HOUSING —
BUILDING BONUS SCHEME
797. Mr
I.C. BLAYNEY to the Treasurer:
I refer to the $147 million
building bonus program and its stringent time parameters.
(1) Does the
Treasurer agree that the time frames are too tight to allow lot titling and
construction works to roll out, resulting in builders knocking back jobs?
(2) Has the
Treasurer been directly approached by industry groups such as the Housing
Industry Association, Master Builders Association, Urban Development Institute
of Australia and others regarding tight time frames; and what has their
feedback been?
Mr B.S.
WYATT replied:
I thank the
member for Geraldton for the question.
(1)–(2) I think we have a grievance tomorrow on this topic
or something related it. I look forward to that. Without doubt, this has been
one of the more successful stimulus programs that the state has rolled out, I suspect
in the last decade. When the impact of the coronavirus hit, there was a range
of impacts on expected population growth and returning Western Australians. The
housing sector, in all its forms, came to the government worried about what it
refers to as its pipeline of work. The Housing Industry Association and the
Master Builders Association in particular have different forecasts for
the pipeline of work; nonetheless, it was clear that a cliff was emerging. I think
that some opposition members of Parliament referenced this last night, including the member for Riverton, particularly
bringing work forward. Perhaps I will make some comments around that in a minute. As a result of those
requests, the government introduced the building bonus scheme hand in
hand with, or at the same time as, the commonwealth's HomeBuilder
grant. The state's scheme is much more generous than the commonwealth's,
hence there has been a much larger uptake of the state building bonus than
there has been of the commonwealth's scheme, which is much more
restrictive and harder to get. The uptake has been enormous. Yes, I have been
approached by, let me say, all four of the peak property bodies, so I do not
leave any of them out, about the issues raised by the member in his question.
Yes, the member is right. We are seeing some larger builders in particular
saying that they will not be able to meet the requirements around substantial
construction starting. We amended the scheme along the way and instead of a slab
down constituting substantial work, we created some flexibility. Most smaller
builders are fine because they are still dealing with the uptake of that. It is
really larger builders and property developers who are having issues with
effectively closing their books early because they will not be able to commit
to the construction timetables. Yes to both the first and second part of the
member's question and yes, we will continue to monitor this. We have
made a couple of amendments along the way. Originally, the policy was around
getting a slab down. We amended it to make it more flexible. Secondly, we allocated
another $30 million to the program. Initially, it was $117 million but demand was much higher than we expected, so we
allocated another $30 million to ensure that it could take place.
Nonetheless, we watch with interest to see what else we can do to ensure that
as much is brought forward as possible. I think I have answered the member for
Geraldton's question.
The SPEAKER: Members, we
have only six minutes to go until three o'clock when we have an MPI. We
should get through this quickly if we can.