The Prime Minister is suffering from a serious case of denial if he believes that his press conference soundbite about building 1.2 million new homes is plausible, credible and achievable.
Anthony Albanese had his big media event in August 2023 when he stated this objective of 1.2 million new homes in five years – but almost 18 months later it’s abundantly clear to everyone except members of the government that it’s not going to happen – indeed, was NEVER going to happen.
It’s almost as if the PM and his cohorts believed that staging the publicity event in 2023 was all they needed to do - make the announcement of a target which has never been achieved in the nation’s history and then sit back and watch it happen. Job done.
Here we are in 2025 and all the official data shows that building approvals - and in particular building commencements - are so far behind the levels needed to reach the target, that it can already be dismissed as fanciful – indeed, almost childlike in its naivety and idealistic stupidity.
In the past 12 months building approvals totalled around 170,000 – but approvals don’t always translate into actual construction, particularly right now with all the problems in the home building industry.
So we are so far short of where Australian needs to be to meet the target that there is really no realistic hope of achieving it.
And it’s noteworthy that the original target date was mid-2029 and now, quietly, hoping that no one notices the Federal Government has moved the target date to 2030.
But when challenged by journalists about the stark lack of results, the PM becomes angry and defensive – as he has done at recent press conferences.
The Federal Government appears to think that the industry should just go out and build the homes because the Government says they should – and is oblivious to the long list of serious problems which are preventing it from happening.
Building companies are going broke at the rate of nine per day and that is happening for a reason – but you have to wonder if the Federal Government is even aware of this reality.
The cost of building new houses and in particular new apartments has become so high, so catastrophically high, that in many instances it’s not economically feasible to build them because the average buyer won’t pay the increasingly high price for new dwellings.
Is the PM remotely aware of that?
To build homes you need a healthy supply of tradespeople – but the industry has a chronic shortage and needs tens of thousands more to be able to create the dwellings needed – and there aren’t enough apprentices coming into the industry.
One of the reasons the home building industry can’t find the tradies it needs – and why the ones that exist are increasingly expensive – is because federal and state governments have initiated record levels of investment in infrastructure – and there were over $500 billion in projects happening in 2024 and more to come this year and beyond.
This has removed tens of thousands of tradies from home building - to work on the more lucrative headline projects initiated by politicians facing looming elections.
Is the Prime Minister aware of that? Because it’s one of the key reasons his media soundbite home-building target will not be achieved.
Does Anthony Albanese know that the average time it takes to build a house or an apartment has blown out enormously in recent years, thanks to bureaucracy and political interference in the process?
That the cost of building has escalated enormously because of new rules imposed by the various levels of government?
And those factors, plus persistently high interest rates, are the key issues that are sending building businesses broke at the rate of nine per day.
Australia has never created 1.2 million new homes in any five-year period in history and it won’t be happening in the five years following the August 2023 publicity stunt by the Prime Minister.
Sadly, Anthony Albanese is in denial about it, so the problems are unlikely to be fixed.
SNIPPET:
The Prime Minister is in denial if he believes that his press conference soundbite about building 1.2 million new homes is plausible, credible and achievable.
Anthony Albanese had his big media event in August 2023 when he stated this objective of 1.2 million new homes in five years – but almost 18 months later it’s abundantly clear to everyone - except members of the government - that it’s not going to happen – indeed, was NEVER going to happen.
Here we are in 2025 and all the official data shows that building approvals - and in particular building commencements - are so far behind the levels needed to reach the target, that it can already be dismissed as fanciful.
And it’s noteworthy that the original target date was mid-2029 and now, quietly, hoping that no one notices, the Federal Government has moved the target date to 2030.
But when challenged by journalists about the stark lack of results, the PM becomes angry and defensive – as he has done at recent press conferences.
Let’s be clear: Australia has never created 1.2 million new dwellings at any time in its history and it’s not going to happen in this five-year period – so the shortage will persist well into the future.
