A home building group has rejected a push in Canberra to give Aussie workers a legal right to work from home, warning it could derail construction sites amid the country's housing shortage.
The Housing Industry Association (HIA) says a proposed law by the Greens to give workers the right to work from home for up to two days a week wouldn’t work for home builders.
HIA senior executive director of compliance and workplace relations, Stuart Collins, said the law should be rejected as it would only add pressure to small building businesses already struggling with rising costs and labour shortages.
“For housing construction, work from home mandates would be impractical as many roles in home building require work that must be done on site,” he said.
“Supervising construction, managing trades and ensuring safety compliance simply can’t be done remotely.
“Mandating a broad right to work from home risks creating confusion, more disputes and extra compliance costs, particularly for small businesses.”
The HIA says work from home mandates would be impractical as many roles in home building require work that must be done on site. Picture: Supplied
A Senate inquiry into the right to work from home is currently considering the Greens bill and seeking feedback from the community.
Greens finance, housing and homelessness spokesperson Senator Barbara Pocock said flexible working arrangements were an essential feature of modern workplaces.
“We know there is widespread support from workers, their families and from unions who back flexible work arrangements,” she said.
“The ability to work from home has many benefits, not only for women and carers - it also reduces the time spent on commuting, improves work-life balance, increases mental and physical wellbeing, and boosts workforce participation and productivity.
“While the Greens recognise that working from home is not possible in all roles, workers should have a reasonable right to work from home for up to a couple of days a week where it is practical and possible.”
A recent poll found nearly half of employed Australians worked from home at least some of the time. Picture Getty
Last August, Roy Morgan research revealed that 46% of employed Australians worked from home at least some of the time paid or unpaid, while the remaining 54% worked entirely in-person.
The Productivity Commission also weighed into the debate, saying it wasn’t clear if new laws were needed in its submission to the inquiry.
“Many Australian employers and workers have found a hybrid ‘sweet spot’ when it comes to working from home,” the Productivity Commission submission said.
“The need for a legislated right to request to work from home is therefore not clear.”
It said employers already had the ability to allow workers to work from home where it benefited them, and many already offered hybrid work arrangements.
“In addition, a legislated right to request working from home arrangements has the potential to impede employers and employees from arriving at mutually beneficial arrangements – although the realisation of this outcome depends on how the grounds for employers refusing requests are interpreted and applied in practice,” the submission added.
Mr Collins noted that the new bill came at a crucial time for Australia’s home building industry.
“At a time when Australia faces a critical housing shortage, policy settings should support productivity and reduce regulatory imposts,” Mr Collins said.
“Adding another layer of workplace regulation without clear evidence of a problem will only make it harder to focus on what matters most, building more homes for Australians.”
It comes as the latest home building figures showed more homes are going up across Australia, although industry bodies warned that a critical gap remained.
New seasonally adjusted data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics published on Tuesday shows 48,778 dwellings started construction in the September 2025 quarter.
The figure was 6.6% higher than the June quarter and up 11.6% over the past 12 months.
Under the National Housing Accord, Australia has a target of delivering 1.2 million new homes by mid-2029. To meet this goal, the nation needs to start construction on around 240,000 homes each year.
In the first 15 months of the Accord, 230,658 new homes started construction across Australia, representing a shortfall of about 69,000 homes at the current pace, according to analysis from Master Builders Australia.
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