South Australia tops HIA Housing Scorecard

South Australia tops the HIA Housing Scorecard, supported by state policies that aim to increase the supply of housing.

The HIA Housing Scorecard report presents analysis which ranks each of the eight states and territories based on the performance of 13 key residential building indicators against their decade average, covering detached and multi-unit building activity, renovations, housing finance and rates of overseas and interstate migration.

“South Australia has topped the list with strength across a number of leading indicators of building activity, including approvals of new work, expenditure on renovations and activity on the ground,” HIA’s Chief Economist Tim Reardon said.

“This strong performance will be supported by policy changes announced in this year’s State Budget which included a reduction in stamp duty, the release of 25,000 blocks of land and an investment in public housing stock.”

Mr Reardon said conditions for the residential building industry were undergoing a rebalancing as the market transitioned from a record boom to the deepest trough in over a decade in 2024. As the industry progressed through this cycle, building activity in each region was starting to diverge.

“Queensland has maintained second place on this Scorecard on the back of strong renovations and multiunits activity,” Mr Reardon said.

“Queensland is continuing to attract a large number of interstate and international migrants which are supporting home building. Despite this level of migration, building activity in Queensland remains constrained by a shortage of skilled labour.”

The Australian Capital Territory took out third place in the Scorecard, supported by its multi-units and renovations sectors, along with the remarkable return of overseas migrants and students.

Western Australia’s home building industry has faced significant capacity constraints. While it ranks fifth in this Scorecard report, the continued inflow of people from interstate and overseas provides its home building industry strong potential moving forward.

“New South Wales and Victoria have fallen down the list as the rise in the cash rate has adversely impacted these markets more significantly given their higher land costs,” Mr Reardon said.

“This will see activity in these regions slow more than the rest of Australia.

“Supporting new home building in these markets by reducing costs, attracting more investment and improving capacity are essential to ensure that an adequate supply of new homes commence construction,” he said.

Choice is very clear when it comes to hardwood timber supply

THE long term damage caused by the State Government in Victoria’s decision to close the native timber industryprematurely or otherwise - is rapidly becoming obvious.

New Forest & Wood Communities Australia executive officer Mick Harrington points out that every time we use Australian sustainable native timber, we are also choosing not to support catastrophic illegal logging overseas.

According to Interpol Illegal logging contributes between 15 and 30% of the world wood trade every year – and is believed by United Nations experts to range from US$30 to US$100 Billion a year.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) believes illegal logging directly contributes to funding many criminal groups. Acting in the best interest of the sustainable Australian native timber industry has flow on effects to our own workforce and timber reliant industries, domestic fire safety and to humanitarian and environmental outcomes internationally. He says that the choice is very clear when it comes to hardwood timber supply –we must choose a well-regulated sustainable industry here in Australia – with the rigorous oversights that a stable democracy and ingrained institutions afford, with the added benefit of sustaining our communities and enabling home grown manufacturing success stories. Luckily, he says, there is a groundswell of everyday Australians that can see the unbridled hypocrisy on display and are choosing for all the right reasons to use Australian sustainable native timber at every given opportunity. Failing that Mick says we are choosing to support the chaotic wanderings of semi- functioning foreign governments and their resident criminal and terrorist groups where illegal logging funds some of history’s most heinous crimes against both humanity and the environment.

Unfortunately, he says, this seems not to register with Victorian State Labor government and the activist class, where votes and purported virtue are more important than environmental and humanitarian outcomes. In fact, it probably didn’t even cross their collective minds.