03 August 2010
Private sector home approvals across Australia fell by a seasonally adjusted 1 per cent in June, while approvals overall fell by 3.3 per cent, once a 30 per cent drop in public housing approvals was factored in.
“Queensland saw a sharp 9.1 per cent fall in new private sector home approvals, while NSW and Victoria held relatively steady with a 0.3 per cent fall and a 1.8 per cent increase respectively.”
Mr Gadiel said that, across Australia, 154,000 new private sector homes were approved in the 2009/10 financial year.
“That’s 20 per cent better than last year’s figure, but it’s less than 2007/08 and just below the previous 10 year average.
“This modest rate of home approvals has led us to the 200,000 dwelling housing shortage we have today.
“We clearly need action by the Federal Government to support new home development not just in regional areas, but in capital cities too.
“The Federal Government needs to reform the high development levies and archaic town planning laws, as flagged by former Prime Minister Rudd at the April meeting of the Council of Australian Governments.”
Mr Gadiel said that NSW remained the stand out poor performer, with only 28,000 private sector homes approved for development in 2009/10, compared with 54,000 in Victoria and 30,000 in Queensland.
“No Australian capital city approves less new homes per head of population than Sydney,” Mr Gadiel said.
“In the last financial year, just 43 new homes were approved for each group of 10,000 residents in Sydney, compared with 106 homes in Perth, 103 homes in Melbourne and 77 homes in Brisbane.
“In raw numbers, Melbourne home approvals are soaring, while the number of homes approved in Sydney is almost the same as Brisbane and Perth, despite their smaller population bases.
“Even for apartments and townhouses an area in which Sydney used to shine Melbourne is outdoing Sydney.
“In 2009/10, 15,000 higher density homes were approved in Melbourne, compared to 11,000 in Sydney.
“The number of detached houses approved in Sydney (8,000) is just a third of Melbourne’s figure, near to half of Perth’s amount and just under Brisbane’s number.
“The epicentre of Australia’s housing crisis is clearly in NSW and Sydney.”
The Urban Taskforce is a property development industry group, representing Australias most prominent property developers and equity financiers.
For every $1 million in construction expenditure, 27 jobs are created throughout the broader economy.
The construction activity made possible by property developers contributes $78 billion to the national economy each year and creates 849,000 direct jobs.
Note: Illustrative graphs are contained in the attached PDF below.
