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The Housing Industry Association (HIA) has released a report that warns that trade shortages present a significant threat to achieving the Housing Accord’s target of building 1.2 million homes over the next five years.
Australia does not currently have enough tradies to build the number of homes needed to house the population and take pressure off housing costs. The report titled All Hands on Deck presents a plan to grow the construction workforce and enable the Housing Accord target to be achieved.
“The residential building industry currently employs approximately 278,000 tradies across the twelve key trade occupations required for home building. The trades workforce needs to grow by at least 30 per cent to meet the Accord’s goals. That is over 83,000 additional tradies.
“To achieve the target, an average of 240,000 homes must be built annually—a level that has only been approached twice in Australia’s history.
“This means a significant boost in the number of chippies, sparkies, plumbers, brickies and concreters, to get these much-needed homes out of the ground and to lock up.
“Despite efforts to boost the domestic trades workforce, significant challenges remain. Creating career opportunities for the local workforce should be a priority, however this alone will not solve to the tradie shortage.
“Skilled migration is the other key lever that the government can pull in the short term to address the immediate shortage of tradies.
“The time for business as usual solutions has passed, and we need ‘all hands on deck’ and coordinated government actions to address the chronic shortage of tradies,” concluded Mr Murray.
The Victorian Government has introduced the Labour Hire Legislation Amendment (Licensing) Bill 2025 (the Bill) into parliament. It amends the Labour Hire Licensing Act 2018 to address concerns about criminality in the construction sector.
“Sales of new homes for construction jumped 25.9 per cent in September following a series of policy changes, including a cut to the cash rate in August, removal of Lenders Mortgage Insurance and easing in planning restrictions,” stated HIA Chief Economist, Tim Reardon.
“Victoria commenced construction on just 7,650 new detached houses in the June quarter 2025, the weakest quarter for the state in almost 12 years and a new low for this cycle,” stated HIA Executive Director Victoria, Keith Ryan.
The Victorian Government has introduced the State Taxation Further Amendment Bill 2025 into Parliament. This Bill includes a number of tax changes, including the much discussed congestion levy changes.