Doorstop 13 August 2026

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Subjects: Housing costs, National Construction Code, Senate Productivity Report, building pattern books, multinational tax, migration policy, Shadow Cabinet, economic productivity, Liberal Party

E&OE.........

Senator Bragg:

Well, I'm very pleased to be here today with Simon Croft, who is the Chief Executive of Industry at the Housing Industry Association, because when Simon talks in a moment, you'll be able to hear the response from the housing industry and the building sector to our proposal to massively cut the cost of building in Australia. I believe you should be able to build a cheap house in Australia if you want to. And this Senate report delivers on our promise to allow Australians to build a cheap house that they can afford. It also allows people to build a house with bells and whistles if they want to. We've always been the party of choice. And this is a fantastic Liberal idea to give people more agency and more choice when they decide to build a house.

Now, I make the point that a year ago we had an economic roundtable in this building, where Jim Chalmers promised that he would fix this terrible National Construction Code. He charged the minister responsible, Clare O'Neil, that she would fix this code. It is worse than ever. It is a diabolical mess, it is so expensive to build. A builder can't even understand their own basic code for their own industry. That's how bad it is.

I'll give you the contrast. Three months ago, Angus Taylor said in his Budget Reply that we will deliver an NCC under 200 pages. This Senate report delivers in just three months a 90-page Basic Australian Standard, which allows Australians to build a cheap house if they want to. A house that won't fall down, will be safe, won't burn down, and it has basic amenity. And that is going to allow people onto the ladder of housing opportunity, which is going to be revolutionary for our housing system. So, I invite Simon to make a few comments now.

Simon Croft:

Thank you, Senator Bragg. It's fantastic to be here today talking about the report handed down by the Senate Select Committee on Productivity in Australia. This report is a fantastic report that cuts across housing finance, investment, building codes and standards, environmental approvals, planning, zoning, infrastructure delivery, and more. This report is holistic in nature. This is what the industry has been talking about for decades. Not just single, siloed policy approaches, but about a holistic approach to looking at our housing system.

The National Construction Code is fundamental in that. When I first became a carpenter back in the early 2000s, the building code could fit in my glove box. Now I need my whole ute to fill up the code that's over 2,000 pages, references over 165 Australian standards locked behind paywalls, and it just goes on and on. The code has become everything to everyone and it is not working for our industry, builders spending more time having to navigate the regulatory maze rather than actually on-site building homes.

Equally, environmental approvals are meaning that projects are stuck waiting decades to get approved, zoning, infrastructure. This report identifies the opportunity to look into pattern books that are being identified to not just cut through the building code itself, but environmental approvals, planning approvals, zoning, infrastructure delivery, and having pre-approved designs that lets industry get on with building.

This also will allow industry to be more innovative. Right now, if you want to try and get adoption of a new product into the building code, it takes years. We've got examples of products that were used in the Expo in 1988 in Brisbane that are still not adopted into the code. This will be more responsive, more adaptive, more innovative, and supporting modern methods of construction. It sets a fantastic framework for industry to build off, and it has been warmly received by the industry alongside that report by the Senate Committee that goes to that holistic nature of addressing these structural challenges in our industry.

Thank you, and I'm happy to pass back to Senator Bragg.

Journalist:

Senator, after some of your comments on tax and migration yesterday, Angus Taylor has effectively told you to pull your head in. Will you?

Senator Bragg:

Well, I mean, I think the speech yesterday was a very clear articulation of the nation's housing crisis, and there are some solutions on the table there. A lot of them are in this Senate report, but it's also the case that the nation's malaise is tightly linked to the housing malaise. And so, that's the link effectively.

Journalist:

Sure, but you're saying you need to tax multinationals, that—that's not housing, that stretches beyond...

Senator Bragg:

Well, I mean, that's a broader direction of travel. I was very clear those are not policies that we have today, but the main focus today is actually explaining to you that the comments that Clare O'Neil made yesterday on the ABC, that I've gone mad and I'm crazy because no one in the building sector supports this rationalisation of the Construction Code is fundamentally flawed, incorrect, and misleading. Not only has the Housing Industry Association come out, but so has the Urban Taskforce and the Urban Development Institute of Australia. So there's a lot of support for a cheaper way of building houses in this country.

Journalist:

Do you plan to keep advocating on the—on say the tax issue, saying that Netflix and Meta need to pay more tax? Are you going to keep advocating for that?

Senator Bragg:

Oh, of course I'll be working with my colleagues.

Journalist:

Have you spoken to Angus Taylor today or—or yesterday following the speech?

Senator Bragg:

Well, I always talk to colleagues and I always try and maintain confidences of those conversations, as you would expect. And I welcome feedback. Sometimes you get good feedback, sometimes it's more constructive, and that's always good.

Journalist:

Well, he—he's said he's told you to—to promote Liberal Party policy. Is that...

Senator Bragg:

Well, I'm—that's what I'm doing right here by promoting this code. And as I said, we have delivered in three months what Labor have failed to do in 12 months. So, we've done more than the entire Jim Chalmers Treasury has been able to achieve in the last 12 months.

Journalist:

Senator, don't you accept that as a member of Shadow Cabinet, you do not have the same choice, when we talk about the Liberals as the party of choice, to freelance on a range of issues that are not your portfolio and are not Opposition policy? You accept there are limitations there, and are you willing to abide by them?

Senator Bragg:

Well, of course. And the main point about today is that it's very clear that the choice outlined in this report and in the speech yesterday is essential to give Australians access to cheaper housing. That is the main point. But I don't think you can disconnect the housing malaise from the nation's economic malaise. And those broader points, of course, are just facts that the country is going bankrupt under this government, and we have a loss of enterprise, a loss of ingenuity, and a loss of innovation because of the terrible, sclerotic economy.

Journalist:

That—that may be the case. We're not here to dispute necessarily whatever you're advocating, but do you accept that you've got colleagues, not just in the leadership group, not just in your own party, in the Nationals as well, who have expressed some concern and reservations about the extent to which you've been freelancing on these issues, on the backpacker numbers, migration, and other things as well?

Senator Bragg:

No, I'm not worried about that at all.

Journalist:

Are you frustrated with the pace that the Liberal Party has gone through to—to bring forward policy to address that national malaise?

Senator Bragg:

Look, I think we're getting there. The Budget Reply was very substantial and had a number of very good housing policies in that. And I look forward to building on those policies over the next 6 to 12 months. There's a very significant internal process going on, and I'm confident that will yield results, and it's essential that it does.

Journalist:

There's been some speculation that your intervention yesterday was about the leadership. Can you put that to bed today?

Senator Bragg:

Of course, I'm a policy person, that's why we're here today talking about the Senate report, which has delivered more in three months than Jim Chalmers and Clare O'Neil have been able to deliver in 12 months with the whole resources of Treasury and the whole federal government behind them. I mean, this is got to be the most incompetent and useless government in history. I haven't bored you with all the details of the inconsistencies they've had on this NCC, but I think it's important that we are productive in public life and that's why we've been able to articulate how you can get from 2,000 pages to 80 or 90.

Journalist:

And you back—you back Angus Taylor to lead you to the next election?

Senator Bragg:

Of course.

Journalist:

On productivity, what are your just general concerns about the RBA's forecasts of productivity continuing to fall, and these low levels that we've had since the roundtable?

Senator Bragg:

I'm very concerned that the government have a policy to put sand in the gears of the Australian economy, and we see it in the productivity numbers: more taxes, more regulation, all their IR rubbish has meant that we are in a terrible position in this country. And so, we are working as a collective to roll out policies to fix the nation's productivity. This is a critical part of that, because building houses and getting Australians into houses is one of the most important things we need to do to revive our country's standing. Okay? Thanks, everyone.

[Ends] - Media Contact | David Nouri | 0401 392 624

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