Thirty stakeholders from industry bodies to mayors,along with five government ministers and their department heads,ended up around the table for the two-hour session the state opposition had urged against becoming a talkfest.
While the announcements which followed may not have met the calls of the LNP,others including the Property Council and Queensland Council of Social Services labelled the event “fantastic” or an “important step”.
The past two years have driven huge changes in the national housing market,bringing to a boil affordability and access issues bubbling away for decades.
Record rent hikes and low vacancy rates have coalesced into a “landlords market” in Brisbane outpacing all other Australian capital cities.
At a press conference after Friday’s meeting,Treasurer Cameron Dick laid out further factors squeezing the sector:higher demand through declining numbers of household membersand interstate migration,and constraints on construction due to global material and labour shortages pushing building prices up.
The issue of land supply was also raised by the Property Council’s Queensland executive director Jen Williams — the only non-government stakeholder to speak at the post-meeting press conference.