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Approval processes for residential buildings have become more costly and time-consuming, prompting the nation’s peak building body to lobby for urgent planning reform that will deliver much-needed housing supply.
The Housing Industry Association (HIA) has called on the government to overhaul the planning regulations that are inflating the time and cost of housing delivery, and constraining housing supply from coming onto market.
The HIA’s executive director for planning and development, Mike Hermon, said the shortfall of new stock was the result of state, territory, and local planning regulations that have complicated the development process.
“At a time when housing has reached record levels of unaffordability and Australia is on course to fall 20 per cent short of the government’s 1.2 million homes target, state and territory governments cannot just keep on doing the same and hoping it will solve itself,” Hermon said.
The HIA’s call for planning reform coincides with the release of the latest update to its “One House One Approval” plan, which was first released in 2019 to simplify the approvals process for houses on zoned land across Australia’s states and territories.
“HIA has been promoting the concept of ‘One House One Approval’ for a long time now. It is a simple concept that aims to create a pathway to deliver one approval for the construction of a single dwelling on land zoned as residential,” he said.
After last year’s HIA scorecard that found no state scored above three out of five on planning reform, Hermon said local council schemes and secondary controls continue to drive up building costs.
Hermon said that recommendations from the One House One Approval plan, such as creating fast-tracked and streamlined approvals processes, had already garnered favourable results.
“A new house can typically receive approval under complying developments or fast-tracked code assessed pathways in approximately 24 days. This is compared with 87 days for those approvals going through council development/planning approvals,” he said.
While South Australia and Wester Australia have shown improvement in streamlining their approval processes, Hermon said that capital cities on the east coast have not made as much progress in implementing planning reform that will boost supply.
“Other states such as Victoria and NSW have announced prospective future reforms, yet these are just a fraction of what is needed to boost supply in our housing market,” he said.
“Recent state budget announcements on further planning reforms are another important step in the right direction, but more comprehensive reform is needed.”
Hermon said that the lack of true planning reform is not just affecting housing supply levels but also impacting industry productivity in the Australian construction sector.
Earlier this year, the HIA’s latest Taxation of the Housing Sector report estimated that $576,000 of the cost of a new house and land package in Sydney is made up of taxes, fees, and regulatory costs.
The peak body’s report also revealed that the value of taxes and charges in Sydney has increased by 38 per cent since 2019, adding $160,000 to the cost of a new house package.
Data showed that the inflation of tax and regulatory costs was most evident in Brisbane, where house prices rose by $179,000 and more than doubled the values recorded in 2019.
Hermon said the findings further necessitated the need for planning reform and noted that one of the most significant contributors to inflated costs is the delay in obtaining building approvals.
He said that by streamlining processes, the national cost of delivering a home could be reduced by up to $10,784 per home and boost supply.
In March 2025, industry findings showed that Australia is predicted to fall 462,000 homes short of the National Housing Accord target.
“HIA continues to push for streamlined, nationally consistent regulatory processes that remove red tape and duplication,” Hermon said.
“One House One Approval will give the industry the certainty it needs to build the homes Australians need now, and in the future,” he concluded.
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