“This is a gamechanger”.
That’s how Paul Scully, New South Wales minister for planning and public spaces, described the state government’s launch of a tender for an artificial intelligence (AI) solution to the housing crisis earlier this month.
The system, which is aimed at cutting red tape and getting more homes built fast, is expected to be functioning by the end of 2025.
It is “allowing construction to get under way and new keys into new doors,” Scully added.
The announcement was later endorsed by the federal treasurer, Jim Chalmers, as a model for other states and territories to replicate, to “unlock more housing” and “boost productivity across the economy”.
Speeding up building approvals is a key concern of the so-called abundance agenda for boosting economic growth.
Those wheels are already in motion elsewhere in Australia. Tasmania is developing an AI policy, and South Australia is trialling a small-scale pilot for specific dwelling applications to allow users to submit digital architectural drawings to be automatically assessed against prescribed criteria.
But will AI really be a quick fix to Australia’s housing crisis?
Cutting red tape
Housing and AI were both key themes at last month’s productivity roundtable.
In a joint media release, the federal minister for housing, Clare O’Neil, and minister for the environment and water, Murray Watt, said easing “the regulatory burden for builders” is what Australia needs.
They point to the backlog of 26,000 homes currently stuck in assessment under environmental protection laws as a clear choke point. And AI is going to be used to “simplify and speed up assessments and approvals”.
None of this, however, explains AI’s precise role within the complex machinery of the planning system, leaving much to speculation.
Will the role of AI be limited to checking applications for completeness and classifying and validating documents, as Victorian councils are already exploring? Or drafting written elements of assessments, as is already the case in the Australian Capital Territory?
Or will it go further? Will AI agents, for example, have some autonomy in parts of the assessment process? If so, where exactly will this be? How will it be integrated into existing infrastructure? And most importantly, to what extent will expert judgment be displaced?
A tempting quick fix
Presenting AI as a quick fix for Australia’s housing shortage might be tempting. But it risks distracting from deeper systemic issues such as labour market bottlenecks, financial and tax incentives, and shrinking social and affordable housing.
The technology is also quietly reshaping the planning system – and the role of planners within it – with serious consequences.
Planning is not just paperwork waiting to be automated. It is judgment exercised in site visits, in listening to stakeholders, and in weighing local context against the broader one.
Stripping that away can make both the system and the people brittle,…
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