THE LATEST National Survey of Building and Construction shows residential building activity has entered more challenging waters, according to Master Builders Australia’s chief economist Shane Garrett. 

“The Activity Index for Residential Building fell to 55.0 points in the September 2018 quarter compared with 59.8 points in the previous three-month period,” Mr Garrett said. 

“Looking forward, optimism has dimmed in the residential building sector with the survey’s Expectations Index falling by 1.9 percent during the September 2018 quarter. This suggests that those in the industry anticipate further weakening over the coming six months,” he said. 

“Residential building is being hit by tighter finance availability as well as the softening of house prices in Sydney and Melbourne over the past year. These factors are likely to drag new home building lower over the next few years.

“It has always been a struggle to consistently deliver enough new homes to meet demand. This has resulted in house prices steadily outgrowing wages and incomes over many decades,” Mr Garrett said. 

“Policy settings need to ensure that we can build enough new homes to accommodate a growing economy and a larger workforce.

“Newly-released modelling from Cadence Economics confirms that proposed restrictions on negative gearing and CGT would result in up to 42,000 fewer new homes being built over a five-year period – enough to house over 100,000 ordinary Australians,” Mr Garrett said. 

“These latest survey results show that residential building is already cooling. We don’t need to weigh it down even more."

www.masterbuilders.com.au

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THE TREATIES Committee has agreed to inquire into aspects of the recently examined Peru-Australia Free Trade Agreement.

In adopting a reference from the Minister for Trade, Simon Birmingham, the committee agreed to invite stakeholders to express their views on certain issues arising from recent legislative developments.

Committee chair, Russell Broadbent MP, advised that although the committee agreed in August 2018 that the treaty be ratified, there are some aspects of the broader trade environment on which the Australian Labor Party is urgently seeking advice.

This follows the passage through the Australian Parliament of enabling legislation for the recently concluded TPP-11 (the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership).

"Minister Birmingham, in the spirit of bipartisanship in which recent trade agreements have been negotiated, has asked the committee to support a short investigation which will still enable the legislative deadline to be met for the Peru-Australia FTA. The committee has a reporting deadline of 21 November," Mr Broadbent said.

According to Minister Birmingham, "The Australian Labor Party seeks further investigation into PAFTA in order to satisfy themselves on the merits of the Agreement prior to consideration of its enabling legislation. The ALP particularly requested examination in relation to the Investor-State Dispute Settlement Provisions," Mr Birmingham said.

The committee has agreed to hear views arising from the ongoing concerns over the increasing complexity created by the number of trade agreements, particularly multiple agreements with the same partner. This observation was made by the committee in its August report. Further, the Committee has invited views on the specific inclusion and operation of the ISDS provisions in recently concluded trade agreements.

Submissions are invited by Friday November 2, 2018, and at this stage preliminary arrangements are being made for a public hearing in Melbourne on November 8. Details will be available from the committee website in due course.

Interested members of the public may wish to track the committee via the website.

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NEW DATA from the Australian Bureau of Statistics has shown the true scale of resources investment and the huge dollar value it has added to the Australian economy in the last 25 years. 

Queensland Resources Council chief executive Ian Macfarlane said the official figures back up what Queensland communities already know – that the mining industry is the lifeblood of the economy.

“Mining is what makes our state great. And it’s what makes Australia a major global economy,” Mr Macfarlane said.

“Queensland would be an unimaginably different place without the huge scale of mining investment over the last 25 years.

“In the space of a generation, the resources industry has almost doubled its value to Australia.

“The ABS says the investment boom from the mining sector is of a scale never seen before. We know that’s the case too through the record values delivered to the Queensland budget bottom line and the widespread investment in towns and communities across our state.”

The mining industry added 8.8 percent of the value of the Australian economy in the last year. It was just 4.7 percent 1994-95.

“During a time of significant industry change, including major changes in Australian manufacturing, the resources industry has consistently grown and added jobs,” Mr Macfarlane said.

“That growth has come mostly from the commodities that make Queensland a resources powerhouse - coal and gas.”

In 1994-95, Australian coal production was worth $8.8 billion, compared with an incredible $65.6 billion in June this year, he sasid. For gas the figures were $2.6 billion in 1994-95 compared with $46.5 billion in 2018.

“The good news is, the resources industry is still creating jobs for people now, and for decades to come,” Mr Macfarlane said.

“In the past 12 months the Queensland resources industry has added 10, 000 new jobs – or a new job every 40 minutes. And resources account for 80 per cent of Queensland’s exports.

“The latest ABS study points to the fact that the increase in mining investment in recent years will lead to higher levels of mining production.

“That is good news for every town and community that relies on mining – from Mount Isa to Maroochydore.

“Every town and city in Queensland depends on the resources industry, whether it’s the people who work directly in our mines, local small businesses or commuters in Brisbane who need the resources industry for every part of their daily lives.

“The resources industry is at the heart of our economy, and we must ensure the right conditions and regulations are in place to continue to attract the investment that has powered Queensland and Australia for the last 25 years.”

www.qrc.org.au

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CLAIMS by the National Irrigators’ Council that profits made by energy network companies are $2.6 billion "higher than they should be" are a misrepresentation of facts, Energy Networks Australia CEO Andrew Dillon said today.

Mr Dillon said when network businesses earned profits above the allowed return set by the Australian Energy Regulator, it reflected efficiencies made in their operations, not more money out of customer pockets.

In fact, he said, under the incentive-based regulatory model, efficiency gains (reflected in higher than forecast profits) are returned to customers by way of reductions in prices.

“The regulator sets the allowed return and expenditures for most networks every five years,” Mr Dillon said.

“If a business is able to make savings by reducing operating costs, of course they will make more profit than forecast. But the regulator then in the next five-year period will return those profits to customers by setting lower benchmarks – which means lower network prices.

“This is a good thing for consumers as it serves as an incentive for businesses to become more and more efficient, which in turn keeps prices down.”

Mr Dillon said the poorly-understood nature of incentive based regulation and the frameworks that governed energy networks made it easy for facts and figures to be misrepresented.

“The worst thing that could happen from this type of fact-twisting is the introduction of rate of return regulation that has been tried and comprehensively failed overseas,” he said.

www.energynetworks.com.au

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