the former Coalition government had frozen new homebuilding regulations, only to rush through a mass of changes in a short period of time. \u201cPeople who\u2019ve lived in older homes with regulations that weren\u2019t as strong understand why livability is such an issue.\u201d<\/p>\n On Tuesday, Australian Conservation Foundation chief executive, Kelly O\u2019Shannassy, called for environmental law reform \u2013 including national environment standards, an independent national EPA and better coordination between governments \u2013 as she headed into one of the roundtable sessions.<\/p>\n \u201cFaster decisions are crucial, as is stronger nature protection. Australia\u2019s failed national nature law facilitates neither,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe national nature law contains a series of convoluted processes with no defined outcomes or transparent institutions \u2013 a recipe for slow, unpredictable decisions and ecological and economic decline.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Albanese government has promised to cut red tape and fast track environmental approvals for new homes in an effort to address Australia\u2019s housing crisis. On Saturday, the government announced plans to pause further residential changes to the National Construction Code and to streamline the assessment of more than 26,000 homes under the Environment Protection<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[3896,1532,650,231,1069,562,10544,10545,558,456,1264,1411,1068,10546],"class_list":{"0":"post-17459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-albanese","9":"tag-bid","10":"tag-boost","11":"tag-builders","12":"tag-building","13":"tag-cuts","14":"tag-filling","15":"tag-forms","16":"tag-government","17":"tag-home","18":"tag-housing","19":"tag-red","20":"tag-site","21":"tag-tape"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}