Estimates - Local Government - Infrastructure contributions
CHAIR - Minister, I want to read from the LGAT budget priority statement for 2026-27 and it states:
Delivering new housing supply requires infrastructure, and delivering infrastructure requires sharing the costs fairly amongst those who benefit from it. When the costs of infrastructure cannot be properly shared, it falls upon the first developer to provide it. This creates a situation where developers avoid infrastructure costs by delaying their development until another developer has constructed infrastructure they will rely on. Without a proper infrastructure charging system, we have a market where developers are actually competing to not develop first. This is known as the first mover problem. This stops new housing supply in its tracks. The Tasmanian government must urgently progress the development of an infrastructure charging system in partnership with local government. This will properly support the development industry in delivering new housing supply.
Minister, this is not a new request. LGAT and councils like the Brighton Council have been asking for this for years to truly unlock housing supply. What are you doing to seriously consider this?
Mr VINCENT - Yes, thank you, Chair. It's been a large part of the discussion since I came into the infrastructure role, as well as local government ministry. The interlocks, as you've described there, we've got a lot of discussions happening with various parts of the sector, being with civil contractors, being different parts of the building and developers market. Some are for it, some are against. I am a big supporter of having a fund there that can do it, and it's pretty obvious that the federal government is also thinking that way, too, with the amount of money that they're putting towards infrastructure, unlocking greenfield sites that fit within the land use strategies and things like that. What it will certainly do is even up the cost of blocks of land if we can get agreement to bring this in, and understanding how it is going to be administered, because most people fear that, 'is it just a council fund?' No, it's got to be more than that. It's got to be, cover off on certain areas, as there's still gonna be a significant cost to each of the developers. But where it could be a co-funded thing where a $200 million sewer line that's got to be upgraded to 350 something like that can be jointly funded, can make a difference for other parts of the community where higher density can also tap into that, so the council gets an advantage and each of the developers get an advantage. There are more wins than losses in this situation and the conversation is maturing fairly quickly towards being a benefit to everybody in the community.
CHAIR - Thank you. I'll read some more from the priority statement from LGAT, because it's an issue directly relevant to councils. I quote:
The Tasmanian government must refocus its attention to the market forces impacting housing delivery instead of tinkering at the edges of our approvals process. This should commence with a study into the economics of infill housing to better understand the cost drivers and barriers and guide targeted incentives.
Will you commit to such an economic study to understand the cost drivers and barriers for infill? This goes to the heart of the questions I had from last night in relation to that infill that we should be doing to make housing more affordable in our cities.
Mr VINCENT - I don't need to commit to that because we're already doing it, Chair, in a lot of areas with planning and local government into how that can work better. The residential standards and a lot of the pieces we're doing with planning are all moving towards being able to utilise space available already instead of expanding out further.
CHAIR - I'm sorry, but the question was around the economic study to understand the cost drivers. Are you doing an economic study specifically on those cost drivers and barriers to infill?
Mr VINCENT - Not on the cost drivers, but we are doing work on the infrastructure, which is a similar body of work to that.
CHAIR - It's not the same, but okay