Key Facts:
- Australia’s target of 1.2 million new homes by 2029 faces a projected shortfall of approximately 220,000 dwellings, highlighting the urgency of reducing construction costs and improving supply chains.
- Heavy construction materials such as cement, concrete, sand, and aggregates account for up to 38% of housing subdivision project costs, with prices around 36% higher than pre-pandemic levels.
- The location of quarries and concrete batching plants is critical, as greater distances from construction sites increase freight costs, with Australian road freight prices rising a record 17.6% in the year to June 2026.
- Governments are urged to protect strategically important quarry resources, streamline planning approvals, improve heavy vehicle access, and keep regulatory costs proportionate to support more competitive materials supply.
- Australia’s cement, concrete, and aggregates industry contributes $20.7 billion to GDP and supports nearly 113,000 jobs, and must be recognised as central to delivering affordable housing targets.
Australia has set an ambitious target to build 1.2 million new homes over five years.
It reflects the scale of our housing supply challenge and the urgent need to deliver more homes at a cost Australians can afford.
Building more homes is only part of the equation. We also need to make them more affordable to build.
That means addressing the policy settings that influence the cost, availability and delivery of the essential materials going into every new home and growing community.
Cement, concrete, sand, stone and aggregates form the foundations, slabs, driveways, roads and infrastructure that make housing possible.
Yet their importance to housing affordability is too often overlooked.
Getting the policy settings right for Australia’s heavy construction materials industry is critical to reducing construction costs, lifting productivity and delivering more affordable homes.
Consider the materials required to build just one Australian home.
An average new home requires approximately 110 tonnes of aggregates and more than 50 cubic metres of concrete.
Heavy construction materials account for an estimated 29 per cent of project costs on average across major infrastructure project types. For housing subdivisions, concrete, asphalt and aggregates alone represent an estimated 38 per cent.
These are substantial costs, and they are rising.
The price of concrete, cement and sand used in Australian house construction is now around 36 per cent higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Australian road freight transport prices also increased by a record 17.6 per cent in the year to June 2026, adding further pressure to the cost of delivering materials to construction sites.
These increases flow through the supply chain, making homes more expensive to build.
At a time when Australia desperately needs more affordable housing, unnecessary costs and inefficiencies are something we simply cannot afford.
The scale of the challenge is significant.
Under the National Housing Accord, Australia is targeting 1.2 million new homes by June 2029. Victoria has separately set an ambition of 800,000 homes over a decade, Queensland is targeting one million homes by 2044, and New South Wales has a target of 377,000 homes by 2029.
Yet the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council’s 2026 assessment forecasts approximately 980,000 new homes over the five-year Accord period, around 220,000 short of the national target.
Meeting these ambitions will require action on planning, land availability, workforce capacity and construction productivity.
It will also require a secure, affordable and efficient supply of construction materials.
You cannot move a quarry, nor establish one overnight, and you cannot transport concrete indefinitely. Where these materials are produced matters.
The further they travel to reach construction sites, the more expensive homes become to build.
When quarries and concrete batching plants are pushed away from growing communities, freight costs rise and supply chains become less efficient.
When new quarries and expansions face lengthy, uncertain or duplicative approvals, investment is delayed and future supply is put at risk.
When freight regulations prevent modern, productive vehicles from operating efficiently, more trips are needed to deliver the same materials.
And when disproportionate fees, taxes and regulatory costs are imposed on producers, those pressures can ultimately flow through to builders and homebuyers.
Every unnecessary kilometre, regulatory delay and avoidable cost makes Australia’s housing challenge harder to solve.
Multiply the materials needed for one home across hundreds of thousands of new dwellings, alongside the roads, schools, hospitals and infrastructure required for growing communities, and the importance of securing supply becomes undeniable.
Governments have a clear opportunity to act.
Protecting strategically important quarry resources and concrete batching plants from incompatible development will help maintain local supply and minimise transport costs.
Faster, more predictable and risk-based approvals will give industry the certainty to invest in new and expanded production capacity.
Improving heavy vehicle access and removing unnecessary freight restrictions will reduce transport costs, congestion and emissions.
Keeping industry fees, taxes and regulatory requirements proportionate will support competitiveness and investment.
Modernising standards and procurement frameworks will also encourage innovation and greater uptake of lower-carbon materials without compromising safety, durability or performance.
None of this requires weakening environmental protections or community safeguards. It requires practical, efficient regulation that delivers those protections while enabling essential materials to be produced and supplied competitively.
Australia’s cement, concrete and aggregates industry contributes $20.7 billion to national GDP and supports almost 113,000 jobs.
But its importance extends well beyond its direct economic contribution.
It supplies the materials that turn housing targets into completed homes and new developments into functioning communities.
Housing affordability is a complex national challenge, and no single reform will solve it.
But governments cannot continue to overlook the avoidable costs embedded in the construction materials supply chain.
We need coordinated national and state policy settings that protect essential resources, streamline approvals, improve freight productivity and provide certainty for long-term investment.
If governments are serious about bringing down construction costs and delivering more affordable homes, supporting a more productive heavy construction materials industry must be part of the solution.
Housing targets alone will not build homes and more homes will not become affordable if the costs of building them continue to rise.
Australia needs a secure, productive and competitive construction materials industry capable of delivering the foundations for its housing ambitions.
More affordable homes start with stronger foundations.
Michael Kilgariff CEO Cement Concrete & Aggregates Australia
About us:
About CCAA CCAA is the voice of Australia’s heavy construction materials industry, an industry that contributes $20.7 billion to GDP and supports 112,970 jobs nationwide. CCAA members produce most of Australia’s cement, concrete and aggregates, which are essential to the nation’s building and construction sectors.
