{"id":852985,"date":"2026-08-12T20:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T20:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/852985\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T20:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T20:58:12","slug":"coalition-plan-to-scrap-energy-rules-for-new-houses-condemned-as-cost-of-living-timebomb-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/852985\/","title":{"rendered":"Coalition plan to scrap energy rules for new houses condemned as \u2018cost-of-living timebomb\u2019 | Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Coalition<\/a> plan to abolish compulsory energy standards for new homes that help reduce people\u2019s exposure to heat and cold has been criticised by advocates as a \u201ccost-of-living timebomb\u201d that would deepen inequality.<\/p>\n

The opposition\u2019s housing and environment spokesperson, Andrew Bragg, said a Coalition government would cut the National Construction Code from more than 2,000 pages to 80, and strip away all requirements for new homes beyond demanding they were \u201cbasic and safe\u201d. Longstanding compulsory energy and accessibility measures would become \u201coptional extras\u201d.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the National Press Club, Bragg said house construction regulation was a \u201cnightmare\u201d and accused the Albanese government of making it \u201cillegal to build a cheap house in Australia\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will cut building costs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Asked about the policy on ABC Radio National, the Liberal treasury spokesperson, Tim Wilson, said in some cases people could put \u201ca jumper on in winter rather than spending huge amounts of money\u201d on improving housing quality.<\/p>\n

The Energy<\/a> Efficiency Council said minimum standards were \u201cnot some extraneous bauble\u201d, but made sure homes were safe, comfortable and affordable to run.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustralians deserve to live in decent housing, not leaky shacks with paper thin walls,\u201d the council\u2019s chief executive, Luke Menzel, said. \u201cThis proposal is a cost-of-living timebomb \u2026 I never thought I\u2019d see an Australian politician out and about advocating for higher energy bills, but here we are.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf you\u2019re a renter living in western Sydney you had better hope you don\u2019t land in a home that has been built without energy efficiency measures. You\u2019re going to need to run your air-conditioners like the clappers to try to keep yourself cool in summer and your energy bills are going to be through the roof.\u201d<\/p>\n

The chief executive of the Australian Council of Social Service, Cassandra Goldie, said governments should remove unnecessary regulation but needed to strengthen energy performance and accessibility rules that were \u201cfundamental to health, safety and wellbeing\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cStripping out energy efficiency and accessibility standards would shift costs on to households, deepen inequality and leave future generations with homes that are expensive to run and difficult to live in,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Industry groups argued at a recent Senate inquiry<\/a> that a range of changes to the construction code over the past seven years had added significantly to the cost of a new home, estimated between $3,600 and $33,000.<\/p>\n

Government analysis found increasing the minimum residential energy rating from six to seven stars \u2013 the current standard \u2013 would increase the average capital cost of building a home by less than 1%. The Reserve Bank and CSIRO separately found<\/a> constructions costs barely changed, and in some cases decreased, after previous increases in energy efficiency requirements.<\/p>\n

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Asked to respond to Goldie\u2019s comments, Bragg said \u201cI love energy efficiency\u201d and that he was \u201creally passionate\u201d about electrification. But he said \u201cwe should be for choice\u201d and \u201cpeople just want to get access to a roof over their head\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do we have to make it compulsory for everyone? I just think it\u2019s punitive for people on lower incomes,\u201d Bragg said.<\/p>\n

He said under the Coalition\u2019s proposal, the states would enact their own building codes, given \u201cit\u2019s very different to live in Tasmania compared to Western Australia, so the conditions are different\u201d.<\/p>\n

Menzel said states and territories already had their own rules. He said the standardised national approach helped lower industry compliance costs, made homes cheaper for buyers, and the national code was already designed to take account of regional differences, incorporating eight different climate zones.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Bragg\u2019s] comments suggest a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of how the code works,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, told the ABC the government had already paused changes to the code as it was too hard to navigate and too costly, and was working with the states to streamline it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Coalition plan to abolish compulsory energy standards for new homes that help reduce people\u2019s exposure to heat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-852985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}