4 stories
Builders are declining work that would have been taken without hesitation five years ago. Fixed-price contracts, insolvency risk and a thin subcontractor market are converting a planning problem into a delivery problem.
Submissions published this week describe assessment timeframes that have doubled since 2018, with referral authorities identified as the largest single source of delay.
Transport investment is moving to the growth corridors where population is already arriving, reversing a decade of inner-city concentration.
The study finds that identical apartment layouts cost between 4 and 13 per cent more to deliver depending on the state in which they are built.