There has been investment in housing-enabling infrastructure, planning reform and measures designed to accelerate supply. But beneath the budget's ambitious housing targets lies a larger question for the construction industry: can the system actually deliver that housing efficiently, consistently and at scale?

The real challenge facing construction is not simply the pace of delivery. It is the growing drag created by fragmented regulation, workforce shortages, inconsistent compliance systems and the cost of avoidable defects.

Australia is not just struggling to build enough homes. It is struggling to build efficiently because too much time, money and professional capacity are being lost inside the system itself.

The budget's emphasis on housing supply is welcome. We unquestionably need more homes delivered more quickly. But speed alone is not productivity. If the industry continues to leak value through defects, rework, uncertainty and inconsistent regulation, then accelerating construction risks compounding inefficiency rather than solving it.

For too long, productivity in construction has been framed almost exclusively as a question of deregulation. Yet some of the biggest productivity failures in the sector stem not from regulation itself, but from uninformed policy, poor coordination, fragmented standards and under-resourced compliance systems.

Waterproofing defects alone are estimated to cost Australia around $2.5 billion annually. Broader estimates place apartment defect remediation between $5.2 billion and $7.2 billion every year. These are not simply technical failures or isolated quality problems. They represent enormous productivity losses across the entire construction economy.

Every hour spent rectifying defective work is an hour not spent delivering desperately needed housing, schools, hospitals and infrastructure. Every dollar spent on avoidable remediation is a dollar diverted away from new supply.

For builders and developers, that means rising costs and delays. For insurers and investors, it means greater uncertainty and risk. For consumers, it means declining confidence in building quality. And for governments pursuing ambitious housing targets, it means the system continues to absorb inefficiencies while being asked to increase output.

The irony is that weak compliance systems often create the very inefficiencies critics claim regulation causes. Poor oversight allows defects to move through the construction process undetected, only for them to emerge later as expensive disputes, rectification projects and insurance claims. That is not a productive industry. It is an industry paying twice for the same work.

There is a legitimate case for reducing duplication, streamlining administrative burden and improving how practitioners access technical requirements. But simplifying regulation should not become shorthand for weakening safeguards that protect building quality, public safety and consumer confidence.

Australia does not need weaker building regulations. It needs smarter building regulations. Higher productivity can be achieved through nationally consistent systems, clearer technical standards, stronger professional capacity and better coordination between jurisdictions. The goal should be a regulatory environment that is easier to understand and easier to apply, without compromising safety or quality.

The fragmented rollout of NCC 2025 demonstrates exactly why this matters.

Victoria adopted the updated code from May 2026. New South Wales has delayed adoption until May 2027. Tasmania remains in legislative uncertainty. Meanwhile, practitioners are expected to design, document, price and deliver projects nationally while navigating different compliance timelines and jurisdictional variations.

For architects and designers, this fragmentation creates growing complexity in project documentation and specification. National practices are increasingly forced to adapt designs around inconsistent state-based adoption schedules and differing technical requirements, introducing additional cost, duplication, and uncertainty before construction even begins.

For builders, certifiers and developers, it creates administrative inefficiency, increases the risk of error and complicates workforce mobility across state lines. In any other industry, operating under multiple competing versions of a supposedly national standard would be recognised as a major productivity problem. Construction should be no different.

The challenge is compounded by a workforce issue receiving far less attention than planning reform or infrastructure funding: the shortage of qualified building surveyors. Housing targets ultimately mean little unless projects can move efficiently through approval, inspection and certification processes.

Building surveyors sit at the centre of that system, yet the profession continues to face capacity shortages and inconsistent accreditation pathways across jurisdictions. Trying to accelerate housing delivery without addressing the shortage of building surveyors is like widening a highway while leaving a single-lane bridge in the middle. Traffic still banks up. This matters because compliance capacity is not peripheral to housing delivery. It is part of the delivery infrastructure itself.

Where strong compliance systems exist, the benefits are increasingly visible. In New South Wales, the establishment of the Building Commission (backed by significant state investment and stronger enforcement powers) has coincided with measurable declines in serious apartment defects. That is an important lesson for the broader industry.

Compliance done well is not a brake on productivity. It is one of the conditions that makes sustained productivity possible, because it reduces rework, improves certainty and strengthens confidence across the market.

Australia’s housing challenge is urgent, but urgency should not become an excuse for shortcuts. Faster approvals and greater investment are important, but if governments continue to overlook the structural inefficiencies inside the construction system, the industry risks increasing volume without improving outcomes.

The goal should not be less oversight. It should be less duplication, less rework and less uncertainty. Because a faster system is only a better system if it still delivers safe, compliant and durable buildings.

Main image: Envato.

By Wayne Liddy, National President, AIBS (above-image supplied)

Architecture & Design Team

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