What happened in Residential Construction this week? 21-06-2025

🤗 Howdy Readers

In this newsletter, you'll find:

Post 1:

What’s a roof purlin—and why should you care?

Post 2:

One Drumbeat Too Slow: Fixing the Flow of New Homes

Post 3:

Why Housing Policy Keeps Failing (and What Might Actually Fix It)

Post 4:

The Fixing Stage Checklist: Catch Issues Before They’re Locked In

📬️ Post 1: What’s a roof purlin—and why should you care?

They’re the quiet achievers holding up your roof. In this post, we break down exactly what roof purlins are, what they do, and how to choose the right type for your build.

You’ll get a quick rundown on C-, Z-, U-purlins and timber options, when to use them, and how the whole process works—from design and material selection through to install and final checks.

Whether you’re building a shed, a warehouse, or just curious about what’s holding your roof together, this post makes sense of it all.

👉 Read the full article on Constructor

Roof Purlins Explained: Types, Uses & Construction Tips

Roof purlins are the hidden heroes holding your roof together. In this post we explain what they are, why they matter, and how to choose the right type.

ConstructorAnthony Painter

📬️ Post 2: One Drumbeat Too Slow: Fixing the Flow of New Homes

Australia’s housing pipeline isn’t broken—it’s just out of sync, and you’re feeling the effects. In this post, you’ll learn how two major bottlenecks—council approval delays and trade shortages—are holding back the homes we desperately need.

We walk you through a smarter way forward using Eli Goldratt’s “Drum-Buffer-Rope” method. By focusing on the true constraint, protecting it with buffers, and aligning everything else to that rhythm, we can get housing supply flowing again.

If you’re tired of the same old excuses with no real fix, this post offers a practical five-year plan—with tangible steps like fast-track planning panels, TAFE training blitzes, and stockpiling key materials to keep things moving.

We know you're probably sick of the word "crisis." So we’re focusing on solutions.

👉 Read the full article

🫳🎤 Can TOC Fix Australia’s Housing Issues?

Australia’s housing crunch is really a couple of stubborn bottlenecks. Fix the slowest step—approvals and tradie gaps—using Eli Goldratt’s Drum-Buffer-Rope rhythm, and watch rents relax as new homes finally flow. March to a new drum beat 🫳🎤

ConstructorAnthony Painter

SOPs, OKRs, and D-B-R: Turning Strategy into Action

While this video isn’t specifically about Drum-Buffer-Rope (Post 2 above), it touches on why meaningful change—whether through well-written SOPs or strategic alignment—is so hard to implement at the micro level.

From a process perspective, creating effective systems only works when there’s both top-down leadership and bottom-up engagement. When new processes are imposed by external consultants—particularly high-level corporate or Big Four-type consultants—they often fail to deliver real results.

Why? Because these consultants typically lack a grassroots understanding of what they’re actually advising on. It becomes an exercise in justifying their own existence (and billables) rather than creating practical, lasting change.

This ties into the appeal to authority fallacy—we trust someone simply because they appear to be an expert, even if their expertise is surface-level or disconnected from frontline reality.

From a strategic standpoint, we’re big proponents of OKRs—Objectives and Key Results. Unlike traditional policy documents, OKRs offer a framework that aligns teams both top-down and bottom-up. Everyone understands not just what the goal is, but how their individual work contributes to it. It builds ownership, clarity, and accountability.

We don’t believe government is broken. In many ways, it functions well. But we do believe it needs to modernise—empowering all levels of government and aligning them towards clear, shared objectives.

In our view, strategic alignment—linking LGAs to state, and states to federal government—is essential if we want to make real progress on affordable housing and housing supply.

📬️ Post 3: Why Housing Policy Keeps Failing (and What Might Actually Fix It)

You’ve heard the announcements. The promises. The big plans. But somehow, housing just keeps getting more expensive and harder to build. So what’s really going on?

In this post, we dig into why housing policy so often falls flat—hint: it’s not for lack of ideas, but a mess of red tape, blame-shifting, and a system that rewards inaction. We lay out our opinion of where things go wrong, who keeps dodging responsibility, and what we could do differently to actually get homes built.

If you’re tired of hearing the same political spin and want to understand what’s holding things back—and how we move forward—this one’s for you.

👉 Read the full article

Housing Policy Reform in Australia

Australia’s housing isn’t just bruised; it’s mis-managed. Endless policy swaps, siloed agencies, and blind faith in markets hit homeowners hard. Here’s what’s broken, how to fix it, and why government can’t be perfect—but must still do better.

ConstructorAnthony Painter

📬️ Post 4: C12 The Fixing Stage Checklist: Catch Issues Before They’re Locked In

Internal walls are lined, waterproofing & cabinets are in, tiles are going down—welcome to the fixing stage. It’s the second-biggest progress claim in your contract, and a key opportunity to check a few things while you're onsite.

In this post, we walk you through the Fixing Stage Checklist. You’ll learn what to inspect—gyprock, waterproofing, fixout, joinery, eaves, downpipes, and tiling—why each one matters, and how to use the checklist to maintain leverage over both quality and payments.

It’s also your second-last progress claim, so a thorough inspection now (done over time, not just as a one-off) will help minimise issues during your practical completion inspection.

👉 Read the full article

C12 The Fixing Stage Checklist for New Homes

The fixing stage is when plasterboard, cornices, joinery and tiling lock your home’s interior in place. I’ll walk you through the C12 Fixing Stage Checklist that helps you inspect gyprock, joinery, eaves, and tiling to avoid future issues.

ConstructorAnthony Painter

💾 Software of the Week: Connecteam

A better way to manage your team—without the paperwork headaches

If you run a business with a lot of moving parts—especially shift work, remote teams, or site-based staff—Connecteam might just be your new best mate.

What is it?
Connecteam is an all-in-one app that helps you manage your team’s day-to-day operations, without needing sticky notes, spreadsheets, or five different apps. Think of it as a digital command centre where you can handle staff scheduling, track time, assign tasks, collect forms, and communicate—all from your phone or desktop.

Why use it?
Ever tried chasing someone for a signed form or confirming a shift change via text? It’s chaos. Connecteam simplifies that. You get one place to organise rosters, send updates, track hours, and even create checklists or safety forms—all without needing to call or chase people.

Features we like (and why they matter):

• Shift Scheduling: Drag and drop shifts, set recurring rosters, and notify staff instantly. No more "I didn’t see the email!"
• Time Tracking: GPS-enabled clock-in/out with timesheets you can review at a glance. Great for keeping things fair and accurate.
• Custom Forms & Tasks: Need a daily checklist or delivery confirmation? Build your own forms in minutes—no coding needed.
• Chat & Updates: Built-in messaging means staff always see the latest announcements, safety updates, or last-minute changes.

Who’s it for?
Perfect for tradies, hospitality, cleaning companies, construction crews, and small-to-medium businesses with mobile teams or rotating shifts. Also handy for backend ops staff who want to ditch paperwork and keep things streamlined.

System requirements?
Connecteam works on both desktop and mobile (iOS and Android). If your team has smartphones, they’re good to go.

Why we like it:
A very generous free plan (up to 10 users), clean user interface, and setup is a breeze. It’s great for managing both people in the field and admin teams behind the scenes.

👉 Worth a look if you're juggling staff, schedules, and operations all at once. Check out Connect Team.

ICYMI - the most important construction news from this week

🚀 The latest residential construction news from new sources around Australia for the news week ending 21-06-2025 🔥

Theme of the Week

"Housing Crunch Reaches Breaking Point"

If there’s one thread running through all these headlines, it’s Australia’s housing mess—and it’s getting messier.

Everywhere you look there’s something adding fuel to the fire: dud lending incentives, too few tradies, prices racing ahead, higher migration, and policy fumbles at every level.

Supply’s drying up, quality’s slipping, and affordability is nosediving. We’re at the point where the fallout is impossible to miss—think social housing shortages, weather-disaster insecurity, and builders and renters finally shouting, “Enough!”

Music of the week

“Man on the Corner” by Genesis (1982)

“And nobody knows him, and nobody cares.”

The song paints a picture of someone homeless, standing on the corner shouting—and no one’s listening.

It hits hard because it mirrors exactly what we’re seeing today: people being priced out, ignored, and left behind while the rest of us look the other way. It’s a powerful reminder of how easy it is to overlook those struggling the most in this housing mess.

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).

14-06-2025

‘Our incomes don’t match housing’: Meet the people in NSW’s missing middle – [LINK]

Our comment: The societal impacts of not having affordable housing will last far longer than any government term. Rising crime, homelessness, desperation, substance abuse, and domestic violence affect everyone.

We all pay taxes to address the symptoms of housing unaffordability, yet governments continually fail to act meaningfully. There should be accountability—real accountability—for these failures. If this were a private company, the directors would be crucified in the media and likely face criminal consequences.

But when it’s government officials, we get "thoughts and prayers" and they get a cushy pension. Eventually, this all catches up. We must make decisions like lives depend on them—because they do.

🌮🌮 Are regulations really to blame for the housing affordability crisis? – [LINK]

Our comment: Glad to see others recognising the federal government’s blame game. It's easier to point fingers at LGAs than fix root causes. Most LGAs don’t have the funding to hire staff or implement reforms. Meanwhile, outsourcing in big builders (admin, drafting to the Philippines) is just pushing broken processes offshore. AI won't save them either. Skilled workers previously ensured compliance and quality. Now we need to create new oversight just to deal with the mess that outsourcing creates. It looks cost-effective on paper but adds delays and risks in practice.

🌮🌮🌮 Australia’s housing debate drowned in a sea of lies – [LINK]

🌮🌮 Aussies want to live in houses, not apartments – [LINK]

Low-Cost Timber Housing System a ‘Special Presentation’ at WCTE – [LINK]

🌮🌮 Hundreds of social homes Logan bound – [LINK]

Article excerpt: "Economic Development Queensland has released land the state government says could unlock more than 170 new social homes in Logan."

Our comment: This is why state governments should develop and build on their own land. Private developers are driven by profit—it has to stack up commercially. If we want genuine affordability, we need more public development or strong public-private partnerships.

15-06-2025

🌮🌮 Metricon is back – but the industry issues that plagued it haven’t vanished – [LINK]

Our comment: Trying to unpack this one: Metricon almost went broke, brought in a finance guy, got a government contract for 481 homes (lifeline), then sold a majority share to a Japanese group. Instead of fixing the business, they bailed out and sold up.

Then came the veiled threat: "If a big builder falls, the consequences are significant." Right. And the excuse that MMC (modern methods of construction) doesn’t work because "if it did, big builders would already be doing it" is nonsense. Building a prefab home in China is their only idea?

Where is the innovation? Where’s the R&D investment over the last 30 years? The Master Builders say the government hasn’t funded enough research—also nonsense. There are plenty of reports, but no one implements the recommendations. Look how hard it was to bring in 7-star energy ratings or LHA requirements.

We’re still building leaky, inefficient, uncomfortable homes. Where’s the building science? The new methods? New materials?

Even if the government does more research, so what? Industry groups are actively resisting change. The big builders? They’ve innovated nothing. Suppliers try—but builders claim “the customer won’t pay for it.” Page 39 4.1.2 of the AHURI report speaks to the role of industry associations as "lobbyist in chief." Why is anyone listening to these crumpets??

The real issue? Big builders have no backbone to try something new. Their business model is too dependent on display homes. They need a separate skunkworks team for R&D, but instead, they cling to the status quo to keep middle management employed.

The finance guy flipped a failing company, got a government deal to attract a buyer, and now he’s a “turnaround expert.” Another article gaslighting readers and dodging reality.

Meanwhile, Europe and China are years ahead in construction innovation. We’re stuck with builders blaming government while refusing to change themselves.

John McGrath – Shifting trends among first home buyers – [LINK]

Our comment: Perpetuating FOMO, inflating property prices, and chasing high commissions. That’s the takeaway here.

16-06-2025

🌮🌮 More than one million Aussie homes at risk from fires, floods as housing crisis deepens – [LINK]

🌮🌮🌮High migration pressures housing market – [LINK]

Article excerpt: "According to NHSAC’s sensitivity analysis, if Australia’s population grows by just 15% less than expected over the next five years, the country’s anticipated 79,000 shortage would become a 40,000 surplus."

🌮 Immense private funding growth driven by residential development – [LINK]

17-06-2025

🌮 Andrew Stockwell built a tiny home from scratch: Now, he's touring Australia in it – [LINK]

Australia sees strongest housing affordability uptick in nine years – REIA – [LINK]

18-06-2025

State introduces 2% low-deposit loan for home hunters keen to build – [LINK]

Our comment: There’s no shortage of demand. This will only drive prices higher and reduce supply further. It’s like throwing petrol on a fire, then acting surprised when it flares up.

🌮 FBR signs $7.8m Hadrian X robotic bricklayer deal with Habitat as NT housing shortage continues – [LINK]

State of the nation: Tackling Australia’s housing crisis – [LINK]

🌮🌮🌮 Australia is living in housing fantasy land – [LINK]

‘Compounding crisis’: report shows impact of disasters on housing insecurity – [LINK]

19-06-2025

Higher prices 'needed' to solve the housing crisis – [LINK]

Our comment: Ah yes, the “make it more expensive to reduce demand” approach. Hunger Games-style rental inspections, here we come. This is lazy, short-sighted, and completely ignores structural policy failures. It’s how we build a classist society stripped of empathy.

Property prices tipped to hit record highs in 2025-26, bringing pain for buyers and a boom for sellers – [LINK]

🌮🌮 Master Builders push for bold productivity reforms to boost housing supply – [LINK]

Our comment: People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. If Master Builders really want buyer confidence—build better homes. Clean up your own backyard before climbing back on your soapbox.

Industry groups aren’t pushing for better quality. They’re pushing to maintain the status quo and protect members’ interests. If you doubt it, read page 39 S4.12 of the AHURI report on Construction Quality (September 2024).

We’ve talked about housing quality before—[HERE] and in other posts about shareholder alignment—[HERE]. Most building companies are now run by marketing or finance people, not builders. Their focus is on deposits and market share, not quality.

NSW government announces measures to fast-track rental supply in Greater Sydney and beyond – [LINK]

Our comment: NSW seems to be leading the way in trying to improve housing supply. Credit where it's due.

🌮🌮 ‘Critical shortages’: Tradie shortfall puts pressure on 1.2m housing target – [LINK]

Our comment: The article image is unintentionally hilarious—looks like one worker is about to nail the other's hand to the window frame. A staged or AI-generated shot? Either way, this isn’t a two-person job. It’s both inaccurate and oddly comical.

🌮🌮🌮 Builder says WA government's modular push neglects key ingredient for new housing – [LINK]

Our comment: We’re carving land into blocks so small there's barely space for tanks, trees, or even a second car. If developers designed communities with room for onsite water treatment or rainwater collection, we’d be more self-sufficient. But we don’t. Instead, we pour billions into more infrastructure to support denser estates.

We even let black roofs and poor energy design make houses hotter and more expensive to run. It’s backwards.

VBA Announces Sweeping Reforms to Victoria's Construction Industry – [LINK]

20-06-2025

Australia’s Housing Market FY25-26: A New Chapter of Growth, Balance, and Challenge – [LINK]

NSW needs to build thousands more homes. Developers say this change will help – [LINK]

Tax break extended to boost build-to-rent in ‘key’ solution to housing crisis: ‘Big impact’ – [LINK]

21-06-2025

Qld’s phantom homes: The hidden crisis of unbuilt housing projects – [LINK]

New waterfront hotel and public park open in Melbourne – [LINK]

New record-breaking skyscraper could be built on Gold Coast – [LINK]

Our comment: Perfect. Just what the Gold Coast needs—another 40-storey phallic symbol. Great for investors, not so great for affordability or community.

Profitability holds firm in March quarter as rate cuts reignite housing momentum – [LINK]

🌮🌮 The root cause of the housing crisis – [LINK]

Our comment: This isn’t about racism—it’s about maths. Supply and demand are system inputs. You can't keep increasing demand (more people needing homes) without increasing supply. We’re burning the house down and pretending we didn’t light the match.

🌮🌮🌮 Unconventional wisdom: Is housing the anchor weighing Australia down? – [LINK]

Our comment: A refreshing and well-written article. Worth the read.

Article Excerpt: According to APRA, Australians have taken on $2.30 trillion in mortgage debt as of March 2025.

The Last Word

Nothing really seems to have changed in the last 50 years. It might feel like things are worse, but I don’t think they are. In many ways, life has improved—we just have a constant stream of information now, and that’s overwhelming.

We’re all juggling our own lives, emotional and personal problems, and then on top of that comes the endless flood of “news,” hot takes, and talking heads pulling us in every direction. No wonder you’re exhausted.

"Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell (1970)

A song all about losing something valuable.

Can't see the video embed below? Click here to watch on Youtube.

"Selling The Drama" by Live (1994)

One more song that nails the hypocrisy of those in power looking out for themselves. If you’re over 40, this one’s a throwback to your teenage years. Enjoy!!

Can't see the video embed below? Click here to watch on Youtube.

P.S. Let’s not wake up—or go to bed—angry, so here’s a bit of The White Stripes to set things right before we go...

😶‍🌫️ That's all of today

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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.

Comprehensive Quality Management Checklists for Building

On this page you will fund our full suite of our Quality Management Checklists to guide you through every step of building your new home—from pre-purchase all the way to 6-months maintenance. Last Updated 20-06-2025

ConstructorAnthony Painter

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