HIA’s 2018 Victorian ELECTION POLICY IMPERATIVES

HIA Victoria Executive Director Fiona Nield says that as the State Election draws closer, it is vital there is a focus on making sure all Victorians have the ability realise their dream of owning their own home.

“HIA’s Policy Imperatives document for the 2018 Victorian Election, is focussed on housing affordability and provides initiatives for government in the key areas of housing supply, skills availability, building and planning reform and reducing the taxation burden on new housing,” Ms Nield said.

“The Victorian economy and its building industry are continuing to out-perform the rest of the country, strong employment growth is essential to the home building industry.

“Within this economic environment, housing affordability must remain a key objective of government, together with supporting and encouraging the growth of the housing industry.

“A lack of available land and increasing housing delivery costs, impact on achieving this objective in Melbourne and across Victoria.

“Government should effectively monitor and manage the availability of land that is “shovel ready” at an affordable price to avoid unnecessarily compounding the affordability challenge.

“The number of building regulations and the requirements our industry in Victoria must meet have increased and each of these add to the cost of home building.

“If builders are to meet the demand of the population and supply them with better housing affordability, excessive regulations involving planning of builds and unnecessary red tape associated with home building must be addressed, where appropriate, to allow the industry to do its job.

“HIA urges any incoming Government or interested parties, to read the HIA State Election Policy Imperatives which examines the problems and provides solutions to delivering land and housing affordability to Victorians,” concluded Ms Nield.