The $2 billion national upzoning incentive fund will unlock housing Australia-wide
The Commonwealth Government announced infrastructure funding—delivered to states that undertake meaningful supply-side planning and construction reform.
The Problem
Some state governments, such as ours in Victoria, were undertaking politically challenging reform without the support of the Commonwealth Government to do so. Other state governments were not undertaking sufficient reform, and in some cases—such as Queensland—were going backward.
The Commonwealth collects the large majority of tax revenue in Australia, and if our our cities function well and our economy grows, their bottom line is the one that benefits the most.
There needed to be national leadership on supply-side reform.
The Outcome
The Commonwealth announced their $2 billion infrastructure fund ahead of the 2026 budget. The money will be made available to state and local governments who execute meaningful supply-side planning and construction reform.
We will continue to work with the Commonwealth to identify, select, and execute the key state-based reforms required to make housing abundant across our nation. This will include another of our key Brick Book asks: a National Townhouse Accord, setting a three-storey minimum permitted density Australia-wide.
Our Research & Advocacy
In the lead-up to the 2025 Federal Election, we published and circulated widely the Brick Book, a guide to federal housing policy. We made six core recommendations, including:
- Fix the National Housing Accord incentives by paying the states to fix planning bottlenecks
- Create a federal Targeted Infrastructure Feasibility Fund to unlock homes in high-productivity areas
YIMBY Melbourne and the rest of the Abundant Housing Network spent a year working to flesh these recommendations out, and to make the case that they were the right policies to meet the national challenge, and confronting the
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The Brick Book
Australia’s leading pro-housing advocates unveil The Brick Book, a shovel-ready guide for the next government can fix the housing crisis