The Federal Government HomeBuilder Program has been a run away success securing construction jobs during the pandemic induced recession and now underpinning our recovery from it.
This year is set to see the largest number of house commencements in Australian history, with all States and Territories seeing a boost with the support of HomeBuilder.
The HomeBuilder scheme has had its strongest take up in SA – giving tradies more work than they’ve had in a long time. A total of 13,913 grants, each worth $25,000, have been handed out in SA.
The latest ABS construction figures show that renovation work was the highest on record in the March quarter.
This pipeline of work will keep tradies in jobs and the sector active throughout 2022.
Member for Barker, Tony Pasin said the HomeBuilder program played a key role in supporting the housing industry and the economy more broadly during the height of the pandemic.
“These results speak for themselves. HomeBuilder not only saved construction jobs during the worst of the COVID-19 recession, it has helped underpin Australia’s strong economic recovery,” Mr Pasin said.
“The combination of factors that have led to this boom is unprecedented and are driven by HomeBuilder and low interest rates as well as a change in consumer preference away from high density areas,” Mr Pasin said.
The housing starts that the HomeBuilder Program has generated will ensure that the residential construction industry remains buoyant throughout the rest of 2022.
JAC Homes Managing Director Jodie Austin said the construction industry has struggled for a couple of years so when Covid hit it was a devastating blow, however HomeBuilder brought instant stimulus to the construction industry.
“Not only did HomeBuilder revive the industry it also allowed many people to get into a new home that normally can’t or thought it was out of their reach.” Ms Austin said.
“The building boom also brings in more employment. There can be over 30 trades involved in the building of just one residential home, and that’s not including their staff and the suppliers. So it’s not just the builders benefitting, everyone benefits.” Ms Austin said.
“For JAC Homes, it allowed us to concentrate all our builds in the Murraylands region. In the past we have had to accept work from Victor Harbor to Adelaide. The response to the HomeBuilder grant was almost instant, when we saw our build slots for the whole of 2021 booked out by October 2020, and we are still taking bookings for well into 2022 even though the grant is no longer available.“ Ms Austin said.
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