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In this newsletter, you'll find:
🏠 This Week’s Housing Headlines: Speedy Builds & Big Ideas
📬️ Post 1 - How Australia's National Home Improvement Scheme Could Transform Your Home – and Your Wallet
The government's ambitious plan to construct 1.2 million homes by 2029 has put prefabricated and modular housing in the spotlight. In our latest post, we look into the promises and pitfalls of this rapid-build approach.
While offsite construction can significantly reduce build times, it's important to consider potential compromises in quality and compliance 👉 Read the full article here
Anthony Painter
📬️ Post 2 - Minerals for Homes: A Proposal To Get Housing Supply Back In The Black
What if Australia's vast mineral wealth could be harnessed to solve our housing shortage?
Drawing inspiration from Norway's management of its oil resources, we explore the idea of nationalising our mineral sector to fund the construction of 40,000 new homes annually.
This article examines the feasibility, potential benefits, and challenges of such a bold approach to resource management and housing policy 👉 Discover the full discussion here
💾 Software of the Week: WorkCam
(this is not a sponsored post, we are just trialing & testing a boatload of software currently, prior to starting two new projects soon).
If you frequently snap photos —be it documenting site progress, capturing before-and-after shots, or recording inspections—you've likely experienced the hassle of sifting through a cluttered camera roll to find specific images. Enter WorkCam: an iOS-exclusive app designed to keep your professional photos organised and separate from personal ones.
What is WorkCam?
WorkCam is a dedicated camera and photo management app tailored for professionals. It allows you to capture, organise, and share work-related photos without them mingling with your personal images.
Why Use It?
Maintain Separation: Keep work photos distinct from personal ones, ensuring privacy and organisation.
Organise Efficiently: Create unlimited albums, tag photos for easy filtering, and sort images by date.
Enhance Communication: Markup photos with drawings or notes, add custom watermarks, and share images via public links or account sharing.
Secure Storage: Photos are encrypted and can be protected using Face ID or Touch ID.
Who Should Consider WorkCam?
WorkCam is ideal for homeowners, professionals like builders, contractors, real estate agents, and anyone who needs to manage photos efficiently.
Technical Details:
- Platform: iOS only (iPhone and iPad).
- Requirements: iOS 16.6 or later.
- Pricing: Free to download with in-app purchases. Photo Sync is available at $9.99/month or $79.99/year. WorkCam Pro is a one-time purchase of $14.99.
🔧 Why We Like WorkCam
- Affordable: At $14.95 AUD per device and $80 AUD per year for sync, it’s great value for what you get.
- Easy to Use: After a day of tapping around and exploring features, it quickly becomes second nature.
- Smart Tagging: You can tag photos to make sorting and filtering a breeze—super helpful when you’ve got hundreds of site images.
- Markup Tools: Need to highlight an issue or add notes? You can draw directly on your photos.
- Share with Ease: Share with team members through account sharing or create public share links for external access.
- Watermark Support: Add your own custom watermark to every photo—perfect for branding or IP protection (shoutout to Joshua!).
- Reliable Developer Support: The developer (Joshua) is responsive and genuinely helpful, which gives us extra confidence in the app.
- Date-Based Organisation: Photos are automatically sorted by date, which makes tracking progress simple.
- Cloud Sync Options: Syncs seamlessly with iCloud and Dropbox so your photos are backed up and accessible.
- iOS Only: It’s currently only available on iPhone and iPad—no Android version (yet).
- Perfect for Site Photos: If you need a simple, affordable way to capture, sort, and share progress photos—WorkCam nails it.
Final Thoughts:
WorkCam offers a straightforward solution for anyone seeking to streamline their photo management. Its user-friendly interface and robust features make it a valuable tool for keeping work photos organised and secure.
👉 Learn more about WorkCam here (IOS only app this time)
ICYMI - the most important construction news from this week
🚀 The latest residential construction news from new sources around Australia for the news week ending 05-06-2025 🔥
News Theme of the Week
"Promises, Pressure, and the Productivity Illusion"
This week’s headlines point to a growing disconnect between what’s being promised in housing policy and what’s actually happening on the ground.
We’re seeing governments push for faster builds (3D printed homes, prefab solutions), but the industry is battling deep structural issues: labour shortages, skyrocketing costs, longer build times, and ineffective planning reform.
Meanwhile, comments like "Housing affordable by 2096" (MacroBusiness) and confessions about delaying kids due to housing insecurity highlight just how far removed the political spin is from lived reality.
Despite all the data pointing to reduced affordability and higher risk, the push continues to "ease lending," "cut red tape," and blame planning—while ignoring quality, sustainability, or the workforce’s limits.
There’s a lot of movement in the headlines—but not much progress.
Music of the week
“Once in a Lifetime” – Talking Heads (1980)
“And you may ask yourself... well, how did I get here?”
This track captures the surreal, repetitive reality we’re living through: promises of housing solutions that don’t materialise, reforms that don’t address root problems, and policy resets that feel more like déjà vu than genuine change.
The beat of this song mirrors the hamster wheel of productivity and policy headlines, while the lyrics reflect the public’s growing sense of confusion and disillusionment—at least, that’s how it sounds in my head.
Much like in the song, we're asking—How did we end up here? And more importantly, when does something actually change? - If ever? Ill be fertiliser by 2096!
Can't see the video embed below? Click here to watch on Youtube.
We've highlighted our favourite news articles for the week by marking with a 🌮 or five (yes, we've changed to Tacos instead of burritos).
29-06-2025
🌮 This home was printed using a computer. Could it be the fix for Australia's housing crisis? – [LINK]
Our comment: For this to work, site access is the main consideration. Developers are carving smaller and smaller land parcels in new estates, so it's unclear where a 3D printer would be positioned—unless we’re suspending them from skyhooks.
BGC accused of throwing spanner in the works on home repair orders – [LINK]
2025 South Australian Architecture Awards – [LINK]
🌮🌮 Reece Ltd (ASX:REH) Slides on Trading Update Amid Weak Housing Conditions | ASX 200 – [LINK]
Our comment: Remember, Reece supplies PC (Prime Cost) ,fit-off items, so while it takes forward orders, it doesn’t book revenue until those items are delivered to site—usually toward the end of construction. This makes Reece a good indicator of actual industry output, given its market share.
30-06-2025
Emerging signs of a deepening construction slowdown – [LINK] - USA-based article, but worth reading.
🌮 ‘Lack of true planning reform’ hindering housing delivery: HIA – [LINK]
Our comment: Australia’s housing industry is already delivering more, productivity-wise, than most developed countries. We simply don’t have the trade or labour base to scale up further—unless we fundamentally change how we build to multiply output or reduce the input effort.
This article feels disingenuous. Suggesting that “cutting red tape” will fix the housing shortfall is a false dilemma—it might help marginally, but it’s not a true solution. The logic that “cutting red tape = fixing the housing crisis” is overly simplistic and misleading.
Increasing supply or reducing demand will fix affordability, not doing nothing because you don't want to upset the store of wealth instrument that has been created and has the whole country invested in. Not everyone ends up with a gold star! (except if your a politician)
Sydney’s ‘wicked’ housing conundrum – [LINK]
01-07-2025
Critical infrastructure funding will bring 20,000 homes to 3 Brisbane suburbs – [LINK]
House prices in regional SA nearly double in five years, according to PropTrack data – [LINK]
🌮🌮 Risk, not red tape, behind QLD apartment pipeline slowdown, architect says – [LINK]
02-07-2025
🌮🌮 Construction times for houses have grown by 50% in the last decade; building costs are now 53% higher, IPA finds – [LINK]
Our comment: That must mean QUALITY is through the roof now! (note: this is sarcasm).
Read more about the "trinity" (not the one from The Matrix) [LINK].
Building a home has exploded in costs – [LINK]
Our comment: So both time and cost have increased… obviously QUALITY is the big winner here too! (sarcasm again).
More than 150 buildings in Adelaide flagged for adaptive reuse potential – [LINK]
03-07-2025
Westpac eases home loans for self-employed Aussies – [LINK]
Increased building approvals signal growing optimism ahead of upcoming RBA meeting – [LINK]
Dwelling approvals up in May – [LINK]
Shock price rise as new apartments plunge 40% – [LINK]
After Nicheliving debacle, WA is finally beefing up building watchdog powers – [LINK]
04-07-2025
🌮🌮🌮 When could Aussie housing be affordable? – [LINK]
Article excerpt: “This begs the question, what if somehow Gandalf, Harry Potter and Tinkerbell all got together to cast a spell on policymakers and the broader economy, somehow guaranteeing various wage growth and housing price growth outcomes were to come to pass—when would housing become affordable?
👉️ Based on these parameters, Sydney will reach our defined level of affordability in the year 2096.” 🤣🤣🤣 (crying and laughing at the same time (cognitive dissonance).
Young Aussie woman’s confession about housing and children triggers passionate debate online – [LINK]
Article excerpt: “Just look at how our society is built. We don’t even have the housing that can give us the security to even have children.”
05-07-2025
Housing Accord to fall short of 214k homes – [LINK]
What would a July rate cut mean for Australia's housing supply? – [LINK]
Our comment: It would increase demand. Combined with other market stimulus coming in January 2026, this means house prices will remain supported and likely continue rising—because demand still exceeds supply.
🌮🌮🌮 Nine things knock-down rebuilders need to know before they demo – [LINK]
Our comment: This is light and fluffy and misses most of the important checks. You can learn more through the links to posts below. What they've published is dogshit on toast—served cold.
Here’s what you should really be looking at:
- Orientation: Depends on your block size—there’s only so much you can do within the building envelope. If you’re looking at energy efficiency, start here: [READ HERE]
- Light: Read about glazing [HERE] and thermal mass [HERE]
- Sight-lines to neighbours: Download our C1 Checklist from the member area—we cover this and more [HERE]
- Slope: Seriously—read about subsidence policies and how to manage water runoff [HERE], plus site drainage [HERE]
- Soil conditions: Learn what a geotechnical report means [HERE]. The soil on your block plays a big role in determining your foundation costs.
For a full overview of the building process, see [HERE].
🌮 James Hardie’s Multi-Billion Dollar Gamble on Timber Composite Decking – [LINK]
Our comment: This move was about re-domiciling company management—plain and simple. A strategic shift to avoid Australian oversight. Who would’ve guessed they’d do something like this? Shocked, I am. 🤯
🌮🌮 Malaysian-Made Swedish Modules Headed to UK—An Approach Worth Watching in Australia – [LINK]
The Last Word
This week, it felt like the headlines were looping. More announcements, more promises, more plans. But when you look closely, it’s the same blueprint—just copy and past for the new news week cycle.
Faster builds, bigger numbers, bolder targets…(blah blah blah) 👉️ but no one’s stopping to ask: who is this really helping?
We’re not short on talk. We’re short on truth, and maybe even shorter on follow-through.
It’s not all bleak—but clarity is in short supply. For now, we’re doing our best to read between the lines with the grey matter we’ve got.
“Everybody’s talking at me / I don’t hear a word they’re saying…”
—Harry Nilsson, Everybody’s Talkin’ (1969)
Can't see the video embed below? Click here to watch on Youtube.
😶🌫️ That's all of today
The best way to support us is to share this this with two (2) friends who you think our content will help in some way.
Feel free to reach out on X or Mastodon or Bluesky - @obiwonky - 👋 Anthony
PS: Quality Management Checklist Access
All our published checklists are available to download via the Checklists Link in the navigation menu or directly at https://www.constructor.net.au/checklists/.
To download, simply enter your email when prompted. This allows us to assign you a free license—nothing more. Once completed, you’ll be able to view and download the checklists.
Each checklist is formatted on A4-sized paper for easy printing. Be aware that the files are larger than typical PDFs, around 25–35 MB each, as they are saved in CMYK (print-ready) format. This ensures the best quality for printing, even if it makes the files a bit “chunkier.”
Enjoy the checklists, we hope they help you identify quality improvements in your new home or next project - or at least, get you thinking.
Anthony Painter
C12 Fixing Stage recently added to the list
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