Housing, planning and building ministers from every jurisdiction met in Canberra on Friday and agreed a shared statement on modernising the National Construction Code. The five reform directions are familiar. The joint agreement is what is new.

Commonwealth, state and territory ministers responsible for housing, homelessness, planning and building met at Parliament House on Friday 16 October for their second joint meeting on housing supply and affordability.

The headline outcome was a commitment to modernise the National Construction Code (NCC). It came with a shared statement of reform setting out five directions, and a list of preliminary work for the Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB).

For builders, nothing changes on site this year. What the statement does is put every jurisdiction behind the same written reform agenda, and the states and territories are the ones that give the Code legal effect.

Ministers have agreed five directions for modernising the NCC

The shared statement, published in the October 2026 meeting communiqué, groups the reforms under five headings.

The first is making the Code simpler to access and use, including through better digital delivery. The second is recommitting to a single national market through one national code. The third is governance, backed by tougher and more transparent cost benefit analysis.

The fourth is clear, nationally consistent pathways for safe, innovative products and methods, including modular and prefabricated construction. The fifth is cheaper ways of demonstrating compliance, scaled to the type and complexity of a building and based on risk.

On governance, the statement draws a line between policy and technical decisions. Ministers would set policy direction. The ABCB would make technical code decisions, informed by regulators, jurisdictions and industry.

The cost benefit principle carries a detail worth noting. Where practical, analysis is to consider the impact on the commercial feasibility of new housing.

The reform directions match Treasury’s April interim report

None of the five directions is new. They follow the reform directions Treasury set out in its NCC Modernisation Project interim report on 30 April 2026, almost heading for heading.

Treasury has said its final report will be released later this year. We looked closely at the most contested of the five, the national market direction, when state variations added 600 pages to the 2022 edition of the Code.

What Friday added is agreement. The interim report was a Commonwealth document. The shared statement is agreed by the Commonwealth, states and territories together.

The ABCB has been asked to begin preliminary work

The most concrete commitments sit under the first direction. The ABCB will start preliminary work, in consultation with jurisdictions and industry, on delivering the Code digitally and making it AI ready, and on piloting digital tools, including AI, for NCC 2025.

It has also been asked to improve readability. That covers clearer language, removing excess, outdated, duplicated and inconsistent provisions, reordering requirements around users and building classifications, producing simple solution manuals and working towards national evidence registers.

On state variations, the commitment is a process. Jurisdictions agreed to analyse variations to identify inconsistencies and understand why they exist.

What is the difference between the NCC residential pause and NCC modernisation?

The residential pause is about content. In October 2025, building ministers agreed that no further residential changes would be made to the National Construction Code until mid 2029, other than essential safety and quality measures. NCC modernisation is about form and governance. It covers how the Code is written, accessed and decided, how state variations are handled, how new products gain a pathway to approval and how compliance is demonstrated. The October 2026 shared statement says modernisation will maintain the building quality standards Australians expect.

The residential pause still applies until mid 2029

Nothing in the communiqué alters the pause on residential changes that building ministers formally agreed in October 2025. That pause followed a Commonwealth announcement on 24 August 2025 and holds until mid 2029, except for essential safety and quality measures.

Adoption of each edition also remains a matter for each jurisdiction. NCC 2025 is already applying on different dates across state lines, which is why the licensing and compliance picture still differs from one state to the next.

The construction figures ministers cited need context

Ministers welcomed signs that construction has strengthened, citing a 15.9 per cent rise in dwelling completions over the year to the June quarter and a record 248,733 homes under construction.

Both figures match the ABS Building Activity release of 7 October. The completions figure, though, compares one quarter with another. In seasonally adjusted terms, 47,168 dwellings were completed in the June quarter of 2026, against 40,699 in the June quarter of 2025. That earlier quarter was the lowest in the seasonally adjusted series published since 2018.

Measured over a full year, the change is smaller. Our calculation from the ABS seasonally adjusted series puts completions in the four quarters to June 2026 at about 180,500, up around 3 per cent. Commencements over the same period were about 204,500, up around 13 per cent.

That gap is why the pipeline keeps growing. Roughly 88 homes were finished for every 100 started, and the number under construction rose almost 11 per cent in a year.

Roughly 88 homes were finished for every 100 started, and the number under construction rose almost 11 per cent in a year.

Ministers also noted building approvals in August were 10.3 per cent higher than a year earlier. That is accurate. The same month, total dwelling approvals fell 6.1 per cent to 16,953, driven by a 21.2 per cent drop in private dwellings excluding houses, and the trend estimate eased 0.8 per cent.

Approvals measure intent and completions measure delivery, the distinction at the centre of our Australian construction industry trends guide.

Funding and planning reform sit alongside the code work

The communiqué also noted the Commonwealth’s $2 billion Local Infrastructure Fund, announced in the May 2026 federal Budget to help pay for water, power, sewerage and road connections. Ministers said it would unlock up to 65,000 homes over the next decade.

Productivity Commission chair Danielle Wood briefed ministers on the Commission’s housing supply regulation inquiry. Its interim report, released on 27 July, found that relaxing land use controls and better coordinating enabling infrastructure were likely to have the greatest effect on supply. The final report is due to government in March 2027.

On social and affordable housing, ministers reported more than 8,000 dwellings completed towards the Commonwealth’s 55,000 target, with more than 11,000 under construction and over 10,000 in planning and preconstruction.

The shared statement contains no dates or enforcement mechanism

There are no dates attached to any of the five directions. The variations commitment is to analyse and understand, not to limit. Governance reform is set out as guiding principles. The ABCB’s work is described as preliminary.

None of that makes the agreement empty. A Code with no legal force of its own depends on states and territories choosing to align, and on Friday they agreed in writing on what alignment should look like.

The test is the next step. Treasury’s final report is due later this year, and that is where reform directions are expected to turn into decisions.

THE GOOD BUILDER TAKE

There is no single announcement here. The direction of NCC reform was settled in April. What was missing was evidence that the jurisdictions which actually adopt the Code were on board. Friday supplied it, without dates.

For residential builders, the position for the next few years is stable. Technical requirements are paused until mid 2029, and the reforms underway are about how the Code reads, how products get approved and how compliance is shown.

The figures cited alongside the agreement are real, but one strong quarter is not a trend. A pipeline growing faster than it finishes is the more useful signal, because that is where trades, cash flow and handover timelines get stretched.

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Last updated 17 October 2026. Building activity figures are from ABS Building Activity, Australia, June 2026, released 7 October 2026 (completions and commencements seasonally adjusted; dwellings under construction in original terms) and may be revised on 13 January 2027. Approvals are from ABS Building Approvals, Australia, August 2026.

General Information Only: This article is intended for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal, financial or compliance advice. The Good Builder is not a law firm or a licensed financial adviser. National Construction Code requirements and adoption dates differ between states and territories and change over time. Readers should confirm current obligations with the relevant regulator and seek appropriate professional guidance before acting on any information contained herein.

Author: TGB Editorial