Shadow Housing Minister Says Housing Crisis Threatening Support for Capitalism

The Liberal senator wants upzoning, backyard builds, and strata incentives to boost construction productivity.

Senator Andrew Bragg speaks to journalists in the Press Gallery at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on Aug. 21, 2024. AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

Shadow Housing Minister Andrew Bragg has declared “NIMBYism is a cancer” in the centre-right and says the Liberal Party must become the party of mass housing construction as younger Australians lose faith in capitalism and turn towards socialism.

Bragg used a speech at the Centre for Independent Studies to argue that failing to fix housing affordability risks hollowing out support for market democracy.

He said the Coalition must “seriously consider policies that will address housing affordability for younger people,” pointing to a poll showing 53 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds think Australia should be more socialist.

“Owning a home is one of the core components of capitalism and democracy,” he said, adding that if younger generations “cannot experience the dream,” they lose trust in the system that promised it.

End the NIMBY era

Bragg said the Liberal Party must be “firmly in the camp of getting more houses built” and reverse the depopulation of traditional Liberal seats.

“I am determined that we turn our current weak level of urban representation, with its occasional tendency for NIMBYism, into a strength,” he said.

He welcomed national housing targets but criticised Labor for failing to meet them.

“Everybody should be held accountable. The prime minister never fights with premiers,” he said.

Backyards and Gentle Density

Bragg’s major proposal was opening backyards, rooftops, and suburban plots for additional housing.

“Every backyard could potentially host a new house or granny flat if the owner wanted it ... Industry estimates over a 100,000 new homes could be added if strata corporations were incentivised to build on top of an existing building,” he said.

He cited CEDA modelling that if one in four standalone homes in major capitals were redeveloped into dual occupancies, it would deliver “close to one million new homes” and “increase housing supply by 9 percent.” It called “gentle density” a practical middle-ground that uses existing suburbs and infrastructure rather than pushing development further outward.

“More free-standing houses with backyards, more duplexes, more apartments,” he said. “Put simply, we need more buildings. It does not matter what they are. We need to build like mad.”

Bragg argued that migration settings should support construction, noting, “We are short 80,000 tradies. Last year, we only received 4,000 on visas.”

He called for infrastructure funding to follow need rather than reinforcing greenfield-only development, saying future Liberal policy “will be for all housing.”

Bragg also argued that upzoning boosts supply and productivity.

New Zealand research linked construction productivity gains of approximately 8 percent to zoning reform. At the same time, the Productivity Commission found that labour productivity in house construction has fallen 25 percent in Australia since 2001, while higher-density construction productivity has risen 5 percent.

Deposit Guarantees And Price Pressure

Bragg criticised Labor’s expansion of the Home Guarantee Scheme from low- and middle-income borrowers to a much broader group, describing it as a “free for all” that risks “a $60 billion liability” and could push up prices by as much as 10 percent.

He said prices jumped 1.2 percent in the month the scheme expanded, which was the fastest monthly gain since June 2023.

Latest reports from Cotality and PropTrack show affordability remains at near-historically low levels, with some capitals now taking “more than a decade” to save a 20 percent deposit.

A median-income household earning about $118,000 (US$78,000) a year could afford only 15 percent of homes sold last financial year, while inflation at 3.8 percent has dampened expectations of further rate cuts.

“Last year was the worst year of home building in the history of the Albanese government,” Bragg said. “Barely more than 170,000 houses were built. The government is over 60,000 homes behind their target this year.”

Housing Minister Clare O’Neil disputed the claim that the deposit scheme is responsible for price rises, saying the housing crisis has grown “for 40 years now.”

She defended the guarantees as helping first-home buyers who would otherwise be locked out.

“They’re paying off their own mortgage rather than someone else’s,” she said, adding the scheme has already helped 197,000 young people into their first home.