Thank you for providing the opportunity to the Housing Industry Association (HIA) to present a submission to the inquiry and appear today at this hearing.

HIA is Australia’s only national industry association exclusively representing the interests of the residential building industry.

HIA represents a membership of 60,000 across Australia. Our members are involved in delivering more than 170,000 new homes each year through the development of new housing estates, construction of detached homes, low & medium-density housing developments, apartment buildings and completing renovations on Australia’s 10 million existing homes.

HIA exists to service the businesses it represents and advocates policies on behalf of members to further advance new home building and renovating, enabling members to provide affordable and appropriate housing to the growing Australian population.

HIA supports the key reforms of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). We view these reforms as a key opportunity to modernise and overhaul this important legislation to improve both environmental and project outcomes.

It is widely acknowledged that the current EPBC Act is outdated and requires a major reset. We stress that the Act, as it stands, is a major barrier to holistic environmental management and simultaneously stalls private investment and housing delivery. Put simply: the current EPBC Act is failing to deliver positive outcomes for the environment, industry, or the community.

The current Act is complex and cumbersome, and it results in duplication with state and territory development approval processes. This adds costs and uncertainty to businesses, often with little benefit to the environment.

Since 2000, the time required for project approvals has doubled. We have examples of members waiting since 2017 for projects to be approved. Right now, estimates suggest that between 26,000 and 40,000 new homes are stuck in the system.

All political parties recognise we are in a housing crisis, yet a key component of getting new housing delivered remains stalled. The national housing crisis demands that all obstacles are removed to fast-track the delivery of housing projects and supporting infrastructure.

While HIA supports the principles underpinning this Bill, our submission details further recommendations to improve the functionality of the Act. To quickly summarise our key priorities:

1. Strict Statutory Assessment Timeframes: We must see a demonstrable improvement in assessment timeframes. We support the new streamlined pathway, but there is a critical need to limit the use of the ‘stop-clock mechanism’ and make the temporary ‘Housing Strike Team’ a permanent part of operations. It currently takes 2 to 4 years for a controlled action to be assessed—unacceptable on land already zoned for housing. A major builder could deliver 8,000 permanent homes in the two years it takes to navigate the current EPBC process.
2. Clarity on Definitions and Offsets: It is vital to clarify key terms such as ‘unacceptable impacts’ and ‘net gain’. These are open to interpretation and will inevitably lead to professional disputes. The offsets process remains a key challenge, adding significantly to the cost of new land. We need clear, worked examples and templates.
3. Prioritising Strategic/Landscape Approvals: We strongly advocate for prioritising partnership with State and Territory Governments to accelerate bilateral agreements, strategic assessments, and bio-regional plans. This is the pathway for a coordinated approach that will deliver significant, long-term productivity gains in housing delivery.
4. Exempting Housing from Emissions Reporting: Embodied emission information is better suited to the home construction stage, where the data is known. We note the National Construction Code is better placed for this reporting, and this system is already being developed.
5. Robust Transition Arrangements: We require equitable transition arrangements to prevent existing applications, already deep in assessment, from being unnecessarily required to resubmit under the new legislation, thereby preventing further, costly project delays.

Finally, we call for the reforms to be supported by a comprehensive education program and a commitment for a two-year post-implementation assessment review to ensure the reforms are implemented as intended.

The proposed EPBC Act and supporting instruments while not perfect, provide a marked and sensible pathway forward to achieve improvements across the core principles as identified in the 2020 Samuel Review.

We therefore want to see progress with passing of the amended laws, with our suggested improvements, to address the legislative limbo this Act has been in since 2020. Business and the community want action and not further delays.

Thank you for giving HIA the chance to contribute to this important conversation. We welcome the opportunity to discuss these matters further.

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact: