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{{propApi.successMessage}} {{region}} Change locationNew home shortfall costs Tasmania the equivalent of 2,800 nurses for two years
New home shortfall costs Tasmania the equivalent of 2,800 nurses for two years
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Under the National Housing Accord agreed between the Commonwealth and all the states, Tasmania is supposed to build 5,020 new homes per year.
However, HIA’s analysis of ABS data shows Tasmania started just 4,917 new homes in the two years to 30 June 2026, which is 5,120 fewer than its share of the National Housing Accord target. That’s less than half the required build-rate.
HIA estimates the homes that weren’t built have cost Tasmania $566 million in GST and, conservatively, $76 million in stamp duty. On top of that, the shortfall has cost the Tasmanian economy $2.1 billion in forgone GDP.
HIA Executive Director for Tasmania, Benjamin Price, said the cost of not building homes is now being felt in essential services.
“It’s bad enough that new homes aren’t being built to house Tasmanians. Now we know it’s also costing the Tasmanian budget hundreds of millions of dollars a year,” Mr Price said.
“That’s $642 million that could have paid the wages of more than 2,800 nurses for two years. Tasmania never saw that money, because the homes never got built.
“Every home that doesn’t get built is wages that don’t get paid, materials that don’t get bought and tax that doesn’t get collected. When we don’t build homes, it’s hospitals, schools and frontline services that miss out.”
The 5,120 homes Tasmania is short would have housed more than 12,000 people.
Mr Price said the problem starts with land, as HIA set out in its recent report Locked Out: Fixing Tasmania’s Land Supply Crisis.
“You can’t start a home on a block that isn’t zoned and serviced, and Tasmania doesn’t have enough of them. Fix the land pipeline and the homes, the jobs and the revenue follow.
“The Tasmanian Government needs to act with some urgency on reforms that make it quicker, cheaper and easier to build a home. Major reforms to speed up home building have been languishing for over a year. The plumbing approval and subdivision reforms have barely moved a millimetre since being announced in February 2025.
“There are three years left on the Accord. We can keep paying the price of not building, or we can get on with it,” said Mr Price.
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