The JHNA Insights

A building can pass inspection, receive its certificate and still develop serious defects, as Sydney's Opal Tower and Mascot Towers have shown. What happens when the warning signs are missed and the home you planned to age in becomes a financial burden?

In this episode, I am joined by Craig MacDonald, Director – Building Consulting at Beyond Condition and author of The Building Detective. Craig approaches buildings much like a doctor approaches a patient, helping us understand what building defects mean for housing affordability, accessibility and ageing in place.

Listen to discover:

• Why some building surveyors don't certify buildings, and why you might need one before buying a home
• What happens when an inspection recommends opening up a wall to investigate a suspected defect
• Why a $50,000 defect could be a deal-breaker for one buyer and a bargaining chip for another
• What uneven ceiling edges and roof tiles that don't sit straight can reveal about a building's condition
• Why managing a strata building might require something like a driver's licence

Craig also compares two Scottish bridges, one still carrying trains after more than a century and the other replaced as the main road crossing, revealing which one he thinks Australian buildings most resemble.

#BuildingDefects #BuildingCertification #LatentDefects #BuildingInspection #StrataManagement #HousingAffordability #AgeingInPlace

Australia has promised 1.2 million new homes by 2029. Hitting that number depends on far more than building faster.

In this episode, I am joined by Simon Croft, Chief Executive - Industry & Policy at the Housing Industry Association, for an inside look at what is holding back housing supply in Australia, and whether we are building the kinds of homes people actually need.

Listen to discover:

• Why land prices jumped more than 500% in 25 years, while construction costs rose around 150%
• Why planning rules that have barely changed in two centuries can limit the housing our cities can deliver
• Whether pattern book housing can be fast, affordable and well built without lowering standards
• Why the fight over an 80-page National Construction Code misses the bigger problem
• Why a ten-day approval that delivered four affordable townhouses on one block still isn't happening everywhere

Simon has spent more than twenty-five years across construction, training, building regulation and housing policy, so tune in to hear why he still describes the system as a "hamster wheel."

#HousingSupply #HousingAffordability #HousingIndustryAssociation #ConstructionCosts #NationalConstructionCode #GrannyFlats

You have a right to choose where you live. The NDIS is built around choice and control, and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognises that right too.

In this episode, I speak with Alecia Rathbone, CEO of Housing Hub, and Kelly Super, COO of Inclusive Housing Australia, about why people with disability are still ending up in homes they did not really choose, in places that do not work for their lives, with support that does not always match what they need.

• If specialist disability housing supply is growing, why are thousands of eligible people still not housed?
• Why does the funding that pays for your home and the funding that pays for your support not have to match, and what does that mean across a lifetime?
• Why does the process of securing NDIS housing feel, to the people navigating it, like it was designed to keep them out?
• Why do four different voices, investor, provider, family and supporter, each shape where a person ends up living, and whose voice actually wins?
• Choice and control come down to three things: what you need, what is available and what you are funded for. Why do all three so rarely line up?

A home that is accessible on paper but isolates you from your community, your healthcare and your family is not an accessible home. It is just a different kind of stuck.

#NDISHousingAustralia #AccessibleHousing #AffordabilityDisabilityHousing #AgeingInPlace #UniversalDesign #SDAHousing #SupportedIndependentLiving #InclusiveHousing #HousingChoiceDisability #DisabilityPolicyAustralia

Factory-built homes. Faster. Cheaper. The fix we have been waiting for. But is that the whole story?

In Episode 2.8,  I speak with Peter Crossley, General Manager at Calco Trusses & Timber, who brings a practical view from inside Australia's residential construction supply chain, and Associate Professor Andrea Sharam, from the School of PCPM and Director of the AHURI Research Centre at RMIT, who examines why Australia’s construction system struggles to deliver consistently.

We explored:

• Is the factory actually faster, or is that a number someone made up?

• Why does housing keep swinging between boom and bust, and who pays for that instability?

• Why can’t builders see six months into their own pipeline, and what does that mean for every supplier behind them?

• Standardisation can make homes more affordable. Customisation can make them more liveable. Why can’t we have both?

• What is elemental prefabrication, and why is nobody talking about it?

• Can the trucks, roads and site infrastructure needed to deliver factory-built homes scale too?

• If it is not a supply problem, what is it?

Sometimes the most important housing conversation is not the one getting the most attention.

#AustralianHousing #HousingSupply #ModernMethodsOfConstruction #Prefabrication #ConstructionSupplyChain #HousingAffordability

Finding a home is hard enough. Staying in one, affording to run it, and adapting it when life changes? That is where the housing conversation gets more complicated.

In this episode, I speak with Liza Neil, a Principal Architect with more than three decades of experience, and Véronique Lutchmaya, Founder & CEO of Unique Tenants Consult, who built her business from her own experience advocating for tenant rights. Together, they trace the gap between what gets built and the people those homes are supposed to serve.

Listen to find out:

• Why the person managing your home can enter the industry with no prerequisites
• Why commercial tenants are treated as clients worth keeping, while residential tenants often are not
• Why protections in the landlord-agent relationship do not necessarily extend to the renter
• Why single parents and single renters are being priced out of a market that was never designed to include them
• Why a home that works at 30s may leave you with few choices at 60s
• What Australia's WWII housing response can teach us about building smaller and thinking differently about intervention

So perhaps the real question is not simply: “Can I find a home?”

But: “Was this market ever designed with me in mind?”

Keywords: Australian housing crisis, rental affordability Australia, tenant rights Australia, rental reform Australia, affordable housing, accessible housing, ageing in place, housing stress, property management Australia, livable housing, rent stabilisation, energy efficient rental homes

The greatest cost of an unhealthy home is not the electricity bill, but the lasting impact on the people living inside it.

In this episode, I speak with Jenny Danson, Founder and CEO of the UK’s Healthy Homes Hub and Innovation Champion at the 2026 Housing Innovation Awards.

Drawing on Jenny’s UK experience in a system with around 4.2 million social housing homes, the conversation explores what Australia can learn from treating housing as a health issue, not just a financial asset, and what happens when that approach fails.

These are the questions at the heart of the conversation:

• What changed after the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak, and why did his family’s struggle for repairs become a national turning point?
• Why do invisible risks such as poor indoor air quality and radon remain outside many housing decisions?
• What is missed when mould, heat, cold, fire and electrical hazards are treated as isolated defects?
• Could maintenance data and Internet of Things sensors help providers act before residents become seriously unwell?
• Is Australia designing homes for today’s climate, or for the more extreme heat and health risks of the future?

Listen to discover who ultimately pays the bill for unhealthy housing, and learn what must change before today’s housing problems become tomorrow’s health crisis.

In this episode, I speak with Joel Dignam, Building Better Homes Campaign Lead at the Summer Foundation and Founder of Better Renting, about what it would take for renting to become a genuine long-term option across the life course.

One aha moment is that people may buy and sell several homes as their lives change, not because they want to keep purchasing property, but because renting never gave them enough security to adapt.

Listen to discover:

• Why staying in the same home and asking for nothing can be mistaken for proof that the home works

• How the cost of a rental bond can keep someone in housing that no longer meets their needs

• Why coordinating broken systems can create another layer of bureaucracy instead of a solution

• What happens when a housing system passes 85 per cent capacity and loses the flexibility to function

• Why renting may suit real life better than owning, if Australia gives renters genuine security

Also worth listening to:

Episode 1.1 Crossing Borders - Housing Futures Between Tweed NSW and Gold Coast QLD with Jackson Hills and John Engeler

Episode 1.12 Reframing the role of inclusive housing in Australia’s traditional housing system with Nicole Doherty

Ageing in place sounds like the goal. But someone can remain in the same home for decades and still become stranded when the GP retires, the bus route changes and neighbours no longer answer the door.

In this Episode 2.4, I speak with Nick Ryan of Lutheran Services and Amanda Bailey of Faith Housing Australia about the gap between ageing in place and ageing stuck in place.

Listen to discover:

• Why homes designed for one stage of life can quickly stop working when health, mobility or family circumstances change.
• How a single household can support or fail multigenerational families, including carers and people with disability.
• What happens when renters need home modifications but do not control the property or how long they can remain there.
• What long social housing waits and rigid eligibility rules mean for people facing illness, disability or relationship breakdown.
• How people become stranded without moving when transport, healthcare, shops and community connections disappear around them.
• Which inclusive housing models are already working and why housing, health and care systems must stop treating one life as separate policy problems.

This conversation asks a bigger question: can our homes, neighbourhoods and policies adapt with us, or are people being forced to fit places that no longer fit their lives?

Housing security is no longer just a question of owning or renting. As affordability pressures increase, more people are turning to co-ownership, long-term renting, shared equity, community land trusts, co-operatives and other alternative tenure models.

But what happens when life changes?

In this episode, I speak with Emily McMullan, Founding Principal of McMullan Lawyers, about the legal realities that sit behind housing arrangements, especially when relationships break down, people need to exit co-ownership, renters age in place, or alternative tenure models become more complex than expected.

The conversation explores:

• Why housing disputes often begin as life events, not legal problems
• The risks hidden behind co-ownership and alternative tenure
• What renters need to understand in a long-term housing market
• The gap between having rights in theory and using them in practice
• Why people need clearer information before signing housing agreements
• How housing disputes can become safety, health and homelessness risks

One of the central questions from the episode is simple:What rights am I getting, and what am I giving away?

This episode also connects with Episode 1.13 on navigating the rental market during the housing crisis, reminding us that housing security depends not only on access, but also on clarity, protection and the ability to live through change without losing stability.

McMullan Lawyers also offers a one-hour free consultation, which may be a valuable opportunity for people facing housing insecurity, property disputes, tenancy issues, or those wanting to better understand their rights before buying, renting or entering an alternative tenure arrangement.

#HousingSecurity #AlternativeTenure #PropertyLaw #HousingAffordability #RentingRights #Co-Ownership #HousingCrisis

Housing is never just a place to live. It shapes how we age, work, connect, move and belong.

In this episode, I speak with Simon Kuestenmacher, Co-founder and Director of The Demographics Group, and Terry Rawnsley, Director of Planning & Infrastructure Economics at KPMG Australia, about the deeper role housing plays in our lives.

We explore how housing is tied to demographic change, infrastructure, affordability, ageing and household needs. The conversation looks at the growing mismatch between the homes we build and the lives people are actually living, from large homes on the urban fringe to expensive inner-city housing and limited options for ageing and middle-income households.

Simon and Terry also unpack why the system keeps producing patterns that do not always make economic or social sense, and what could change if planning, feasibility and human need were better connected.

Tune in for a thoughtful conversation about why housing is never just housing, and why our homes are doing far more work than we think.