REIA welcomes new cabinet

The Real Estate Institute of Australia has welcomed the new Labor cabinet and congratulated Julie Collins, the new minister for Housing, Homelessness and Small Business.

“We welcome the appointment and are pleased, as expected, housing has been elevated to a cabinet position,” REIA President Hyden Groves said. “We also thank former Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness the Hon Jason Clare MP and congratulate him on his promotion to the minister for education.”

Groves said he looked forward to working with the new cabinet on building a comprehensive, whole-of-government approach to dealing with housing supply and affordability issues.

“Housing supply and affordability were a battleground issue in the federal election 2022 for young Australians in particular, and we must all rally around this critical issue,” Groves said. “NHFIC estimates household formation is, across the board, expected to exceed supply by 164,300 by 2024-2025 after some short-term relief this year and next, which will maintain pressure on affordability, particularly as interest rates increase. In my home state of Western Australia, that is the estimated equivalent of 20,000 new homes needing to be built.”

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Groves said that governments and industry cannot continue to do the same things while expecting different results.

“To deal effectively with housing supply and, in turn, affordability, we will need to unlock solutions to better utilise existing housing inventory, better deal with the building and construction crisis so more new homes can be built, and look globally to find innovative practices,” he said. “We will need to use every tool in both the state and federal governments’ disposal and tackle economic and productivity reforms that have been for too long put in the ‘too hard’ basket.”

Groves said those issues included everything from a conversation around stamp duty reform to city and regional deals that have land release and supply targets built in.