“Almost two years on, and the National Housing Accord has never once reached its minimum monthly target even under the most generous measure. In fact, housing approvals have been lower than what they were in the middle of the pandemic,” said Dr Kevin You, Senior Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs.
Today, new Building Approvals data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) for the month of April 2026 reveal the following.
- The number of dwelling approvals granted in April 2026 was 16,710. This was a 3.4 per cent decline from the previous month.
- The share of dwelling approvals attributable to houses was 10,215 (61%), while 6,495 non-house dwellings, such as apartments, were approved (39%).
- Total dwelling approvals in April 2026 were 3,290 fewer than the absolute minimum monthly requirement of 20,000 under the National Housing Accord.
- In the 22 months since the National Housing Accord commenced in July 2024, 357,302 dwellings have been approved, amounting to a cumulative shortfall of 82,698 dwellings if approvals had consistently hit the Accord target of 20,000 per month.
- In contrast, in a comparable 22 month during the pandemic, 391,193 dwellings were approved.
“Confronted with its flailing housing accord, the federal government is intending to siphon off $3 billion in taxpayer money as a “rescue package” to cover the failure to boost supply,” said Dr You.
Chart 1: Monthly dwelling approvals vs NHA minimum monthly target
IPA analysis of ABS data reveals that between the financial years ending 2020 and 2025, net overseas migration totalled roughly 1.4 million people. Over the same period, the average time needed to build a house, after receiving an approval, increased by 34 per cent. Building material costs also increased, by approximately 35 per cent.
“Not only are housing approvals below pandemic levels, approvals today are comparable to where they were in the late 1980s, when Australia’s population was smaller by about eleven million people,” said Dr You.
“Despite the clear preferences of the community, governments have pressed ahead with pumping in new housing demand through mass migration, while governments at all levels pull the regulatory handbrake on new housing supply.”
Related IPA research can be found here and here.
Chart: Cumulative housing approval shortfall from the National Housing Accord
