A ‘Build’ Mindset Is The Destination. Reform is How We Will Get There.
- Jul 30
- 3 min read
The Australian Government’s Productivity Commission has released its interim report on housing supply regulation, examining how planning policy and processes can help deliver more homes, more quickly.
The report finds that excessive, overlapping or poorly designed regulation is constraining housing supply, increasing costs and limiting development in the places people want to live.
The report highlights a fundamental tension: governments seek to contain growth within an urban footprint while creating planning complexity across the very areas intended to accommodate more housing.
Infinitum Partners welcomes the Federal Government’s focus on this critical issue.
For decades, our team has contributed to regulatory and process reform from both within government and as advisers to government and industry. Throughout that time, we have consistently argued that planning policy, process and people are not the only factors affecting housing supply, but they are within our control. Accordingly, they deserve our attention and effort.
Four Principles for a Better System
The Commission has identified four principles for a best-practice housing regulatory system:
Adopt a ‘build’ mindset.
Only regulate where necessary.
Coordinate housing and infrastructure.
Keep the process simple.
These principles provide a strong foundation. IP is particularly encouraged by the emphasis on adopting a ‘build’ mindset, one that considers the costs of culture restricting development, and its impacts on housing supply and affordability.
The Commission also acknowledges that housing regulation inevitably involves trade-offs. Trade-offs require judgement: the ability to weigh community benefit against cost, impact and risk.
Our planning system and processes have not always supported this effectively.
Planning regulation is often static and binary in its application: a proposal either complies or it does not. This can be compounded by processes, organisational structures and workplace cultures that prioritise risk avoidance over considered risk management.
The result is often a binary assessment of binary policy, with limited scope to explore practical alternatives that could deliver an equal or better community outcome.
Reforming the Rules Is Not Enough
IP has previously explored the role people play in improving housing supply and development productivity in The Solution to Housing Affordability and Cost of Living That No One Wants to Talk About and Change the Game, Not the Rules.
The central message remains relevant: without cultural change, regulatory reform will have limited impact.
Planning schemes can be simplified, assessment pathways revised and new timeframes introduced. However, if the people administering the system are not empowered to exercise judgement, collaborate and pursue solutions, reform may simply create new layers of process.
For this reason, IP believes cultural and organisational reform should feature more clearly in the Commission’s final recommendations.
Practical Actions That Can Begin Now
Several practical actions could improve productivity without waiting for major legislative change:
Empower pre-lodgement negotiations to identify and resolve issues early.
Undertake team and customer ‘pulse checks’ to inform improvement actions.
Enable teams to redesign processes, remove unnecessary complexity and identify alternative pathways that appropriately manage risk.
Reimagine operational structures to use existing resources more productively, including third-party certification.
Systematise repeatable work through templates, checklists, standard conditions and clearly defined decision pathways.
These actions do not necessarily require more resources. They require existing resources to be used more productively and people to be trusted to apply their expertise.
Most importantly, they require leadership from our politicians and senior public-sector executives to create an environment in which informed judgement, collaboration and responsible change are supported.
These are some of IP’s initial observations, with more to follow as we prepare our submission to the Productivity Commission. Submissions are open until 30 September 2026.
If you would like to discuss the interim report, collaborate on a submission or explore practical actions for reform, please reach out.
