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In this newsletter, you'll find:
📬️ Post 1 - Tired of paying Microsoft and Apple and sluggish old computers that wont run on the latest OS versions?
(There’s nothing wrong with your computer—except that your OS (operating system) supplier may have intentionally forced obsolescence.)
Say hello to MX Linux—the fast, free, and refreshingly simple operating system that might just breathe new life into your ageing computer. Built on the incredibly stable Debian foundation and using the lightweight XFCE interface, MX Linux runs smoothly—even on machines that Windows 11 or macOS Ventura have long since outgrown.
Why make the switch? For starters, MX Linux kicks ass on older machines with as little as 2 GB of RAM and just 5 GB of storage—versus the bloated 30+ GB Windows would demand. And the best part? No more subscription fees. MX Linux comes bundled with free, fully compatible tools like LibreOffice, plus access to a vast library of open-source software—all without spending a cent.
Worried about installation or navigating something new? Don’t be. MX Linux offers one of the most beginner‑friendly installation processes around—try it straight off a USB, then install it in under half an hour if you like what you see. And thanks to its suite of MX Tools—from easy theme tweaks to system snapshots—you can customise and manage your system without ever needing the terminal unless you want to.
Still on the fence? In this post we walk you through everything—you can even learn how MX Linux can run in the cloud via Shells DaaS, meaning you can access it on any device without touching your existing system
👉 Ready to ditch the vendor lock-in and rediscover what your old computer can really do? Give MX Linux a go—your wallet, your patience, and your dusty laptop will thank you.
Anthony Painter
📬️ Post 2 - Thinking about ceramic tiles for your home?
Our new “C14 Checklist: The Homeowner’s Guide to Ceramic Tile Design & Installation” is your go-to companion for avoiding hidden mistakes and getting it just right the first time.
Imagine this: you’ve splashed out on beautiful ceramic tiles—but a small misstep during installation, something like uneven grout, poor subfloor prep, or movement joints overlooked, can ruin the whole look—or worse, lead to water damage or loose tiles. That’s exactly what the C14 guide helps you avoid.
In this post we walk you through every stage—from picking the right materials and understanding what good workmanship actually looks like, to giving you the confidence to check quality on-site.
Why you’ll want to read this one:
- Get more than surface-level tips—this is about building something that lasts.
- Feel confident talking with tradespeople because you’ll understand the standards.
- Protect your investment by knowing exactly what “done properly” looks like.
Curious to know how to spot the difference between a job that lasts and one that cracks under pressure?
👉 Dive into the full C14 Checklist—you might just save yourself a headache down the track.
Anthony Painter
💾 Software of the Week: 🎯 IdeaShell
(This isn’t a sponsored post—we use it ourselves and thought we’d share it with you.)
Ever wish your great ideas wouldn’t vanish before you even jot them down? That’s where ideaShell comes in. It’s a smart note-taking app that listens to your voice and turns your thoughts into neatly organised text using AI, acting like your “second brain.”
Why it’s handy: Instead of typing, just speak—let your ideas flow naturally. IdeaShell cleans up fillers, adds punctuation, titles, and tags, so whatever you record is instantly easier to read and find later.
Features:
- Voice-to-text, minus the typing stress — capture your ideas effortlessly.
- Smart Cards — these AI-created summaries turn your thoughts into to-do lists, email drafts, or mini plans—making follow‑through a breeze.
- Easy exporting — send your notes to tools like Notion, Word, or Reminders in just a few taps.
Who will love it: Anyone who has ideas on the go—busy professionals, creative types, or just someone who hates typing but loves thinking out loud.
Heads-up on requirements: ideaShell runs on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and M-series Macs. An Android version is available too! A web version is in the works. Free users get 1‑minute recordings; premium removes that limit and includes generous “AI points” to power your recordings and edits.
Why we like it: It turns fleeting thoughts into structured, ready-to-use notes—and makes finding them later way easier than wrestling with generic tools. If you’ve ever used voice notes in ChatGPT or something similar and thought, “But good luck finding that one idea later…” ideaShell solves exactly that.
👉 Learn more about IdeaShell by clicking the link below:
ICYMI - the most important construction news from this week
🥑 The latest residential construction news from new sources around Australia for the news week ending 09-08-2025 🍑
News Theme of the Week
"Australia’s Housing: System Strained, Solutions Elusive"
Supply isn’t keeping pace with demand, bureaucratic roadblocks delay development, and the shortage of affordable and social housing is driving real societal impacts. At the same time, new models like rent-capped apartments signal hope—but their future is uncertain without sustained support.
Together, these stories carve a clear picture: Australia’s housing affordability issues are deepening, and the path forward demands urgency and bold action.
Music of the week
"I Can't Get No (Satisfaction)" by The Rolling Stones
Released in 1965, this song echoes a theme of frustration and unfulfilled desire—much like the national sentiment among potential homeowners today: everyone's searching, yet coming up empty.
It captures the relentless pressure of trying to meet needs that keep slipping out of reach. When you hear a policymaker parroting the same talking points as lobbyists, be sure that we ain’t gonna get no satisfaction.
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 now changed to Wizards instead of Tacos - because we all need a little magic to make affordable housing appear!).
10-08-2025 Reader Survey
Should we keep adding news to our newsletter? (Yes, we know that sounds a bit counterintuitive.) Do you find value in it—or is it just our witty repartee you’re here for?
Cant see the embed below? Click here to view the 3 second survey!
03-08-2025
🧙🧙 Melbourne auction clearance rates surge to shock new levels – [LINK]
Our comment: No surprises here. The conditions for house prices to rise have been set, with FOMO and investor chatter of “get in before it goes up again” fuelling high demand while supply remains stagnant.
A theoretical question: If a person—child or adult—were to die due to being unable to secure affordable or social housing or rent, should the government official responsible for that portfolio be held directly liable? Without consequences, there are no solutions—just rhetoric, sound bites, and inaction. No accountability means no care, leaving it for the future to sort out (because they must be better than us anyway, right?). Check out this post for a discussion on accountability.
Housing fix – build houses for US troops! | Scam of the Week – [LINK]
04-08-2025
🧙 ABS data: New build costs surge, but data points to rate cut – [LINK]
Our comment: While this may be accurate, I question the logic of those pushing to reduce oversight for builders, make compliance voluntary, and then cite these same standards as “the cause” of problems. It’s hard to believe impartiality when the messaging shifts to suit the argument.
New national housing resilience rating scheme proposed – [LINK] (Audio)
Contec delivers Australia’s first multi-storey 3D-printed concrete home in Perth – [LINK]
Stunning brick inlay facade on Brisbane apartments celebrates Kangaroo Point’s angular cliff faces – [LINK]
Our comment: Inlays could be the future of brick facades, even for residential builds.
Cracks in the foundation – Australia’s growing housing crisis – [LINK]
05-08-2025
🧙🧙🧙 Red tape, innovation, and skills key issues for housing roundtable – [LINK]
Our comment: Remove red tape, make it easier for builders. Read our thoughts on this [HERE] and see what “making things easier for builders” means in the context of the 2018 Building Confidence – Shergold Weir Report [HERE] (Docsend), and the 2021 discussion paper on the integrity of private certifiers [HERE].
Some obvious fixes don’t align with lobby group interests, so instead, the focus is on cutting regulation rather than addressing quick wins that could rebuild confidence in construction. More oversight of builders through client-side certifiers wouldn’t be favourable for certain industry groups—so best to push that conversation off for another year.
06-08-2025
The 2% rule – what the new Developer Bond regime means for Developers – [LINK]
🧙🧙🧙 Victorian courts ill-equipped to help people who build houses on wrong blocks – [LINK]
Our comment: This can happen more easily than you’d think. Whoever first inspects the site and installs the builder’s sign with lot number effectively marks “this is the site.” A surveyor should pick up errors when setting out according to the site plan, but in rural areas, who marked the initial building pad/area location?
Was an identification survey done to re-establish pegs? In subdivisions with similar blocks, if no clear landmarks exist and everyone assumes the sign is correct, mistakes are definitely possible.
Ident surveys aren’t usually included in residential builds unless specified—so the question becomes, who first decided, “this is our land, build here”?
🧙 Roadblocks in the housing delivery pathway: The top 3 challenges for developers – [LINK]
07-08-2025
🧙🧙 Fast approvals only add to housing construction logjam – [LINK]
Our comment: Approvals are only one bottleneck. We discussed bottlenecks and how to manage them in our post on TOC and DBR, found [HERE].
🧙🧙🧙 Competitive economy failures – [LINK]
Our comment: I started reading this thinking it was satire—until I reached the end and realised it was serious.
Article excerpt: "Local councils are central to the approvals process, but their incentives discourage increasing housing supply. They aren’t financially rewarded for development and can be politically or socially penalised for enabling it."
Our comment: This assumes that financial motivation is the problem—a view that feels like projection by the group behind the article. I’d argue it’s more likely that councils simply lack the staff and funding to process applications quickly. Blaming LGAs oversimplifies the issue.
The article’s claim that “Private building certification has dramatically reduced approval times and costs, without a measurable decline in quality” is astonishing—see Bricktop quote [HERE] for our reaction to this.
Check out our article [HERE] on Private Certifiers, or read the AHURI and MDPI reports on private certification.
You can also see the 2021 ABCB discussion paper on Private Certification [HERE], or just pages 3–4 of the 2018 Shergold-Weir Report [HERE].
When multiple credible reports identify issues with—and causes linked to—Private Certification, claiming otherwise is either delusional, deceitful, or self-serving. A counterpoint is that we may not fully understand all factors, which could also be true, as we’re neither economists nor fortune tellers.
‘Get people back into the city’: CBD warnings as office vacancy rate surges – [LINK]
Welfare groups join union push for housing tax shake-up ahead of productivity talks – [LINK]
🧙🧙🧙🧙 More approvals, more problems? Rethinking the housing pipeline – Cotality – [LINK]
08-08-2025
What’s needed to fix Australia’s housing crisis? – [LINK]
Big tech race for data centres drives up land prices – [LINK]
Our comment: Big data means big power—and higher power prices as the grid struggles to meet demand. Look at the U.S., particularly Texas, where grid capacity often can’t meet the huge demands of data centres, forcing costly upgrades. These costs are usually spread across all customers instead of being paid by those driving demand. When a few consume vastly more than the many, the “user pays” principle should apply, rather than everyday users subsidising it.
🧙🧙 ‘Everyone is responsible’ for productivity slump – [LINK]
Our comment: Everyone gets a gold star! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ a "participation award" if you will 🤣
09-07-2025
Residential Focus: HBCF eligibility decisions – too challenging to challenge? – [LINK]
Federal Government not budging on negative gearing – [LINK]
Our comment: It sounds like lobby groups are shaping national policy, with ministers repeating the same PR lines promoted by those groups.
The Last Word
Another week, another round of headlines reminding us that in housing, the ground beneath us isn’t as solid as we’d like to think.
Clearance rates soar while supply sits still. Discussion circles back to the same culprits—red tape, funding gaps, and the familiar echo of lobbyist talking points.
It’s tempting to believe that one big fix is just around the corner. But more often, change is the quiet work of many small shifts—policies that actually align with people’s needs, oversight that keeps builders honest, and communities that keep asking uncomfortable questions until someone listens.
It’s hard not to think of the Eurythmics "Sweet dreams are made of this, who am I to disagree?" For many, owning a home has become exactly that—a dream. And yet, the journey continues. Some walk miles to get there, others circle back to the start, and a few seem to have the map all along.
If the past has taught us anything, it’s that dreams need more than hope to take shape—they need foundations, frameworks, and the will to build for everyone, not just the lucky few.
We can’t keep doing what we’ve always done and expect it to work now—or in the future. New times call for new ideas, not the bloated, stale notions of crusty lobby groups clinging to a reality that no longer exists.
Fresh thinking, bold ideas, and yes, a willingness to take risks are what’s needed to meet today’s challenges. The past is gone, and everything has changed—except the minds of the ignorant and the power-hungry.
Can't see the embed below? Click Here to watch on Youtube
👉️ 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 for A4-sized paper and ready for easy printing. Please note: the files are larger than typical PDFs—around 25–85 MB each—because they’re saved in CMYK (print-ready) format. This ensures high-quality prints, but also means the files are a bit chunkier than usual. They may take a little longer to download depending on your internet speed, so hang in there—it’s worth the wait!
👋 Enjoy the checklists—we hope they help you spot quality improvements in your new home or next project, or at least get you thinking. Free doesn’t mean worthless. These took over two and a half years to create and publish, and we share them in the hope they’ll help you avoid some of construction’s biggest pitfalls.
💬 If you find value in our downloads or content we've assembled, let us know with your feedback—it goes a long way in keeping us building out this platform so we can help more people like you.
🎯 Alternatively, pay it forward. Next time someone asks for help in a way you can truly make a difference, we ask that you return the kindness.
Anthony Painter
C14 Tile Design & Installation Checklist recently added to the list 09-08-2025
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We've recently added a "Feedback" widget to the website which you can see the black "Feedback" tab the bottom right hand corner of the screen 👇️ We wont email you when you leave feedback nor will we add you to any list or contact you about your feedback.
Should all builders display a quality rating score?
Tell us what you think. Can't see the embed below? Click here to open it (opens builder quality score rating survey)
