The BCA wants local councils to be rated on their housing approvals. Picture: ANDREW KACIMAIWAI
THE Business Council of Australia (BCA) is calling for council report cards and the removal of planning powers from local government to speed up housing approvals.
The BCA is to make the call in a report to be released later this month that recommend ways to drastically boost housing supply, it says.
Council Chief Executive Bran Black says these recommendations will be hard to implement but adds that tough decisions are needed.
“We have a housing supply crisis in Australia. We need to turbo-charge the assessment and approval process so we get more homes built faster,” he says.
“This supply crisis, driven by a shortfall, means demand for limited houses further pushes up prices and rents, driving higher inflation which hurts all Australians.
“Plain and simple, we need more supply. We want to work with local and state governments to speed up their housing decisions so builders can get on with the job of delivering places for people to live.”
A BCA statement lists some of the recommendations. They include:
- Report cards for councils based on their approvals process;
- State government intervention to remove planning consent from councils deemed to be underperforming or to reward (fund) councils that are high performers;
- Refer housing projects deemed to be significant directly to state government for approval;
- a new state ‘concierge’ service to speed up decisions;
- allow builders to force a local or state government to make a decision; and
- a ‘better’ approach to community consultation that strikes ‘a fairer balance between local voices and housing needs.
Black claims monitoring council performance, as is the case in NSW, would identify which councils need more support to remove barriers to more housing approvals.
“I hear from members that some councils are highly professional while others are unresponsive and can take months to make a decision, in some cases running down the clock because they can,” he says.
“State governments are best able to balance local feedback with the broader economic and policy priorities faced by the community around the need for housing.”
To meet a target of 1.2 million new dwellings under the National Housing Accord over the next five years, Australia has to build 240,000 new homes every year on average, the BCA says.
Based on the latest ABS dwelling completions data for 2023-24, Australia fell short of that by 64,000 new homes last financial year.
The BCA says a proposed state concierge service to co-ordinate approval could be based on Queensland’s model.
