The NSW government has proposed a new bill that would streamline building approvals for modern methods of construction (MMC), help resolve building disputes faster, and introduce harsher penalties for dodgy certifiers.
According to the government, the Building (Approvals and Practitioners) Bill 2026 aims to increase the scale and pace required to meet the state’s housing needs, deliver safe and high-quality homes and resolve building disputes without the need for costly court proceedings.
Boosting MMC
The government said it believed MMC would be key to boosting housing supply, and cited the Commonwealth Productivity Commission numbers, which estimate modular and prefabricated homes can reduce costs by up to 20 per cent and are up to 50 per cent faster to build than traditional homes.
Once passed, NSW could become the first jurisdiction in Australia to define prefabricated buildings, and therefore recognise MMC in law, integrate MMC in approval systems and guarantee consumer protections. The government said it hopes it will encourage more homeowners and builders to pick MMC as a first choice.
Public policy advocacy group Amplify Australia agreed this was the right move to lift housing supply and diversify housing options. Chief executive and former NSW Department of Education secretary Georgina Harrisson encourages other states to follow its lead, saying these were the “smart, sensible reforms” needed to solve the housing crisis and the “ballooning cost of living.”
“Our research shows that Australians overwhelmingly support MMC, with two in three members of the community in favour. Our modelling demonstrates that reforms like these to unlock MMC could mean 192,000 more houses nationally over the next 20 years.
Harrisson told The Fifth Estate that her organisation’s research found 67 per cent of Australians back MMC as the solution to the housing crisis.
And while they welcome NSW “stepping up and supporting the MMC industry”, the lack of “consistent national definitions, laws and regulations” means the sector’s growth will be limited.
Housing Minister Rose Jackson said the state has been let down by slow and outdated building approval systems for too long.
“Today, that’s changing. The reforms we’re introducing will remove barriers to prefabricated and modular housing without compromising building quality, allowing more people to take advantage of the benefits of modern methods of construction.
“These are no longer fringe options – they are central to how we build the homes of tomorrow.”
Cutting red tape
The bill also proposes streamlining building approvals by amalgamating the currently fragmented framework into one piece of legislation.
This includes removing duplicate design for the same building elements, which it said will save $330,000 for each apartment block.
It will also establish staged approvals for construction, which will allow people to move in as early as possible. It will also allow minor variations from development consent, such as changing the size of a door or installing a tap outside, to be approved if it fits the approval framework; finally, the legislation will sit online in an easy-to-use format.
Master Builders NSW’s executive director Matt Pollock said the bill gets the right balance which helps to “improve consumer protections and lift quality in the building industry, while also speeding up and streamlining approvals processes so we can get on with the job of building more homes”.
The new legislation comes after NSW Premier Chris Minns let slip his opinion in recent days that planning laws should remove community and environmental consultations, calling them “insane”.
Penalising conflict of interest
Certifiers play a crucial role in the building approval process, the government said in a media statement, adding that the bill would increase public confidence by setting out clearer conflict-of-interest tests to determine when a certifier could not be involved in a development.
The new laws will increase maximum court-imposed penalties from $33,000 to $1.1 million for certifiers who breach conflict-of-interest requirements and provide automatic suspension if the courts convict the certifier for a breach of the conflict-of-interest provisions.
NSW Building Commissioner James Sherrard said the new laws will give Building Commission NSW the tools to “ensure certifiers and the innovative types of homes people are increasingly adopting have the proper regulatory oversight”.