Thats true of national as well, so I imagine there must be some other conflict of interest that somehow outweighs the landlord conflicts of interest... Or maybe they've just calculated that the reduced cost of building won't really effect the housing supply too much, which would be good for landlords who want to subdivide or renovate.
It kinda does to a certain extent, depending on how densely things can be built. When there's a townhouse available with double the floor area as a single family home for the same price, that's going to decrease demand for the single family house. But yeah it doesn't decrease demand a huge amount as most people still want to have a back yard if they can and banks will lend more for a standalone place because reasons.
Sounds great, breaking up the monopoly. Of course, they products should have to meet our current regulations. If that isn't a part of this it could just lead to Leaky Homes 2: Electric Boogaloo
Yes the article doesn't seem to specify which standards exactly. But if for example we can now import building products that meet the equivalent Australian standards, I feel like that's a good move.
They’ll “set up the framework” and then not use it.
“Ah yeah, Australian building standards far exceed ours in most metrics, but none of it’s been … uh … earthquake tested. Yes! None of its been earthquake tested. So … no”
Then labour will come in, start to actually use it, and when we flip flop back to National, finger point, blame, and retroactively tear it all down. Then anyone with Australian building materials in their house get their insurance claims denied or something equally absurd.