Alan Kohler

I mean, that 1.2 million target is actual houses, not just approvals.

The trouble is that the state government and the local councils, they can't actually make force builders to build houses, can they?

I mean, and developers, because the projects have to stack up.

So, I mean, to what extent is that becoming the issue that the development of new housing is proving difficult to be profitable?

And both parties, as you mentioned, the Labor government in the budget has got this fund, an infrastructure fund of $2.1 billion, which they say, as you point out, will lead to 65,000 houses.

Does that sound right to you, that that number will, that amount of money will actually produce that many houses?

And the coalition's also got an infrastructure amount that they're talking about, which is $5 billion.

And they say that that's going to lead to 400,000 houses.

Well, they have.

The coalition's numbers work out to be $12,500 per house, and the government's is more than twice that, $32,000 per house.

So what do you reckon is the right number?

But okay, but clearly this sort of money going into infrastructure is a good idea.

This is one of the issues that needs to be dealt with.

Absolutely.

Absolutely it is.

And the other things you were talking about, productivity and so on, what does the council, what do you think is needed to be done to improve that?

But by modern methods of construction, do you mean prefab, prefabricated houses and building them in factories and then bringing them out to the site and so on?

Just on the National Construction Code, it's very difficult to wind these things back.

I mean, it's 2,000 pages, but how did that happen and how possibly can they get it back?

I mean, these things tend to ratchet up and stay there, don't they?