Matt Canavan calls for a smaller government, Chalmers’ roundtable debate pause on National Construction Code

Nationals senator Matt Canavan says expanding Australia’s economy will require a smaller government following a his own economic reform roundtable challenging Jim Chalmers’ three-day summit. The Queensland senator labelled the official talks, which canvassed reducing regulation to boost efficiencies in housing, as a “fake productivity roundtable”. Instead Senator Canavan said his “public” table was open to media and involved participants including the Productivity Commission’s first chair, Gary Banks, and former assistant Treasury secretary David Pearl. Participants discussed the importance of eliminating bracket creep, reducing growth of the NDIS, scrapping net-zero targets and fiscal discipline. Senator Canavan advocated for less intervention from Canberra, saying that “if we want our economy to be bigger, we need our government to be smaller”. “The overburdensome red tape in our housing sector, construction sectors and others are holding our nation back,” he said. “The ineffective interventions in our energy market, such as the reckless and destructive rush to renewables, and the futile and failing net zero policies, are restricting the latent potential of our great nation. “We need to stop Canberra from telling people what car they can drive, what power they should use, what food they can even eat.” Prof Banks also took aim at Labor for high government spending, which had strained private sector growth. “Unfortunately, attention to regulation has been more about increasing, rather than reducing it or improving it, and the government’s productivity agenda is mainly a spending agenda,” he said. Meanwhile official talks focused on slashing regulation, with participants largely supporting a pause to the National Construction Code amid criticisms the overbearing regulations weigh down housing approvals and increase costs. While there was general consensus on the need to reduce regulation to speed up housing approvals, Wentworth teal MP Allegra Spender said participants did not agree to whether the code should be paused or for new changes to be delayed until the next review due in 2029. Although there were concerns around whether this would affect environment standards, she described discussions as “constructive”. “I think that we should come out with something on the Construction Code,” she said. “I think the government is looking at how to get the construction code right from a point of view of not making too many unnecessary changes that makes it just more expensive to build.” NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey, who attended the roundtable representing the states, said there was “pretty strong consensus emerging that that is a sensible step forward”. “Regardless of what’s in the National Construction Code, states already have strong rules around building safety, building standards, energy efficiency, and so from our perspective,” he said. “If the National Code is frozen, it gives us a bit more time to get the interactions between national standards and state standards clear and sorted, but equally, give a lot of confidence to people who are looking to build right now.” However former Labor cabinet minister Ed Husic, who didn’t participate in the roundtable, said he would be “concerned about a pause to the National Construction Code,” and said it would a repeat of a “bad mistake of the Coalition”. However he conceded the code was “in a funk,” and said a review was a better option. “Think about the fact that the last time we put pause in the National Construction Code we ended up having to scramble and put on hold a whole host of changes,” he told the ABC. “That makes really hard for the construction sector the building sector to deal with a lot of changes at once. There is a much more sensible way to get it done.”