Tanker trucks daily as 82,500 approved homes can’t be built

2 weeks ago 16

A shock new report warns of an infrastructure crisis with some housing estates are already living without sewerage. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Entire estates are living without sewerage in 2025, Australia’s fastest growing councils warn, with a further 82,500 approved homes blocked due to lack of basics like roads and sewers.

One third of the entire residential new build pipeline is now stalled, directly threatening the National Housing Accord’s 1.2 million homes target, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Growth Areas Alliance.

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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is faced with the 1.2 million new homes target falling over due to lack of basics like roads and sewers. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Emma Brasier

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Infrastructure deficits affect up to 47 per cent of builds in Greater Sydney, 45 per cent in South East Queensland and 31 per cent in Melbourne, the Beyond Bricks report warned.

On average, Australia’s 29 Growth Area councils – which make up just 5 per cent of all councils – approve over 61,000 homes each year, with the figure running to 320,000 in the past five years – around half of all approvals across the five capital cities, the report found.

NGAA CEO Bronwen Clark said “the land is ready, council approvals are complete, and the developers are waiting, but without basics like roads and sewers, the houses go unbuilt”.

Despite their track record, the 29 councils are obligated by state governments to deliver 310,000 new homes by 2029 – representing 26 per cent of the Federal Government’s 1.2 million homes target under the National Housing Accord.

The City of Swan is under tremendous pressure to roll out more housing estates but faces an infrastructure bottleneck.

Growth Areas have delivered most new housing since 2016 (1million+ homes nationally). Source: NGAA

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City of Gosnells mayor Terresa Lynes, who chairs the National Growth Areas Alliance, warned “we’re seeing entire estates without connected sewerage and insufficient water”.

“It’s concerning that in 2025 this is what governments are expecting people to accept as their lot,” she said. “The government is failing these Australians before their house is even built, let alone by the subsequent underfunding of infrastructure communities need to thrive once they move in.”

Ms Clark said “blaming all councils for housing delays is an easy way out for state and federal governments, but the facts are that growth area councils have become the backbone of housing supply, making up 35 per cent of home approvals nationally”.

In Henley Brook in the City of Swan, Western Australia, 3,500 dwellings already occupied require daily tanker trucks to remove wastewater due to lack of mains sewerage. In South Australia, 700 homes across eight estates are storing sewage in pits, with tankering set to continue for at least four more years.

In Campbelltown, New South Wales, a sewerage facility is not due until 2040, which has capped new builds at 2,000 homes when it could serve 30,000.

Proposed sportsgrounds community land management plan for Riverlea Park in the City of Playford, which was one of the areas named under massive infrastructure pressure. Picture: City of Playford.