On why the old Electrolux factory in Orange is our new pin up for our housing solutions

The federal government seems to be getting its head around modern methods of construction and the housing crisis and that MMC can help resolve the problem.

This week, the budget announced $49.3 million to “supercharge” prefabricated and modular home construction. It made a point of specifying that this was for the states and territories. (Well, the noise on the street is that the federal election will be called on Friday, so the regional largesse is handy).

In addition was $4.7 million to develop “voluntary support for national certification process for offsite construction to streamline approvals while ensuring high-quality standards are met.”

Why it’s voluntary we don’t know. Maybe it’s tied up with the political winds blowing against regulation in housing standards – no matter that they ensure the things being built will actually deliver on some core issues that in a modern and wealthy society we should take for granted. Things like safety, energy efficiency, accessibility, resilience and so on.  

In New Zealand those political winds have already turned into a destructive cyclone and the government there is going backwards. New apartments delivered since they came to office now experience 50 degree temperatures in the day and 30 at night according to our recent report.

To be fair the country didn’t expect to have such hot temperatures to deal with. But get the picture? We didn’t think the cyclone line would move down to Coffs Harbour in New South Wales, according to mooted new standards. Not sure the future weather systems will get the memo to stop there. Already Melbourne has in recent years had to make its buildings earthquake resistant.

Again, climate change. Any slight change in temperatures underground can have devastating effects on those delicately balanced tectonic plates.

The thing about MMC is that it can help with those issues. Technology wizz kids can plug in the coding that means all the widgets that come out from that new factory being set up at Orange, about three and a half hours west of Sydney, in the old Electrolux factory, will be to the standard required across the country, with nuanced adaptations for the intended climatic conditions, as they are expected.

But everything else, to standard across the country.

That’s the plan. Get politics in the picture, and suddenly, we have threatened chaos.

MMC takes the politics out of our housing because the market will expect it to deliver to the same standard we expect of our toasters. Ironic isn’t it? We know we are safe with a toaster but not with the new house in the outer suburbs of Adelaide now that government has cancelled the National Construction Code updates in that area for the next 10 years.

The money dished out to the MMC industry is small fry and it’s a challenging sector with a lot of scalps to its name.

But it’s worth the struggle.

If the traditional building and construction industry baulks at delivering quality housing to safe standards – evidenced by the pressure it’s clearly applying to state governments and the coalition government which has also threated to freeze the NCC for 10 years, then it’s even more important that it’s put out to pasture.

People like Karl-Heinz Weiss who led the prefab business for Lendlease for several years are highly diplomatic and say the two solutions can work alongside. They can be complementary.

It’s possible – because each site is different, as he points out context is everything in property development. And MMC construction has to be able to respond to the challenges of a variety of sites.

But with the extreme weather that’s heading our way and has already hit Australia hard, the certainty that MMC can deliver is gold.

If politics can’t deliver on our needs and is subject to the volatility of the political wind shifts, then it’s more important than ever that we get this industry up and running. Fast.

Come to the event on Tuesday and help us carve out the plan for the feds to deliver big time on its Future Made in Australia promise starting with the buildings that will keep us safe.