RBA - Housing Accord targets and dwelling completions

Question

Senator BRAGG: So according to your projections the Housing Accord won't be met, will it? Dr Hunter: We actually discussed this, I think, around a month or so ago at a separate hearing. We don't on a regular basis do forecasts for dwelling completions. And that's certainly the case today. We haven't done a forecast of dwelling completions. That is consistent with our May SMP forecast. What we do have is a housing market and rental market model that works on a sort of approvals, completions, number of dwellings basis, if you like. We use that to really dig into housing market dynamics. We can look at what that model would say about how dwelling approvals and what have you could evolve. But, because it's not part of our core forecast framework, we don't do those forecasts on a regular basis. So I can't tell you what our current dwelling investment forecast profile means for completions, because we haven't done that work. Senator BRAGG: Page 6 of this FOI says: The annual completions implied by our forecasts remain below the National Housing Accord targets (including the original 1 million target) and previous peaks. The target is 1.2 million. Dr Hunter: Yes. It is certainly true that the latest dwelling completions number, if you just annualise that, is running below what would be consistent with building 1.2 million homes over five years. That's true and a statement about the historical data, but what I can't tell you is what our current forecasts imply for future completions, because we haven't done that work. Senator BRAGG: I understand that, but your current analysis as released under FOI- Dr Hunter: That analysis was from, I think, around a year or so ago. I would have to check the date, so I can't confirm that, but I think that it was dated from around then.

Answer

See attached response.

Documents

• Question with answer (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
• RBA - Senator Bragg - Questions on Notice - 4 June 2026.PDF (opens in a new tab)