Albanese government’s housing target falls short by 81k homes as quarter-time called on housing accord policy

The Albanese government is calling quarter-time on its staple National Housing Accord, with an uptick in housing commencements and completions. The total number of dwellings commenced in September 2025 rose by 6.6 per cent from the previous quarter to 48,778, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ latest Building Activity report. New private sector house commencements accounted for more than half of those builds, rising 6.9 per cent to 28,845 in September, while the number of completed sector house dwellings fell 5.1 per cent from September 2024 to 27,066. Completed private sector dwellings other than residential, meanwhile, drew by 9.7 per cent from September 2024 and by a whopping 30.7 per cent from June 2025. The total value of build work rose 3,8 per cent in September to $43.2b. Urban Taskforce Tom Forrest said while commencements and completions were picking up, there was far more to be done. The September 2025 findings represent the quarter mark for the Albanese government's National Housing Accord which commenced in July 2024. “Under the National Housing Accord, the pro-rata new housing completions target for the first 15 months was 300,000,” Mr Forrest said. “Despite some improvement, the first 15 months saw only 218,974 new dwelling completed across Australia. “Clearly, as shown by the gap between actual completions and the National Housing Accord’s own targets, there is a long way to go to deliver the housing supply growth our population needs.” There was nonetheless good news, Mr Forrest said, with a resurgence in new dwelling commencements in the 12 months to September 2025. At the state level, planning reforms were starting to bare fruit in NSW. Australia’s most populous state reported 47,198 commencements for the year to September 2025, an increase of 4,186 on the previous year. The number of housing completions also hit 13,057 – the highest quarter since March 2021. NSW Planning Minister Paul Scully said the figures were an “encouraging sign” reforms were unlocking more homes. “These aren’t just numbers, they are real homes being delivered for the people of NSW,” he said. “Each completion means a new key in a new door to help address the state’s housing challenges and give people the ability to choose the neighbourhoods they want to live in. “We know there’s still more work to be done but more houses are being approved and more houses are being built and that’s welcome news.” However, the state still lagged behind the National Housing Accord targets in the scheme’s first 15 months, with only 55,557 new dwellings have been completed against an Accord target for that period of 94,000. Mr Forrest said the biggest challenges were a lack of federal support for housing-enabling infrastructure and high taxes levied on housing by the states, in particular in NSW. “Today’s ABS data is a timely reminder to the federal Treasurer Chalmers and Prime Minister Albanese that more support is needed for housing related infrastructure and taxation reform,” Mr Forrest said. “With some great work done on planning reform, we need a circuit breaker if we are to get anyone close to the housing completion targets set under the National Housing Accord.” Canberra needs to come to the party in terms of paying for housing enabling infrastructure – like roads and water. This is now the greatest challenge. “All the approvals in the world are meaningless if they cannot be converted into housing commencements and completions.” The Queensland government on Wednesday released its response to the Queensland Productivity Commission’s final report into productivity of the construction industry. Queensland Home Ownership Minister David Janetzki pointed the finger at union deals under the former Labor government for lagging housing construction. “The decade of declining construction productivity has reduced housing affordability and increased the cost of vital infrastructure projects,” he said.