We do not usually have politicians on the show, so sitting down with David Southwick, the Planning, Building, and Construction Minister for the Liberal Party’s Shadow government, made for a very different kind of conversation. Less product talk and site detail, more housing policy, building regulation, and the decisions that shape what builders can actually do on the ground. If you work in the construction industry in Australia, this episode is a useful look at the levers that affect your day to day.

David’s path into politics is not the usual script. He has been a DJ, a businessman, and a small business owner, and that comes through in how he talks about the industry. A big theme is the need for governments to listen to builders, tradies, and industry experts, not just write rules from a distance. It is a practical conversation about decision-making, consequences, and what happens when policy does not match reality on site.

We get into the messy part of the current housing market. Construction costs, interest rates, red tape, delays, and the pressure to increase housing supply fast. But we are not interested in building more homes if they are worse homes. We talk about affordability alongside build quality, comfort, durability, and the long-term cost of homes that underperform. This is where topics like tax, approvals, and compliance start to matter just as much as what happens on site.

We also explore future-focused solutions like prefab housing, kit homes, and 3D printing in construction, plus the need for stronger trade education and longer apprenticeships to lift capability across the industry. The thread running through it all is confidence and certainty. Builders need stable settings to invest, hire, and train, and clients need confidence to commit. Whether you agree with David politically or not, this is a grounded builder reality check on how politics and construction intersect, and what needs to change to support better outcomes in Australian housing.

👇 CHAPTER MARKERS 👇

00:00 Welcome

00:51 David’s Background Story

03:40 Minister Role and Big Picture

05:06 Housing Crisis and Targets

06:10 Taxes and Cost Drivers

08:08 Planning Delays and Infrastructure

11:08 Confidence and Building Quality

14:02 Future Housing and Prefab

17:04 Tradies and Apprenticeships

20:57 Rogue Builders and Regulation

23:22 BPC Critique and Better Enforcement

26:23 Promoting Good Builders

27:08 Showcasing Great Builders

27:59 Standards Should Be Accessible

29:36 Minimum Financial Rules Critique

31:25 Insurance Gaps And Defects

34:41 NCC Freeze And Product Influence

36:14 Cladding Liability Nightmare

40:30 Red Tape Vs Quality Fixes

45:22 Election Promises For Housing

49:46 One Silver Bullet Certainty

51:20 Getting Youth Into Trades

LINKS:

David Southwick: https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/members/david-southwick/

Our Sponsors:

Pro Clima - https://mindful-builder.captivate.fm/proclima

MEGT - https://mindful-builder.captivate.fm/megt

CR Kennedy - https://www.crkennedy.com.au/

Connect with us on Instagram: @themindfulbuilderpod

Connect with Hamish:

Instagram: @sanctumhomes

Website: www.yoursanctum.com.au/

Connect with Matt:

Instagram: @carlandconstructions

Website: www.carlandconstructions.com/

Mentioned in this episode:

Proclima Sponsor

Hello everyone.

Welcome to another episode of the "Mindful Builder" podcast.

We are recording out of our Always studio, the Proclima studio,

actually using the Wilderness studio.

Thank

you, Kaya.

Kaya.

Um, Hamish, we had a really interesting guest, someone today, uh, we haven't had

someone like this on our podcast before.

It's, we're usually speaking to architects, builders, consultants-

Yeah ... industry experts, but this is kind of a different industry expert.

We have David Southwick, the Planning, Building, Construction

Minister of the Liberal Party.

Shadow.

Shadow.

Shadow.

Yeah.

So just, just for context here, we've actually reached out to all parties,

um, and the other two have declined.

Uh, Dave has, uh, given his time to come in and have a chat with us.

So both Hamish and I appreciate that, understanding that, uh, you're very busy.

I know, I know that your, your days are scheduled pretty heavily, um, so both

of us really appreciate you coming on.

Yeah.

Um, firstly, who are you?

Yeah.

What is your history?

How do you become, uh, a politician, but also how do you get involved

in the planning, building, construction side of things?

Yeah.

Well, great.

Well, fi- firstly, thanks guys.

Great to be with you, uh, this morning and what an excellent question to

k- kick off the, uh, morning with.

So it's interesting, you guys, you're working in the, um,

building, construction industry.

Many will go through apprenticeships and work their trade, and politicians,

what apprenticeship do we get, right?

So- An

arts degree.

Um, well, well, well, it, it, it's kind of wide and varied, and the

thing that I think we should have more of it, of, of people with

practical real-life experience.

We don't necessarily have a lot of that.

So we have career politicians that work for, uh, for a politician.

They might work in a union, and then they come out and, and, and say, "Right, well,

I'm gonna be a politician." So in my case, I ran a number of small businesses,

so I had no background in politics.

My dad was involved in local government.

As a council, I used to be dragged along to some of his events.

Yeah.

And then so at uni, I got involved in, uh, running a different business.

I was a DJ, um, through school, paid my way- What was your DJ name?

Uh, DJ Dave.

So, um, so I, I, I did that, right?

So, um, that paid my way through school and through uni.

I did a, uh, a retail management degree at Victoria University in marketing,

and I had a cosmetics company.

We employed homeless, long-term unemployed people.

We were the first kind of social responsibility product that we

distributed right across, not just Australia, but internationally as well.

So we're quite successful, uh, with a whole philosophy of giving

money back to, 10% of our profits back to d- various causes.

So I went from that into, um, a number of other different things, and people

said to me, "Well, you're so busy trying to help others. Why don't you

get involved in politics?" So had three cracks at it, uh, first time federally

and, and all in the same area because I thought if I was gonna do it, I

wanna represent the place where I live.

Yeah.

So it's all around Caulfield and, and that area.

So ran federally, ran for the upper house In 2004, 2006, and then

2010 was elected into Caulfield.

And it's the best job, but the, the interesting thing about it

is every day is a different day.

You don't know what you're doing from one day to the next.

But back to your first question is, I've had so many different portfolios.

So as a, as a shadow minister, I was elected into government in the first term,

and I was an assistant minister for police in one, in one year, uh, of that term.

And then I've had energy, innovation, uh, small business, a whole

range of different portfolios.

But the thing about it is we aren't the expert.

So we as politicians should be the enabler to more have a strategic look at these

areas and find the experts to ensure that we can drive the industry and the

areas into performing the best outcome

possible.

So ideally, you would say that your role, you should have to have an expertise

in planning, building, or construction.

Would that be the ideal situation?

Uh, look, yes and no.

I mean, I'm on a steep learning curve- Yeah, yeah ... because I've only

had the portfolio for a few months.

Uh, I, I've built, uh, not me myself, but I've certainly got my own property

portfolio- Yeah ... over the years of this, the, um, the work that I've

been able to do, and I've, I've con- I've contracted builders to do this.

Yeah, yeah.

So I've got some practical experience, again, real-life experience, but

I don't have the, the expertise, but I would engage expertise.

And for me, it's not being the builder telling other builders what to do, but

looking at the overall industry and say, "How can we do things better? What are

the levers that we can actually unlock to ensure we get more housing, more

construction, better affordability?"

And that's the kind of big view that I need to have as a,

hopefully a minister in November.

And Tam, that's why we want Dave on today.

Absolutely.

Like, that's literally is a really good segue.

And actually, just before we jump onto that, I actually think that it's

almost better in some ways that you're not, you know, an absolute expert

at housing or construction, 'cause you can actually think a little bit,

uh, I guess, uh, outside the square.

I mean, you've got a multiple business background, DJ.

You know, you sound very entrepreneurial, which I think is

good, because, you know, you're talking to a couple of entrepreneurs.

Yeah.

And the audience here, you know, let's face it, we own businesses.

We are, by definition, an entrepreneur.

Absolutely.

So I actually think that that's, um...

They're not bad traits to have.

But yeah, speaking of housing, like- Mm ... we have a-- We, we're in this

fucked up situation right now where we desperately need more houses, but

we can't build more houses because there's all this red tape No one's got

money or interest rates are rising, construction costs are through the roof.

Like, how do we solve this problem?

Yeah, great question.

I know it's a hard one.

I know I'm

asking you- No,

no, no ... a really hard

one.

No, it's Holy Grail, right?

40, yeah, 45 minutes to go.

It's the Holy Grail.

So we- Everyone start taking notes ... we need to unlock, uh, every possible le- uh,

lever- Yeah ... to ensure we get housing.

Uh, the, the government has said 80,000 homes a year, 800,000 over 10 years, that

will meet population target of 10 million.

Great.

Right?

So let's all get on board, and whatever that target is, let's do it.

But what are the things stopping that from happening?

So it's not about necessarily let's just create more permits and say, "Right, well,

away you go," 'cause there's currently 120,000 permits that are just sitting

on the shelf that no one's building on.

So you can't live in a permit, right?

Yeah.

So you can actually build a home.

So why can't you?

You mentioned earlier, uh, 42, 43% of building a home is tax.

Yeah, you s- Right?

... uh, so I was watching your Instagram the other day.

Yeah.

Um, what can we... That 40%, can you elaborate on that?

Like, is that 10% of that GST or?

Look, it's a whole tax and regulations.

Yeah.

It's a whole range of things.

Your land tax, property tax, uh, all your vacant land taxes, all-

Yeah ... the taxes that then build up, GST- Yeah ... you know, there's federal.

So some's federal, some state, um, some of the other regul- regulatory

environments holding, um, windfall.

So all of it, o- once you kind of put that together, then, um, the Housing Industry

Association and others say that's, that's pretty much where your starting point is.

Yeah.

So what do you do in terms of... And then there's, there's, um, flow

on effects because even when you're buying materials and there's tax on

the materials and you're holding them.

So what can we do?

And so we do need tax reform- Yeah ... no question, and we've got to,

and we've got to tax reform in a way that actually encourages investment.

And at the moment, Victoria's the highest taxing state in the nation, so we wanna

make it attractive that people say, "Hey, we, we need to invest in Victoria."

And that's important because, uh, we, we, if we get the investment funds coming in,

we used to be, have a measure in terms of how many cranes you have in the sky.

Melbourne used to have so many cranes in the sky we could show a

signal, "Hey, people are actually investing here." So that's just the

big picture, big towers kind of stuff.

But you know, we need housing right across the board.

So what I wanna do is I wanna ensure we have housing s- um, housing where

people wanna live And the types of housing people want to live in.

So if that's how-- if that's apartments, if that's, um, uh, uh, smaller tiny

homes- Yeah ... if it's, um, house and land packages and growth corridors,

we've got to have a, a breadth.

It needs to be all of it.

Sorry?

It, it needs to be all of

it.

It needs to be all of it.

Needs to be all of it, yeah, yeah.

So, so again, um, we-- the cost of materials through the roof.

Yeah.

Um, we've got, we've got regulation is just crazy.

And then we-- it, then it comes to just basic managing of things.

So if you look in the growth corridors, for instance, you've got, um, 27 priority,

um, precincts, if you like, that's been identified where we should be building in.

Well, to be able to get one of those up and running takes about 10 years

Why is it taking 10 years to actually identify a block, pl- po- plot land where

you could build 10,000, 20,000 homes?

Then you've got to connect it up to water, sewerage, all the

different things it needs to.

And then who's gonna bu- who's gonna do it?

Well, a developer might do some.

And if you take Queensland at the moment, they've just launched this

$2 billion fund that says, "You wanna build over there? We'll connect up the

water, we'll connect up the sewerage, we'll get things ready to a point, and

then off you go." And we'll partner with some of the developers doing that.

And if we can fast-track some of that stuff, if we can, uh, unlock some

of the issues with, uh, some of the statutory authorities like Melbourne

Water and, and those authorities need to get things going faster.

Especially

with the flood levels and stuff now, like that's

a- And that's a real issue

... and every- and I understand that everyone wants to push blame somewhere else and

de-risk, like I totally understand that.

But I know a builder that we know had flood issue problems at their

house, um, they, he couldn't get the information, um, from my understanding.

They wouldn't give it to him, and then just by chance they were in his street,

so he asked them and they're like, then he's able to have a conversation and

they're like, "Oh no, you don't need it."

But then he was gonna spend tens of thousands of dollars

to go get something done

that he didn't need to do.

And everything's handled to someone else.

Uh, Melbourne Water then goes to council- Yeah ... goes to another authority.

And back to what Hamish said earlier on, we need some

innovation around this as well.

So if it is a f- if, if it is some flood water problems in terms of areas, what can

we do differently to actually build there?

Yeah.

Fishermans Bend, for instance, has been sitting there for zonks.

It could be another great city.

No one's doing anything with it.

Um, flood water is an issue.

Transport is another issue.

Government needs to be able to say, "We're gonna build some transport into Fishermans

Bend. We're gonna fix the flood water issues, and then we can build houses."

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But the, so i- it's, the, the, what, we talked the 42% tax,

like what are other states at?

What should we be getting down?

'Cause we're not gonna get to zero.

No, no, no, no, no.

Like that's, but I think people need to understand that like,

that that doesn't go to zero.

Are we aiming for 35%, 30%, 25?

Look,

yeah, for me, it's not a hard number.

For me, it's just looking at some of the taxes and what we-

Yeah ... what we need to do.

So, um, for instance, uh, we've got this windfall gains tax- Yeah

which, uh, which is again, inhibiting a lot of projects to be able to get going.

And, the projects need to stack up, so that's the first thing.

Someone's gotta look at this and say- The developer has

to make money, like

that's- Yeah ... yeah.

Someone, someone's gotta make a dollar, right?

Yeah.

If it doesn't make a dollar, he'll turn around and say, "Well, why

bother doing what we're doing?" So for me, it's kind of assessing, um,

all of that and seeing what we do.

And if it's not competitive, and we are the highest taxing state in the

nation, we've gotta, we've gotta, we've gotta wind that back, and

we've just gotta be competitive.

And I think it's, it's about looking at, at things, you know, some of our

land tax stuff, stamp, stamp duties, you know, getting, again, first home buyers.

The government did some stuff off the plan, stamp duty, um, relief.

I think that's good.

So, you know, I'll give credit where credit's due in terms of

government doing good things.

We've got to extend that kind of thing.

It's about... I think the big thing for Victoria is certainty.

Certainty, and the other thing, confidence.

There's no confidence at the moment for people saying, "Oh, we'll go

somewhere else to build." You look at, particularly, I know we're gonna

get talking into some of the building construction reform and regulation.

So every time you add more regulation red tape, it becomes too hard.

I mean, I think you've got 20,000 builders that are registered or something.

There's about 6,000 that are actually doing anything, 5,000 are mum and dad.

People just, it's too hard to do business at the moment.

And

notice our risk on builders is slight.

I don't think people understand how risky it is being a builder.

It kind of leads into my next thing, because both Hamish and

I advocate for better building.

We- I'm... I'll be honest, I disagree with freezing the NCC.

I think we need to have more thought through processes of, of long-term

vision, because if we're to build 80,000 homes, that is just 80,000

homes we need to retrofit and fix up in 10, 15 years under the current model.

Um, we can, we... There's huge amounts of data throughout the world on

Canada, New Zealand, leaky building syndrome, sick building syndrome, um,

mold condensation within the houses.

If we continue down the path that these, uh, that we currently have under our

current NCC, we're gonna be the next Canada, we're gonna be the next New

Zealand, and we're gonna have a, another building tax, another building levy in 15

years to pay to fix up all these houses.

Totally.

So we, we- And that's

life.

Yeah

... we need to build, we need to build more homes.

Yeah.

But if we're building shit homes- Correct ... then the problem's

just kicking it down the road.

Yeah.

One of the things you, you were talking about before about confidence, I actually

had written down here perception.

Yeah.

Like, there is, like, this perception in the environment right now.

We-- And I'm saying particularly in Victoria, 'cause if I look north to

Queensland, boom, there's a boom going on.

Yeah.

There's confidence in that market.

Yeah.

And I think you brought up the word confidence as well.

Yeah.

How do we change the perception around building?

Because if you actually dive deeper into uh, what building costs are and what

can you actually get for your money.

Mm. There are solutions there- Yeah ... in my opinion, right?

Yeah.

So I've got- we've got clients coming to us all the time with a budget.

"We wanna spend this." And then we need to turn around to them and

say, "Well, you wanna spend this and you want all of these things.

We need to manage this expectation over here to tell you what you can get for this

number." So I think, yes, it's expensive to build, but people can still build, but

we just need to manage their expectations.

Mm. So how do we change the perception?

How do we change, and this is like another tricky an- question to

answer, how do we ch- how do we, how do we redefine in people's minds

what they actually need in a home?

Mm. 'Cause I think that's gonna flip it on its head.

'Cause people are like, "I want four bedrooms, I want a double

garage, I want three bathrooms." People build their biggest houses.

"I want a big living room," you know.

House.

That needs to change.

People cannot afford that.

The broader c- population can't afford it.

So how do we go about- Changing that perception.

Mm. That's such a great question.

And I think, again, uh, we've got to look in terms of what some

of the future stuff might be.

Yeah.

What is the future of housing?

Are we gonna see more kit homes, prefab?

Yep.

Hopefully.

Yeah.

Are they gonna be, um, uh, 3D, um- Printing

printed?

Yep.

You know, like, um, that kind of thing, which there are.

You know, there are things happening at the moment.

I'd love to be able to see some of this stuff highlighted in, in like in

a mini city where people can say like, "Here's the future of housing. This is

what future housing could look like."

Mm-hmm.

So we've got to, we've got to really... I would like Victoria to be the leaders

in this stuff, and I think we can.

For, for instance, the caravan industry does some fantastic

stuff in the way they go... They build kits and can prefab things.

They want to be able to take their technology and put that into housing.

At the moment, there's a whole lot of levers that are stopping them doing that.

Mm-hmm.

We need to unpack that and say, "Great, if you want to be able to..."

So it's, you get the builders on site doing the construction, but you

might have 40 different window types, and you're pulling different parts

and pieces to be able to do that.

That's not-- But it's not a one size fits all.

Mm.

You need to have flexibility and variety.

I think coming back to the cost scenario, we've gone down a particular path in

Victoria, especially around the big build, which is, um, a lot of materials

and a lot of labor's been zapped out of the market, which means- Mm

there's not been much left for the mum-and-dad builders, and

their costs have just escalated.

We need more, more tradies on site to be able to do this stuff.

If you're getting a couple of hundred thousand dollars on a big build, you're

not gonna be a carpenter working on a-

Yeah.

It

skews, it

skews the expectations of, of, of wages.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But, but because of, I think because of where things have gone, and we've

kind of like the pendulum swung so hard one way- Yeah ... I think what will

happen regardless of the election in November, we can't continue to afford to

go down those big massive build stuff.

It's got to come back.

And I think the biggest opportunity for builders right now, and hopefully

people are listening to your program right now, is the kind of

mum-and-dad home builders, the kind of stuff that we desperately need.

They're gonna build the 80,000 homes.

Yep.

They're gonna be the ones that are gonna do it.

I agree.

So we need to be able to support them, not make it hard for them, not to be

able to say, again, with the regulations we've got coming in, and I agree with

you, you need to have well-built homes, insurance, all the rest of it, but some of

the things at the moment are a little bit overedged, and it does make it very, very

hard, and we can go through that- Yeah.

So that, so we do have huge changes coming in July- Yeah ... into our in-industry

from an insurance perspective, contract insur- uh, contract perspective,

and I agree with most of them.

I f- but I also think the issue with us as builders is like we practically have

our whole lives and houses on the line for everything that no other industry-

Modern day Superman, I reckon.

Yeah.

Like, so no other industry, like you- Yeah ... we're capped at

what we can do as a builder.

Like you don't walk into a dentist and he goes, "No, I've done my quota for

the day. I can only do three, three people per day." We're the only industry

capped at what we can turn over.

do on site.

Um, and I think that is a big issue that we currently, currently have, and

there's got to be a way to de-risk on certain things from our perspective.

Um, again, everyone wants to de-risk.

Like every industry wants to de-risk.

That- that's something that I say, but I want to jump back to

the, the comment on we need more apprentices because it's AI's coming.

AI can't swing a hammer.

AI can't fix a broken pipe.

We're gonna get a huge influx in.

The issue we have that I see is we're trying to rush people through

their apprenticeship and learning.

We're trying to spend about three years in fast-tracking apprenticeship.

I actually think we need to go the opposite way and extend it out to

five to six years, and that fifth and sixth year you pay the full wage.

Yep.

Um, but we need to extend the amount of time people are learning because you

can't learn anything in three years.

And- How

long does it take to become a heart surgeon?

Well, 15.

Okay.

Well,

so many years.

So, so we, we, we need experts, and we need people... And they don't

have to be an expert in, say, for example, carpentry and everything.

They could be just an expert in framing and, and break it down into small amounts.

But we, we're not gonna solve the issue, and from my perspective, and finishing

in three years, yeah, as a statistic, we have more qualified trades out there, but

they actually don't know how to build.

And then now you have issues with things get done incorrectly, they're

not licensed, they're not, um, qualified enough to carry the home, and then we

have massive problems in the future.

And that's why I see a massive issue that I think at the moment we almost

need to go backwards first- Yeah.

So- ... before we go forward.

I, I don't know if you remember listening to the podcast that Simon and Brian

did, uh- Yeah ... with the guys from SBA around, upskilling people quickly

to do- Yeah ... do one thing, which I don't disagree with on a level.

Um, but then there's a clear pathway for them to then add on to those skills.

But I, I agree with you.

I think making an apprenticeship five years, and all those people out there

listening going, "Oh, I don't wanna fucking do that," it should be five

years, but I think the pay, pay thing is where, is, is, is where the solution is.

I, I'm, I'm not gonna solve the issue.

I think this is the easy... Me personally, the easiest way to incentivize someone

into an apprenticeship is you're tax free.

They don't earn much.

Like that's the problem.

That's a good point.

Like you just don't tax an apprentice.

They're gonna, they're gonna go buy tools.

They're gonna put it back into the economy, guys.

The younger kids generally spend more.

Yeah.

And, and some

of this- Uh, yeah, I think, I think with what you're saying, there,

there are a number of incentives.

Yeah.

And again, things that, levers that governments can pull-

Yeah ... to incentivize, uh, more young people to get involved.

Mm. Uh, you know, we even looked at some point even in, you know,

getting licensing, you know, where you've got, uh, uh, apprentices need

to get on the job, particularly for young people, maybe a younger age

for licensing and that kind of thing.

Yeah.

There, there, there are a lot of things that we can do.

Um, but I think also, uh, to remember that people are constantly learning

as well, and to give, give p-people that opportunity to, it's almost like,

build on y-your lifetime of learning.

Exactly.

So you might start with one element, but there could be, should be

constant ability for apprentices to be able to keep coming back.

We're the only industry- Clear pathway, yeah ... that I can think

of In Victoria that doesn't have CPD builders, uh, CPD points as builders

where you-- There is no enforcement of continual professional development.

Yeah.

Tell me another industry- Yeah ... like lawyers, doctors,

accountants, uh, like nurses.

It's almost

like

the training

stops.

Yeah.

You get your apprenticeship and training st- Well,

it

does ... it could stop if you wanted it to stop.

Yeah.

And I think that's a huge issue.

And, but, and you wanna, yeah, but you wanna, we wanna bring in these future,

like you talk about, like these mini cities of the future of building.

Like someone's gotta learn that.

So hey, you can go do a course in, I don't know, 3D printing in construction.

Yeah.

You can do a course in pre-fabrication on how to panel fit something together.

Someone might Think about getting into the industry.

They can start with that and go, "Oh, I really enjoyed

that. I'm gonna go do more."

So it's a bit like, again, the architects, right?

So you've got very high valued architects in terms of their work and what they do.

That should apply right across the board.

If you've got, you know, good builders, good, um, ca- different people with

different skill sets, let's recognize them and not have that one size fits

all and, all right- Yes ... you've got a trade, you've got, you've got a, a

certificate registration where you go.

The issue though, I think more broadly, is about the industry and

protecting the industry, and it comes back to what you said before.

Uh, and we're, what do we do about shutting down the rogue-

Yeah

... operators?

Because what they do is they give a bad rep for everybody.

Yeah.

And also coming back to what Hamish said before, is confidence.

Yep.

'Cause if you're out there and you think that you're not gonna get your

home done, you hear all the bad stories of somebody who's got a half completed

framed home and someone's gone broke or, or shot off, then you're stuffed, right?

So I think we need to absolutely clean that up.

But again, the government's taking a sledgehammer to a problem, and I, I think

there's a, another approach to this.

It's

10, it's 10 to

fix.

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah.

And I think that the issue that I see, the way that the current government's

approaching it, is that it's, it's, it's flipped it on the head and make

it, made it more consumer protection.

Yeah.

And it's actually not fixing the problem.

No, not at all.

Yeah.

So, and then, yeah, I mean, I'm trying to be reasonably agnostic when it comes

to my political views, but it, it is challenging for someone sitting here

wanting to do the right thing as a, as a builder, and then I'm getting painted with

the same brush as the, the dodgy builder that's like not finishing the frame or

not waterproofing the bathroom properly.

Yeah.

It's challenging.

So, so again, if you look where a lot of the licensing had come from,

and it's so- A weenie, a weenie box.

I can be, I can be political for one second.

Yeah, yeah.

Take it away.

So, uh, the CFMEU- Yeah ... as a great revenue raiser, let's create these courses

and licensing and, and, and ultimately let's recruit more union members and

we will never ever turn the, um, the home building industry into recruitment

drive for more union members, right?

That's not where this should-

Fair point.

We never had union within residential.

Yeah.

Th- th- this, it should not be, um, right, we're just gonna, a, a very soft touch.

Absolutely.

License people where they need to be licensed.

Target the rogue builders and those that are going out there

and say, "We'll come and give you a bathroom reno" uh, on Facebook,

and then they, you know, disappear.

Let's get the BBC with t- teeth and with resourcing to go after them, right?

Yeah.

100% agree.

We've got to do that.

Yeah.

But, but let's not already, um, cause more issues for people that are

struggling to actually run- Business ... um, their business as they are.

They, they, these are small businesses.

Mum and dad builders need to be able to, be able to run their business without

having more cost, more impost, um, and, and more roadblocks into doing anything.

Well, there's certainly, there certainly is.

And certainly

is.

The BBC is an interesting one because from my understanding, it was originally

the Building Plumbing Commission.

Yeah.

They got done for corruption.

They rebranded to the VBA They kind of got done for corruption again, and

they've rebranded back to the BPC.

So as a builder, I'm about to pay my insurance or my, my registration

of 1,500 bucks I've got to pay.

I don't know what the fuck I get for it.

I actually, no, I pay it, and then it's like I hear from them again next year.

And then how, how, and then how did they then pick us up?

Yeah.

Like the thing is like I have no confidence in that authority.

Like we, there's no education from them.

They, they, they randomly did these webinars, but the webinar,

when you ask a question, they go, "Oh, we can't answer that. You

gotta go refer to the standards," which is something I'll get onto.

But I have no confidence in the authority that we currently have.

I've spoken to m- my construction lawyer, like, is there like a class action

against our authority for not actually representing our industry in a correct-

Anyone from the BBC's listening, this is Matt talking.

Yeah.

No, I, I, I guess, you know, I'm, I'm a hot button issue, but the issue

is like they're not representing us correctly, not by allowing these

dodgy builders to keep going, because now the perception comes onto us.

Mm. It's like, and the question we always get was how do, how do

we know that you're not dodgy?

Like, how do you... Like, so do you wanna talk about that, the BBC,

where you see the issues have been, what you see that can improve that?

'Cause again, there's not enough funding to do.

Yeah, well, that, and that's the thing.

And so the argument may be about if there is gonna be all this additional

licensing, where is that money going?

And what is that going to do in terms of to ensure that there is

proper enforcement for the dodgy- Yeah ... dodgy operators, right?

And then they turn around and say, "Well, let's have licensing if

that's what they're gonna do, and let's license carpenters," right?

Yeah.

Which are thousands and thousands of carpenters.

Well, why not go for the waterproofers, where is a smaller group, test that

first, and deal with the ones where there is more likely to have issues-

Brilliant.

Yeah ... as opposed to, you know, let's go for the big thing.

That's brilliant, yeah.

And, and this is the problem, and this is the problem with, I care who

the governments are that are doing these kinds of things and r- coming

up with these brain farts of ideas.

Say quite seriously, you know, like anything in your business, you

don't go out there and say, "Well, I'm gonna build 500 homes and see

how we go." You're gonna build one.

Yeah.

And you start with that.

You see what can you learn.

Say, "That's great. We'll take that to the next project." Let's get

it right before you scale it up.

And I think that's been the problem with these regulators.

It's, it's, they come in and say, "Bang, we're gonna do all this stuff."

Um, they don't enforce properly.

They go for the lowest hanging fruit, you.

Yeah.

Because you pay your, your how much?

1,500 bucks.

Yeah,

yeah,

yeah.

You pay your 1,500 bucks.

We know where you live.

We know where you are.

We know, we know you're, you're on the hook for some dough, so we can come after

you for more dough, rather than hitting the people that aren't paying anything.

Well, I saw that they were gloating on LinkedIn about how they caught this

builder who didn't have a license.

He'd been building houses, and he was suspended or like a suspension for

12 months, but he c- it was like a...

What are those suspensions do they call it where you, it's like a suspended sentence,

but you can kind of still operate?

Yeah.

And we fine him $6,000.

Yeah.

Like

that's not, that's not much is it?

I mean, I, I don't wanna go on this too much, but I think one of my, one of

my biggest gripes with the BBC at the moment is that they seem to be joyfully

promoting on all their social media of all the people they're catching.

Why not talk about the people that are fucking doing the right thing?

Yeah.

100%. Like why not, why not, why not give c- Like if I talk about- Let's

talk about the industry

... I talk about perception and confidence.

Mm. Like if you're a consumer and you're looking at social media or LinkedIn for

the BPC, and they're saying, "Look at who we've caught and look at this," why

not talk about the guys going, "Matthew Carney's just built this beautiful passive

house that was showcased on Grand Designs.

This is what builders should look like." Yeah,

no, here's an open invitation.

Set the expectation of what a good

builder is.

If you're from the BPC listening, you can jump on our website, reach

out to Hamish and I, and we'll do a day touring you around, and

you can do some positive content.

Come on the podcast.

Yeah, come on the podcast.

You can- Great ... you, you can come around and you can show- we

can showcase you, we can introduce you to 20, 30 awesome builders

that are doing the right thing.

Doing the right

thing, yeah.

And go there and start capturing awesome

stuff.

And that'll fix, that'll fix your confidence issue as well.

Yeah.

'Cause

our industry, like, and, and we, we live in a bubble, right?

Like I'm, I'm part of another organization called Sustainable Builders Alliance.

We have this amazing sort of high performance builders that we talk to.

Every single one of them wants to do the right thing.

Mm. And I guarantee every single one of them could make a lot more

money if they didn't care so much.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And like that stuff needs to be celebrated.

There is so much passion in the industry, and I was actually talking to someone

yesterday who I've known, I know really well, and he's like, "I think I'm

getting out, man. I think I'm done."

Mm.

And this is a builder that- I look up to, and he's exhausted.

We need more passion.

We need to give this industry more confidence.

Well, this is, and this goes back to, it kind of is a bit of a, a 360, Tia,

because I don't know if this is a federal state, but our... The law is a law, and

the indus- issue you're having with the construction is to access the law, you

need to pay to access the standards.

Yeah.

And if you want to improve the industry, the standards should

be free or at least affordable.

One standard being $300 and we need to buy 15 of them, and no one's gonna buy it.

Mm. And they're hidden between one, a code online where if I want to access

it, I can only choose which device wants to access and it might be my phone, and

then I can't use my iPad or my computer.

Mm. So they, and they heavily guard these standards that then no one wants to access

because they don't want to pay for it.

And then people go, "Well, I don't know what the standards is." And then

there's no education then to keep people up to date on the standards.

Do you have any comments around maybe the standards becoming af- affordable, even

free, or even part of our BPC membership?

I'd pay an extra 100 bucks, 200 bucks a year if we had access to all of them.

A- again, I mean, this is just common sense stuff, right?

So, um, I can't, I can't answer that question- Yeah ... as to why it is

that particular way, but I can give you that commitment that they're the

kinds of things that we would do, right?

Yeah.

We would look at that because we need to ensure that we just make it easier,

common sense, uh, approach to things, and we're just gonna make things more

affordable because we ca- we talk about affordability of, of housing.

Every time you do one of these things and you have to pay more, that has

to be passed on to somebody, right?

So there's all of these issues that are being... that, that are costs.

I know, uh, you've got, uh, changes in terms of the minimum financial

requirements- Yeah ... and, and some of the insurance changes as well.

Do you have thoughts on that?

Yeah, I do.

So, um, so- I, I think again with minimum financial requirements, uh, uh, we're

taking a sledgehammer to a problem.

And so one of the key issues of, I'm saying to a, a builder that, you know,

look at their assets and say, "Right, so you can have a million dollars worth of

projects." Now, you, you might... a-and you might split that to two projects.

You've done one project and you've, you potentially freed up your capital.

You've got to wait 12 months, the 12 months before you can

then take on another project.

So we want people to build more housing, but what they're doing is, again, another

handbrake, another lever to be able to say, "Right, well, there might be some,

um, builders that overcook it or some bigger builders." So the issue with Porter

Davis was a real issue, but you can't then turn around and say every single

builder is now gonna be penalized to a point where they can't build more homes

because we're gonna limit how much they're actually going to be able to borrow

or what they're gonna be able to do.

So we need to look at that and have at least flexibility in

terms of when these come on.

If you complete and if you've freed up capital, why do you have to wait another

six months before it kicks back in?

So

if I, so if I do a bathroom and just I've got a million dollars and the

bathroom's a million dollars and I finish it for a week, for 51 weeks,

I've got to sit with my hands- It's...

Yeah ... twiddling my thumbs.

Yeah.

It

makes no sense.

No sense at all.

So there's- But

this hasn't been put into legislation yet,

has it?

Well, it's about to be.

Right.

Yeah.

So we've just got the bill laid, and it's massive.

I tell you what, if I brought it here, I'd need a truck to

deliver it outside the front.

There is about 500 pages of each volume, um, which is fine.

Let's get into the detail.

And we just got given that, uh, yesterday actually.

So, uh, in two weeks' time we'll be debating in the parliament.

Yeah.

So it gives two weeks to consult.

Yeah.

So we're literally sending that everywhere to get some feedback, and

there will be the minimum financial requirements, there is the insurance.

And I mean, again, the issue about, a, a 10 years insurance,

on what you're building.

Now, you've mentioned about the quality.

I absolutely agree with that again, but you've got... You've g- you're

getting, say, a 10 year, um, 10 year guarantee on, I mean, on defects.

Yeah.

But then if the insurance is only six years, what happens to the other four?

Well, I, I know what will happen to the other four 'cause I've

already spoken to a lot of people.

What will happen is you will need to build in an additional maintenance fee.

So you'll have to say if for the three, four years difference

between when your insurance runs out to when the defects cover,

there'll be, have to be another fee.

And then what builders will have to probably go and do is build into the

actual construction to go and visit every couple of years and just check on

everything and make sure it's okay, so you don't end up with a bill at the end.

Now, if that's the way we're gonna go, that's fine, but just remember

that has to add up to cost and that has to mean that the, the, um,

purchaser We'll have to pay that.

And if we're talking about affordability, then again, I think

that's a sledgehammer to a problem.

So that insurance, domestic building insurance covers us if we

die, missing insolvent currently.

What's changing is there will also be an industry, it'll be a consumer first, that

if you don't wanna come fix your defect, they don't think there's a de- you don't

think there's a defect, it will go to the BPC, they'll do an investigation,

and they'll then determine the outcome of, yes, you're liable, no, you're not.

The problem that I see with this, like I can't force my

clients to clean the gutters.

Now, what happens if they're filled with leaves and it overflows

and it becomes a water problem?

Whose fault is it?

Like...

Yeah, I think the, the advice that we were given is if, if your client rings up and

there's a problem, you, you actually go there and have a look at it straight away.

But y- a- and yeah, and we've had a lawyer on to talk about this, but

the-- I, like I've had fun with them.

There's like an initial build that comes out.

That's what happens.

They kinda give you that bit of a fake idea of what's happening,

like they draft something.

I uploaded that to my Google LM and Gemini and just said, "Pick it apart."

And that tool was able just to literally, and if you want 5,000 pages to quickly

go through, it just picked out all the issues and the contradictions

and all the, the, the issues that it could raise within 30 seconds.

Mm-hmm.

And I think that's where AI is a boon tool to help.

But

again, but what happens for the three years difference between when your

insurance runs out and then the builder's on the hook for the other three?

We're already on the hook for 10 years already anyway.

Right.

So we're already carrying the- But current, the current law,

that's what it, that's where it

is.

We're, we're currently already on the hook for it.

Yeah.

Um, and that's, but that's, that's the difficult part.

Like we sign off it for 10 years, which is fine, but it has to be structural.

It has to be something.

Yeah,

structural defects.

Yeah.

It's not, it's not like a nick, you know, a nick in the wall or something

like that.

Yeah.

So te- I, I kinda don't... We, we're used to it.

I think it should be a little bit less.

And

I guess this is if we're going back to like build quality, like to, to...

If I think about the 80,000 homes you need to build, like those 80,000

homes shouldn't be minimum standard.

They should be robust so they can last the 10 years.

And

that's why mold, like mold is the biggest issue that we're

seeing in building right now.

That can take eight, nine years to come on.

And when you got mold, the only reason, way to get rid of it, you've

got to rip the whole building apart, which is happening in New Zealand.

They're just bulldozing the houses, and that's what scares me about this 10

years now, where the consumer can see mold in year nine, click a finger and

all of a sudden... That's the big one.

That's it, yeah.

NCC is probably another thing that- Yeah ... I wouldn't mind having a chat about.

So, um- Any ch- any changes have been frozen.

And do you know, I went to a HIA Outlook meeting the other day, and we also had...

So I'm part of another organization called SBA, and we do a podcast with HIA on.

And for a long time I was really, "This is bullshit," you know, "Why

are they freezing them?" Like I, I actually understand why now.

Mm.

I st- I don't have to agree with it, but I actually understand why.

If, if we're to build all of these homes quickly, why shouldn't

we be building better homes?

And because the NCC basically means that to comply You just

built a standard and that's it.

The current standards, in my opinion, uh, don't go far enough.

But also with NCC, the big issue I have on the NCC is, and you've got to have

people on the board to create these rules.

They're, we'll call company A, they're incentivized to send people onto their

board to keep their product into the NCC.

Mm. So the product might be outdated, it might not be up to scratch anymore, but

because they've got five, six people on a 10 people panel, they automatically

get voted in because they- Can we talk

about specifics maybe?

Like metal, metal

framing, metals.

Yeah, um, BlueScope Steel.

Um, sorry.

Uh, but yeah, like that's the, that's what is happening and it's...

The thing is that only protects the company, not the homeowner.

Ultimately, the NCC is to protect the homeowner.

It is the minimum viable standards of construction.

It's like it is anything less is illegal.

Yep.

Yep.

So yeah, I'm keen to hear your thoughts on the NCC.

Yeah, well, and again, I suppose with the other bill that we've got before

the parliament is the cladding bill.

So we're looking at obviously... And that, that's a classic example,

I suppose, in, um, you're taking product which, um, for all intents and

purposes was, um, uh, fit for purpose.

Uh, you've got builders that, that genuinely thought that they were

going and doing things and doing the right thing, and then now, uh, you've

got many builders are out there.

I spoke to one builder who's, um, had a stroke and, um, he had sold

his bu- Well, not sold his business, but closed his business down.

He's now on the hook for a million dollars, and he's

got to find a million bucks.

Um, so he's now, any profits or money he's made, he's lost.

And because he's- Because he's

installed incorrect cladding?

Yeah, because at, and at the time, the cladding was fine.

The insurance has run out because it's beyond the 10-year

period, and so he's now got a...

He's on the hook for a million dollars of the defects of the

cladding, which at the time was a fit for purpose product that was-

How is that possible?

Yeah.

Well, well, again, and there are many, many people in terms of they installed

product, um, in good in- good intent.

Now, the insurance will pick up a lot of that, but there will be some that

there will be still question marks.

So the government in, in the bill that we're looking at will say that

the government may come to the party in some of this, but you know, there

will be, there will be people that are still gonna end up having to

fight this and very, very uncertain.

So, and if this is cladding, then what happens to the next product?

What happens to something?

And I suppose it's understanding quality and understanding products, and we need

to have the best possible, um, knowledge of that right from the beginning.

Now, I'm not, as I say, to understand about your Your other

materials and all the rest of it.

Again, it's the experts that need to come- Yeah

inform us with that.

But people should not be on the hook for something when they're doing

something for the best of intent.

And that's where you do need insurances, and you do need the protections.

You do need the small businesses to be able to operate and not to be wiped out

when they're doing things with the right intent and not doing things deliberately

to obviously, um, hurt the consumer.

Yeah, 'cause I mean, if you, if you were told at the time that

you've installed it as per-

Yeah

... that- That complies.

That makes sense.

I'm actually really confused.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like

how... A- a- and obviously there's a 10-year period.

Like after that, it's how can you be held liable past something

that you're not liable for?

Well, no, I think in, in that particular i-instance, he was... It,

it got to the nine-year and something mark- Yeah ... and then all of a

sudden the cladding issue became- A

problem

... a problem for one of the sites that he built on.

So he was issued a notice to act, had to rectify after the business

was shut down and after he'd finished and he had a stroke.

He wasn't getting out for that reason.

He had a stroke.

He'd fi-finished his business.

And there've been other instances where people have sold off their

businesses to someone else, and years later, and then all of a sudden these

cladding issues have just appeared.

All of a sudden you're presented bills and hang on XYZ

business, but we didn't do that.

No, no, but the previous guy did that, and you're up for X amount of money.

Now, in some instance, they'll f- they'll go back to their

insurance company, they'll have a tussle with the insurance company.

You would hope the insurance company would pay out.

But there's lots of to-ing and fro-ing and issues with all of that.

And the, the, particularly the insurance companies, they're looking to try and get

some of those cases through where they lose, they win, and the builders lose, so

that opens up the floodgates for others.

Yeah.

Okay

Sorry, that's not a hard thing.

I don't

know.

I just hate insurance

I'm just writing down some ideas of what business- Sometimes I

wonder what is the point of having insurance?

Like, uh, uh, so I'm, I'm, I've actually went through the numbers yesterday,

1.5 mil build for a general residential building has about 25 grand of insurance

between domestic home, uh, domestic building insurance, uh, contract

work insurance, public liability.

It'd be more if you put work cover

in there.

Oh, yeah, not including work cover.

Not

including

work cover.

No.

That is purely just- Just to build the house.

So, and that would be for any project over, yeah, even over a million dollars,

that, that's their fee straight off.

There you go,

gone.

Well, I don't think if you look at it as a COG, so cost of goods sold, I

think you also need to put in work cover because you need work cover after that.

Well, then we could have car current.

Like I'm trying to be-

Well, then you want work cover to actually work.

Yeah.

Because, um, you know, and, and a new thing that they can do is bring in these

health and safety work, work cover things in as well, which is giving more powers,

so having health and safety officers to go in and do that rather than getting

work cover to actually do their job.

And, and so, so it's another layer, right?

It's thin, thin.

It's another, another layer.

So again, we've got to kind of certainly-

Start overcomplicating it.

Just go back to

basics ... there's so much regulation, so much red tape.

So, and, and, and coming back to we must protect consumers, but at the same

time, we've got to build more homes.

And if we need more affordability, we want more builders to come into

the game, what we've got to do is actually take the handbrake off and

say, "We want to keep, give people the opportunity to build more homes." To

your point, we've got to get the quality.

We've got to ensure, um, that there is the protections that are needed.

Iron out, get rid of the rogue operators.

It's not rocket science.

The

quick, the easiest way to fix quality, and it's honestly the simplest fix

you can build, fix building quality in Victoria, introduce a pre-plaster

inspection and a waterproofing inspection.

Yeah.

They're gonna add maybe $500 to each of each inspection, so $1,000

per job How, how easy is that?

And they're the areas you might li- Done.

And they're the areas you might license as

well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know.

Yeah.

And then- And carpentry... So can I start on talking?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because before I, in 2017, got current government were going

to license all the trades.

They've had a whole plan.

They paused it due to COVID, and it's still paused due to COVID.

I think if you can start by licensing concreting, bricklaying, carpentry,

and waterproofing, I think you solve-

Yep

... 99% of the issues.

And, and introduce more inspections.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think honestly, and they don't cost much.

And, and with the insurance thing, it's we've got to protect everyone.

So not just consumers, we've got to take the trades, the builders.

So if everyone's got an equal share of the pie here, like if the problem goes

wrong with the carpenters and their license, well, they share part of it.

Well, I mean, it's probably a good thing, and it's probably going to

what I was about to talk about before.

Um, you know, if you do happen to step into power- Yeah

in November, um, a really simple low-cost way of making our builders

better is to introduce more inspections.

Yes, it is more expensive.

Mm-hmm.

There's another fee, but it is such a small fee in comparison to all this

other shit that's being introduced.

Mm-hmm.

The other thing, again, if you get into power in November stop

looking at everything in a silo.

Stop looking at just the NCC.

Stop looking at the build, like the number of houses we need to build.

Stop looking at builders.

Stop looking at consumers.

It all needs to be put into a pot and looked at together.

Hmm.

Because I feel at the moment everyone's just zoning in on each individual

little thing and just looking at that without the context of everything else.

And, and, and that's the problem with government more broadly, right?

Everything's in silos, not as an overall- Yeah ... what are

we trying to achieve here?

Yeah.

And so, and I'd say to people, your listeners too, we haven't had that

opportunity to say this, is for me, as I said at the outset, I'm not the expert.

And I am really looking to people in the industry to say, "These are the

kinds of things that would make life easier, would get more people into the

market, would build more affordable homes, and give people choice."

That's all I want to do.

So people have got the ideas.

Rather than having the people in Spring Street come up with their,

you know, brainwave of ideas, we need to have it done certainly with

industry involved in that process.

And again- And it, it shouldn't be so complicated, but we need to listen to

people that are actually on the tools because you guys know what the issues are.

So I haven't told anyone this.

I haven't told you.

I don't think I've told you this Hamish.

I got a call last year from someone in government, and they were doing

an investigation on how they could open up the building industry.

And I was like, "Oh," and it was, uh, it was with the current Victorian

government, and they wanted to know...

It was about the contracts.

It was, I think it was leading into the contract changes.

And I was like, "Oh, what's your role in the industry?" Like, "No, no, I just

work at the desk." And they're, they're doing a study and they're like, "What

we think the biggest thing we could change," and you're probably gonna laugh

here, "Is instead of the minimum contract for $16,000, we increase it to 20,000."

What?

I was like, "Who's building a new house for 20 grand regardless?" "Now we think

it's gonna really open up a lot of people into the industry." I was like, "But what

houses are built for 20 grand?" I was just so... I was-- They had 20 questions.

I was like, "I'm not gonna give my time here 'cause this is

the dumbest thing I've heard."

And all they kept wanting to go is like, "We think we can increase it to $20,000

as a minimum project without doing a license." What's the purpose to achieve?

No, that's what I kept asking But I, I was actually got off the call and I

was like, "Did I just have that call with someone?" And it goes back to your

point, it's like we don't need someone in Spring Street telling us- Yeah

what to do.

Like, I know SBA will happily sit in a conversation.

I'll come and sit in a conversation, Hamish will too.

Mm. But w- before we go on here, we actually, um... I don't know if

you were gonna ask this question, Hamish, but I'm gonna steal it.

The-- We were speaking with Kyle, who's wilderness builder, who's here, and

he-- we go, "Do you have any questions?"

And he goes, and this kind of gives you a bit of a free platform

to answer or speak freely.

He's like, "What are we voting for in the next election Victoria that will

help builders and architects? Like what are, what are you going to change?"

Yeah.

So yeah, that's, that's again, um, I think what most people would wanna

hear in terms of we just need...

And this is not just building, by the way, we just need to get out of the

way and allow the industries to be able to operate and not have governments

impose everything on top of them.

So at the moment, the housing plan that we've got in terms of

the 80,000 homes a year is all about this is where we want them.

So they are specifically in these 80 activity centers, sorry, 60 activity

centers, and they're largely high rise.

They're largely towers.

So six storeys, um, in residential streets, 20 storeys

arou-ar-around the transport corridors, around train stations.

And that's fine in terms of some part of the mix, but what about everything else?

So we believe that people should choose where they live, and that needs to be

informed by inner, middle and outer ring, the growth corridors, regions.

It's, it's gotta be right across the board.

So we wanna be able to enable the industry to be able to... 'Cause

governments don't build homes.

You do, right?

They used to do, didn't they?

Well-

And New South Wales- Yeah ... have actually introduced that $1 home plan.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, again, again, policies, but we're not actually on the tool,

tools building homes, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And we shouldn't be, right?

And we shouldn't be out there... We, we need to be able to free

up the markets to actually work.

And at the moment it doesn't work.

It's broken.

So every time we change things, we provide more uncertainty.

Um, we get to-- We have builders now have to become, um- arts or lawyers.

They have to be lawyers, actually, to go through and interpret what they're doing.

So we've just got to make things- Yeah ... simpler.

We've got to use technology.

We've got to enable, and I think that's, that's what you'll get from us.

You'll get, you'll get, um, more certainty, more confidence.

And I know they're just words, but I think we very much believe that

we are the, we've, we've always been the party of small government,

um, that enables business to be able to thrive, and taxation will

be certainly an important lever.

So we've got to change the taxation regime, which we will.

We've, we've changed five taxes at the moment, which is around, you know,

we've got stamp duty, which lifting it from up to a million dollars, um-

Yeah ... as a threshold to be able to get more people into, into a home.

Uh, we've, we've, um, reducing t- um, tax, which is a kind of holiday, um-

Stay tax, yeah

tax.

Airbnb tax.

Yeah, Airbnb tax.

Uh, we've got the fire services levy, which again is an impost.

So, um, s- and a, a tax on health and a tax on education.

So there's five taxes already that we're freeing up.

Property will be a key part of it, you don't wanna show your

cards this election, do you, Tim?

We, we've got to be able to pay for it all as well.

Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, like you can't... We, we're already got this massive debt, so we've

got to be able to manage all of that.

And I suppose, I suppose what people have seen is there has been a real

push on the big government projects.

We want to get back to building housing-

Residential

... in residential where it's needed.

Because at the moment, people can't rent a home, they can't buy a home,

and for us, and I suppose the biggest thing of the lot is for us, we

want to encourage home ownership.

And why is that different for us, and I suppose this is the most important

for me, is when you own your own home, you are less reliant on government

because it's yours, and you're less reliant on, you know, the government

regulations and government telling you what to do and, uh, uh, because

you then have a stake in the ground.

So for us, we want to be able to say, especially for young people that are

saying it's become more and more out of reach to be able to own your own

home, we believe that the sooner we get a young person into a home, the

more chance they've got of being able to say to government, "You know what?

We don't need you so much anymore because we've got our own asset,

and we want to grow our own asset."

So for us, home ownership is one of our key four pillars.

We've got economy, um, we've got economy which deals with cost of

living and some of those pressures.

We've got crime, which is a massive issue at the moment that

everyone's been talking about.

Our health system's broken, we need to fix.

But the fourth pillar, and the most important pillar in, in

your area, is home ownership.

It's one of our four pillars in housing affordability.

So that's one of our key planks going into election that we want to focus on.

So,

so we're gonna have home ownership, and we're also gonna

have nice roads to drive on.

Well, we need to fix the potholes.

Um, so

I've got, I've got one final question.

So I want you to take Dave the politician hat off for a second, and I want you to-

Put DJ Dave

on

yeah, DJ, DJ Dave hat on.

DJ Dave, sure.

Like, if you could, if you could just the one silver bullet, one change

that you would love to see as a person to the construction industry, like,

what would you want to hear and see?

Good

question.

Geez.

I suppose again, um, it is just, it is just a certainty piece.

I think, I think if we can make it simpler for builders to be able to say, "This

is how we do business." , And I suppose it's broader for me in terms of we wanna

be an enabler and not a, not a blocker.

So if somebody wants to build something, it's what can we do?

And it come back to what we said earlier, it's, um, it's

having people working together.

It's not, "Oh, this is a statutory authority, Melbourne Waters problem.

This is local government's problem." We've got to link all that to say, if

we're gonna build 80,000 or whatever the number of h- homes it is a year, then

we're gonna enable the builders to build them, not block it by saying, "Oh no, you

have to do this and you have to do that."

And I know you guys are big on quality and design and all the rest of it.

That's got a feature.

We're not... And, and so we've got to- Get rid of the

old concrete

wall post homes ... we've got to deal with it, rogue operators, no question.

Yeah.

And, and for that, and w- we talk about that in terms of safety.

You know, like- Everything

there needs to be consequences for all of that.

But for me, the one word is certainty and confidence.

Yeah.

Yeah, I love that.

We have a closing, uh, segment called the MG Mindful Builder.

Uh, MG2, one of our partners in the, in the podcast, um, uh, I've got a couple

or three of my apprentices through MG2.

They do a fantastic job.

We o- we obviously are a huge advocate for getting more people into the industry.

So What are some of the things that you can do as a government to help encourage

young people to get into the industry and get that passion back into the craft?

it needs to form around the excitement piece.

Mm. So, um, you know, if you look at robotics, AI, some of the 3D

stuff that we're all talking about.

I was in a market just in, um, the other day, and I was looking at some of the

stuff that they're printing out, right?

Some of the amazing things that they're printing out.

Kids are doing that now.

Kids are loving that kind of stuff.

Why aren't we incorporating that into more of the building,

the design, the construction?

You know, I'd love to, as I think I said earlier, I'd love to be able to

find an area, but it might be one of the first things I do, and create a, a

precinct and say, "This is a future homes precinct." Get young people at school age,

early, early age, coming to understand

this is what- Like the

old TAFE, like the tech

school

this is what you can do.

This is what you can be part of.

So it's really, um, building more about the profession of building, right?

Yeah.

It's not just, it's not just you get to get on the tools and do this, but you get

to be part of something a lot greater.

And I think there's never not been enough of that in terms of the, the excitement

around what you're actually doing.

You're not building something that's gonna be here for a few years.

In many cases, you're building stuff from a lifetime.

And I tell you what, I go into the parliament, um, you know, after a couple

of weeks, you walk back into that building that is hundreds of years old, and you

look at that building and you look at some of the buildings that have stood

the test of time, and you say that and say, "Wow, look at those things that

were built in the, uh, 1850s- Yeah.

by hand, and they're still standing here today as beautiful as ever."

Yeah.

I'd love to see- The government actually champion finishing an apprenticeship

like they do someone a uni degree.

Great.

Yeah.

I would love to see that.

And change, and it's 'cause it's still, there's still a stigma around you become

a tradesperson because- You're naughty

at school

you're not good at school.

Oh, no.

That is not the case.

We, we have... That's, it's, that's exactly what's happening now.

Yeah.

And I reckon they, we've got to give confidence to people.

But look, that's just... I was, I'm 43 now- Yeah ... and I went to a private

school, good education, and it was not once talked about becoming a trade.

Yeah.

I was

the same.

I was

so, I, so I, I gotta just digress slightly here.

Yeah.

Right?

Because I reckon the one thing that has changed is people

know the money to be made-

Yeah

... is in your industry.

Yeah, yeah.

But that

doesn't mean

that

you

can't do it from a taste perspective.

No, no, exactly.

And it also doesn't mean that it, it's gotta be more than just about the money.

Yeah.

No,

yes.

Yes.

So, so that's, so you've got half the equation solved, but if people turn

around and say, "I'm actually, I've got a profess- I've got a profession

that I can feel really proud of- Yeah ... that I'm changing people's

lives and, and fulfilling people's dreams," that's the other half of

the equation.

If you're jumping into something to do it for the money, you're doing

it for the complete wrong reasons.

If you do it because you love it, the money will naturally come.

It'll flow.

It just will happen.

Um, David- That was awesome ... thank you very much for coming on.

It's actually my job.

You're actually one of my favorites.

It's

really good to chat.

No, no worries at all.

And, um, you know, best of luck in, uh- You're a major

... good luck.

Thank you very