On Friday, 21 February, the Housing Industry Association (HIA) launched its 2025 Federal Election campaign, calling on all political parties to commit to making housing a national priority and delivering a comprehensive housing plan to support the industry.

The event was attended by Fiona Phillips, Member for Gilmore; Andrew Constance, Liberal candidate for Gilmore; and Kate Derzarnaulds, Independent candidate for Gilmore, who joined HIA National President Debbie Johnson and Managing Director Jocelyn Martin to outline their respective parties’ housing plans ahead of the upcoming election.

Held at a local HIA member site in the new suburb of Badagarang (North Nowra), the event began with Johnson and Martin, who discussed the key housing issues they hope the next federal government will address.

“HIA calls on the next federal government to make housing across our cities and regions a national priority through addressing the chronic skills shortages in the industry, removing the barriers to the supply of housing, and establishing financial settings that encourage home ownership,” says Martin.

Labor’s Progress on Housing Supply

Fiona Phillips spoke next, highlighting the progress made by the Labor government and the collaborative efforts across all levels of government to address housing challenges.

“Increasing the supply of affordable and social housing - and that’s what we’re doing,” says Mrs. Phillips. “We’ve expanded the First Home Guarantee so that more people can get access to a home.”

“When it comes to Help to Buy, we have legislated that through Parliament, and this was opposed by the opposition. We brought that in so that more people could get access to a home.”

“We’re also doing everything we can to bring inflation down,” she continues. “This is all about affordability and boosting supply. We are throwing absolutely everything at it - we want to see more homes.”

Liberal’s Vision for Housing Reform

Andrew Constance painted a more grim picture for first-home buyers, calling the dream of homeownership “dead”. He highlighted the Liberal government’s housing initiatives, which aim to make buying a home more affordable.

“We are going to allow people to access their superannuation to bring forward a deposit to acquire a home,” Constance says. “At the same time, we are going to make a $5 billion infrastructure fund available to local government and investors so that subdivisions like the one we’re standing in can progress and be brought to market quickly.”

“This home behind me has an extra $30,000 construction cost because of the National Construction Code. That has to be frozen and reviewed. We have to make sure building homes is more affordable.”

“Nationally, we’ve said we’re going to cut migration and make sure that foreign owners are not able to acquire existing properties in Australia for two years to take the sting out of house prices in Australia,” he adds.

Independent’s Focus on Community-Led Solutions

Independent candidate Kate Derzarnaulds stressed the need for a more community-led approach to housing, focusing on taking housing policy out of the political cycle.

“We really need to get the issue of housing out of three-year power trips and endless blame games between layers of government,” Mrs. Derzarnaulds says. 

“The reality is that we need to increase supply - but the conversation about increasing supply of housing runs up against the elephant in the room, which is that two-thirds of our population either own their own homes or are mortgagees.”

“Those people are concerned about the risk of any dilution to their principal asset. We need a quantum leap in the supply of affordable housing - real homes for real people at prices that they can imagine affording.”

Housing: The Key Election Issue

With the election approaching, housing has become a central issue in the national conversation. The party with the best policies on housing could hold the key to winning the support of voters, particularly in regions struggling with affordability.