Agenda

• The paradigm shift in Australia’s housing demographic: How the changes affect the future planning of Australia’s housing market
• Discussion on the needs on housing assistance and the decline in the availability of social housing
• Policies reform: Government strategies in meeting the heightened affordable housing demands

John Alexander, known as “JA” across the nation, was elected to Parliament in 2010 as a firm believer in opportunity and individual endeavour. Combined with a strong discipline these values laid the foundations for his success as a touring professional tennis player.

Since his election to Parliament as Liberal Member for Bennelong in 2010, JA has balanced his local duties with a role leading the Liberal Party Sustainable Cities Policy Taskforce and Chair of the Vision 2020 Policy Group. He also established and currently Chairs the bi-partisan Parliamentary Friends of Medicines Group and Parliamentary Friends of Rail Group which invite industry leaders to present emerging issues, research and opportunities to parliamentarians.

Since his election to Government in 2013, JA Since his election to Government in 2013, JA has been appointed to the following positions:

• Chair, Parliamentary Committee on Economics
• Chair, Coalition Policy Committee on Infrastructure & Regional Development
• Chair, Coalition Policy Committee on Tourism
• Chair, Australia – East Asia Parliamentary Network
• Chair, Australia – Republic of Korea Parliamentary Group
• Chair, Sydney Airport Community Forum

Housing Market is Too “Hot”: Is Australia Heading Toward a Housing Bubble?

• Overview of Australia’s housing market and financing methods to identify the key risk areas of a housing bubble: low interest rate and cheap financing
• Influx of foreign buyers – Discussion on the impact of foreign buyers on the housing market and how it affects the purchasing power of Australian home buyers

Paul Bloxham is HSBC’s Chief Economist for Australia, New Zealand and Global Commodities. He is chief spokesperson for HSBC on forecasts and trends for the Australian and New Zealand economies and their interaction with global financial markets and international economies. Paul is also a key spokesperson on HSBC’s unique view on global commodity markets and works closely with HSBC’s global equities team in this regard. Paul is a critical member of the HSBC Global Research team, working with 350 analysts, economists and strategists in 24 countries.

Paul has published a number of papers, including on housing and household finances, asset prices and monetary policy and global commodity market trends. Paul is a regular commentator on local and international business television and a frequent contributor of opinion editorials to the Australian newspapers. Paul is also a member of the Australian National University’s Shadow Reserve Bank Board and is an Adjunct Professor at Curtin University. Prior to joining HSBC in 2010, Paul Bloxham spent 12 years as an economist within the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Economic Analysis Department where he headed up the overseas economies and financial conditions sections, as well as working on domestic forecasting and prices. He holds a Master’s degree in public financial policy from the London School of Economics.

• Case studies on residential property regulations in Australia, Asia-Pacific region and beyond
• Identifying and controlling price bubbles in housing

Dr Danika Wright is a Lecturer in the Discipline of Finance at the University of Sydney Business School.

Dr Wright’s expertise is in the design, investment and operations of real estate markets. Her research is published in internationally reviewed journals, has been presented at numerous global conferences and is the IP underlying the benchmark RP Data-Rismark House Price Index series. She is sought out for her knowledge on real estate prices and modelling, and is a member of the Sirca-RP Data joint research committee.

Her current research projects examine how real estate investment decisions are made and the impact of foreign investors on Australian property market dynamics, for which she was awarded funding from the Freda and Len Lansbury ECR Support Fund.

Property Investment Professionals of Australia chairman Ben Kingsley responds to widespread criticism that property investors have “ruined” housing affordability in Australia. He will outline the facts about property investments as well as its economic benefits for all Australians. Ben will also explain that housing affordability is not a nationwide problem and provide some potential solutions for Sydney and Melbourne homebuyers.

QPIA®, Licensed Real Estate Agent (VIC, NSW & QLD), Diploma Financial Services – Mortgage Broking, Associate Diploma Business – Tourism & Travel, MFAA Member

Ben is the CEO and founder of Empower Wealth Advisory – a specialist property investment firm. He has more than 20 years’ experience in property investing, analysis, and advisory work.

Ben has been chairman of the Property Investment Professionals of Australia since July 2012 and is committed to the introduction of regulation surrounding the provision of property investment advice to protect consumers.

Ben is a highly sought-after property commentator and keynote speaker in the property, money management, and investment fields and features on Sky Business News, ABC News 24, Melbourne Property TV and Look at Property.

He is the author of many property investment, wealth management, and personal finance articles and research reports in major industry publications and is the co-host of the popular free podcast – The Property Couch. He is also the co-author of The Armchair Guide to Property Investing.

• Examining the feasibility of institutional finance in social housing
• Barriers in attracting institutional investors in Australia’s social housing – Model to overcome the perceived low return rate in social housing  / rental investment
• The roles that the federal, state and government plays in facilitating institutional financing to increase the delivery of affordable housing

Mark has more than 30 years experience in real estate funds management in Australia, the UK and Asia. During this time, Mark has held senior executive roles including the Head of Funds Management at DEXUS Property Group, Fund and asset management roles at Lend Lease and GPT as well as Chairman of an Asian property investment company. Mark is currently an Executive Director at EG Funds Management, based in Sydney. He graduated from the university of Portsmouth UK with a Bachelor of Science in Urban Land Administration, is a member of the RICS and a licensed real estate agent in NSW.

• Lightning Talk 1: The Co-Development Model

Hanna Ebeling is a Senior Relationship Manager at SEFA (Social Enterprise Finance Australia Ltd) where she works closely with social organizations to understand what makes them resilient, and how to structure loans to suit their needs. Prior to Australia, Hanna spent two years in the Philippines, managing an early-stage accelerator program for LGT Impact Ventures and writing a business plan on affordable housing with the United Nations and the Hilti Foundation. Before moving into impact investing, Hanna spent six years in banking with HSBC globally, lastly working for the CIO of Group Private Banking. Hanna holds a B.A in Economics from the University of St.Gallen, Switzerland, and is a CFA Charterholder.

•  Lightning Talk 2: Accessing the Feasibility of Housing Bond

• Lightning Talk 3: Solving the Housing Pressure Through Demand Model Development

Currently the Chief Executive of the NSW Aboriginal Housing Office, his career has taken him right across Australia working in the Government, private and not-for-profit sectors in senior management roles. Shane was an integral member of the working party that established the successful model for Derby Regional Prison, playing a key consultative role across WA and drawing on his experience as a prisons operations manager.

Shane delivered the national building stimulus program in WA, developing additional public housing across the state following his roles of Executive Director of the Aboriginal Housing and General Manager Service Delivery.

Academics and social groups often say the developers should simply provide up to 20% of the apartments they build as affordable homes. The idea is to hand over this 20% to a community housing provider, but this only increases the cost of the other 80% of the apartments. A better approach is to allow a 20% extra floor space provided this is used for affordable rental housing for 10 years. This approach can encourage the market to provide affordable homes.

Chris Johnson is the CEO of Urban Taskforce Australia, an organisation that represents the property industry. In this role Chris has produced research papers on the structure of local government in NSW and publications on the future of our cities. He worked closely with local government as Executive Director in the NSW Department of Planning in developing the Housing Code, plans for regional cities and urban renewal generally. Before this he was NSW Government Architect for 10 years, a member of the Central Sydney Planning Committee, the Heritage Council of NSW and many government committees. Chris has written or edited over a dozen books on urban planning, architecture and cities. He has been adjunct professor at 3 Sydney universities and was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2012.

• The funding utopia: Could affordable housing financing be feasible without government subsidies?
• Increasing the “Tiny Houses” to increase the housing availability and affordability in major cities / CBD

Control Demand

• Reviewing current foreign ownership: the effectiveness of the new identity rules in curbing housing prices in Sydney
• Solutions to the Empty Houses: Reviewing laws and regulations to impose taxes/ penalties to vacant houses to end property speculations?

David Klingberg, Director and Principal, Smart Planning & Design

David Klingberg has over 26 years’ experience in the planning and the design industry. David specialises in bringing together teams and managing industry leaders to deliver outstanding outcomes in urban development, town planning and urban design. David has worked on significant projects nationally and internationally for state and local governments, as well as the private sector. These include land use strategies and growth area planning, mixed use and residential master planning, urban regeneration, town centre revitalisation studies and initiatives, state and local government planning policy development and urban design advice. David is driven to produce great planning and urban design outcomes, education and training. He regularly presents at conferences both in Australia and Asia and teaches at universities and for the Planning Institute of Australia.

Amy Brown is an industry expert in complex government infrastructures and services projects, providing commercial, contractual and strategic advice to ensure optimal outcomes for Government, its customers and the sector. Prior to joining PwC, Amy was Director of the Infrastructure and Structured Finance Unit of NSW Treasury.

Amy has been involved in more than 20 projects in recent years, including driving the successful financial closure of the most recent wave of projects in NSW – including the Northern Beaches Hospital Project, North West Rail Link Project, Sydney Light Rail Project, NSW Health Helicopter Retrieval Network and the Darling Harbour Live Project. She also led the development of the new suite of NSW government project documents (to be released in conjunction with the revised NSW PPP Guidelines) which have an emphasis on partnership, outcomes, optimal risk allocation and streamlined contractual mechanisms.

Dr Danika Wright is a Lecturer in the Discipline of Finance at the University of Sydney Business School.

Dr Wright’s expertise is in the design, investment and operations of real estate markets. Her research is published in internationally reviewed journals, has been presented at numerous global conferences and is the IP underlying the benchmark RP Data-Rismark House Price Index series. She is sought out for her knowledge on real estate prices and modelling, and is a member of the Sirca-RP Data joint research committee. Her current research projects examine how real estate investment decisions are made and the impact of foreign investors on Australian property market dynamics, for which she was awarded funding from the Freda and Len Lansbury ECR Support Fund.

Paul Bloxham is HSBC’s Chief Economist for Australia, New Zealand and Global Commodities. He is chief spokesperson for HSBC on forecasts and trends for the Australian and New Zealand economies and their interaction with global financial markets and international economies. Paul is also a key spokesperson on HSBC’s unique view on global commodity markets and works closely with HSBC’s global equities team in this regard. Paul is a critical member of the HSBC Global Research team, working with 350 analysts, economists and strategists in 24 countries.

Paul has published a number of papers, including on housing and household finances, asset prices and monetary policy and global commodity market trends. Paul is a regular commentator on local and international business television and a frequent contributor of opinion editorials to the Australian newspapers. Paul is also a member of the Australian National University’s Shadow Reserve Bank Board and is an Adjunct Professor at Curtin University. Prior to joining HSBC in 2010, Paul Bloxham spent 12 years as an economist within the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Economic Analysis Department where he headed up the overseas economies and financial conditions sections, as well as working on domestic forecasting and prices. He holds a Master’s degree in public financial policy from the London School of Economics.

Enjoy a glass of champagne whilst networking with other like-minded individuals on topics that are of most interest to you and fellow delegates.

David Klingberg has over 26 years’ experience in the planning and the design industry. David specialises in bringing together teams and managing industry leaders to deliver outstanding outcomes in urban development, town planning and urban design. David has worked on significant projects nationally and internationally for state and local governments, as well as the private sector. These include land use strategies and growth area planning, mixed use and residential master planning, urban regeneration, town centre revitalisation studies and initiatives, state and local government planning policy development and urban design advice. David is driven to produce great planning and urban design outcomes, education and training. He regularly presents at conferences both in Australia and Asia and teaches at universities and for the Planning Institute of Australia.

• Overview of role of the government in Singapore’s public housing and home ownership policy
• Current mechanisms to assist in the delivering on public housing in Singapore – Private contractor in building public housing / restrictive eligibility
• Possible future actions to be learned by the federal / state government to replicate the success of model

Dr Im Sik CHO is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture, School of Design and Environment, at the National University of Singapore where she serves as the Leader for urban studies research and teaching and as Principal Investigator for many research projects funded by the key government agencies in Singapore, including the Ministry of National Development, the Urban Redevelopment Authority, and the Housing and Development Board. She has served as a reviewer for the National Research Foundation of Singapore (2014-2017) and South Korea (2015) and has been invited as a visiting academic to ETH Zürich, Switzerland (2015). Her principal research interests are in urban space planning for sustainable high-density environments, and design for social sustainability involving community-based, participatory approaches. Her research addresses the challenges and opportunities that Asian cities face with accelerating social change, especially in the context of neighborhood planning, focusing on the social dimension of sustainable development. Her research has been published internationally, in many books and leading journals; recent publications as lead author include Re-framing Urban Space: Urban Design for Emerging Hybrid and High-Density Conditions (2016, Routledge), Community-based Urban Development: Evolving Urban Paradigms in Singapore and Seoul (2017, Springer), and Changing approaches to community participation for social sustainability: Neighbourhood planning in Singapore and Seoul in Caprotti and Yu (eds), Sustainable Cities in Asia (forthcoming, Routledge).

• Reviewing the current policies in curbing housing affordability
• Economic factors that are affecting the effectiveness of housing affordability
• Housing affordability and land use planning

Justin is Executive Director, Economics, Population and Land-use Analytics with the NSW Department of Planning & Environment. He is a public policy adviser with more than two decades of experience in Australia’s preeminent economic policy advising agencies, including senior executive roles at the Commonwealth Treasury and in the Prime Minister’s Department. During that time he advised Prime Ministers Howard, Rudd and Gillard, as well as Commonwealth and NSW Treasurers, on a broad range of economic, social and public policy challenges, including housing affordability.

• A predictable and bankable subsidy steam
• Driving efficiency and rewarding innovation
• Designing funding to support consumer choice and reform markets
• Funding to support client complexity
• Structuring funding to encourage partnerships and innovation
• Frameworks for improving the utilization and effectiveness of land use in different states

Philip Fagan-Schmidt holds the position of Executive Director, Housing SA. He has worked in both academic and government spheres. He was appointed to this role in January 2009 having served as a State Government Executive across a range of areas including health, housing, natural resource management, infrastructure and major projects. His key focus at Housing SA has been in promoting the development of affordable housing policy and practice and structural reform in the homelessness, Indigenous remote and public housing sectors.

Sydney is currently in a housing affordability crisis, with a significant amount of individuals and families in housing stress. While housing purchase affordable is relentless, the rental system is also one of the word’s most unstable and unaffordable. This makes it difficult for low to moderate income earners to be housed in locations with high amenity of living and community benefit that are also near to jobs and services.

Affordable rental housing forms a significant part of the housing continuum, yet is undersupplied and in significant need. There are little incentives and policies ensuring a continuous supply of affordable dwellings for low to moderate income earners. This in turn places downward pressure on the social housing system and homelessness.

Much of the affordable rental housing debate to date has focused on the supply of new residential apartment-style buildings, with incentives around floor space bonuses and planning agreements. But we believe the ‘missing middle’ should be addressed – housing options like more townhouses, terraces and manor homes – to increase housing diversity and cater for the needs of different families.

Our initiative brings together the missing middle and affordable rental housing by providing a simple change to state planning regulations to incentivise the inclusion of affordable rental housing in low-rise medium density housing.

The incentive is aimed at low-scale development of 3-10 dwellings on single residential lots and small amalgamations, allowing for single lot owners, small developers and community housing providers (CHPs) to participate in the provision of affordable housing. The initiative also addresses issues pertaining to density uplift. Sydney currently contains vast areas of low density residential zones, mostly comprising of detached single houses and at most, dual occupancies. We believe that density uplift is inevitable to address the housing needs of the growing population. The incentive allows for gradual density uplift of a reasonable scale to these areas of Greater Sydney.

Stephanie is an experienced urban planner and architectural project manager, specializing in statutory town planning, heritage planning and strategic urban outcomes.

Stephanie utilizes her strengths in, and passion for architecture, urban design and urban planning to deliver a diversity of projects across NSW, from project inception to construction. Stephanie uses her effective communication abilities to consult with various stakeholders, believing that consultation and collaboration forms a key framework for place-making practices and delivering design of high amenity. Stephanie has a passion for affordable housing, believing that every healthy society needs diverse and affordable housing of high amenity – and that this should be available to everyone.

Stephanie was previously the Director of a Sydney-based planning firm, providing advice and documentation for residential, commercial, retail, industrial and heritage projects, as well as strategic planning strategies for urban renewal and affordable housing developments. At PwC, Stephanie contributes urban planning expertise in urban renewal, housing, transport, strategic planning and infrastructure projects. Stephanie is a Member of the Planning Institute of Australia.

• Understanding the current system of Australia Housing
• Policy and funding reforms on home ownerships, private rental, and social housing
• Beyond the traditional funding – Funding for changes in housing affordability

Dave Adamson is Research and Development Manager at Compass Housing Services, Newcastle, NSW. He arrived in Australia in 2015 and retains the title of Emeritus Professor at the University of South Wales, UK, where he worked for 30 years and held the Chair of Community and Social Policy. He has extensive experience of research, evaluation and policy development in housing, regeneration and anti-poverty related areas. He was the author of the Towards a National Housing Strategy (www.compass.org/towards-national-housing-strategy).

His current interests include housing policy, housing-led community renewal and social housing innovation.

• Insights into the overview of the influence of negative gearing and capital gain tax compared to other model maintaining the affordability of Australia’s housing
• Strength and weakness of negative gearing and capital gain tax to first time house owners
• Discussing the importance of current tax policies in developing the dimension on government tax revenues and housing market stability

David Klingberg, Director and Principal, Smart Planning & Design

David Klingberg has over 26 years’ experience in the planning and the design industry. David specialises in bringing together teams and managing industry leaders to deliver outstanding outcomes in urban development, town planning and urban design. David has worked on significant projects nationally and internationally for state and local governments, as well as the private sector. These include land use strategies and growth area planning, mixed use and residential master planning, urban regeneration, town centre revitalisation studies and initiatives, state and local government planning policy development and urban design advice. David is driven to produce great planning and urban design outcomes, education and training. He regularly presents at conferences both in Australia and Asia and teaches at universities and for the Planning Institute of Australia.

Ben is the CEO and founder of Empower Wealth Advisory – a specialist property investment firm. He has more than 20 years’ experience in property investing, analysis, and advisory work.

Ben has been chairman of the Property Investment Professionals of Australia since July 2012 and is committed to the introduction of regulation surrounding the provision of property investment advice to protect consumers.

Ben is a highly sought-after property commentator and keynote speaker in the property, money management, and investment fields and features on Sky Business News, ABC News 24, Melbourne Property TV and Look at Property.

He is the author of many property investment, wealth management, and personal finance articles and research reports in major industry publications and is the co-host of the popular free podcast – The Property Couch. He is also the co-author of The Armchair Guide to Property Investing.

• Reviewing the NSW State Government in exploring prefabricated multi-storey housing solutions
• How could the new technology help in providing fast, reliable and safe temporary housing in meeting the surging demand of social housing
• The potential economic impact of pre-fab housing to the market – New jobs, skills, technologies and export opportunities for prefabricated housing

A/Prof Ngo is the Director of the Advanced Protective Technology of Engineering Structures (APTES) Group at the University of Melbourne. Between 2005-2009, he was the Research Manager of the ARC Research Network for a Secure Australia (RNSA), the Australia’s most comprehensive network in the multi-disciplinary areas related to critical infrastructure protection from natural or human-caused disasters. Dr Ngo has attracted significant amounts of research funding (totalling more than $12M) from government agencies and industry.

Dr Ngo has played a key role in the PrefabAUS, a peak industry body, involving more than 180 companies in the prefabricated manufacturing of modular buildings. He has carried out significant research collaborations with industry and government agencies to perform R&D experiments of prefabricated modular components of building structures (facades, wall panels and floor slab systems). He has successfully coordinated a large Training Centre for Advanced Manufacturing of Prefabricated Housing funded by ARC and industry. The national and international research interactions have given Dr Ngo widespread recognition amongst the scientific community and industry as an expert in design and manufacturing of building components and systems using high performance materials.

This centre aims to unlock the potential growth of Australia’s prefab building industry by creating a sustainable training ecosystem between industry and Australian Universities that will prepare the next generation of engineers and scientists to apply advanced manufacturing principles to pre-fab modular buildings.

Dr Ngo has won a number of prestigious scientific awards, including the Safeguarding Australia Award (2011) for the best contribution to national security technology research and the prestigious Eureka Science Prize (2013) for Outstanding Science in Safeguarding Australia. He has been working as an expert on many government projects related to national critical infrastructure security (airports, bridges, tunnels, ports, gas and power plants, water pipelines etc.) and the protection of Australian diplomatic posts overseas. Dr Ngo is one of the pioneers in Australia carrying out research in the emerging research area on safe and sustainable technologies for building structures and façade systems. Dr Ngo has also been leading the research and development of advanced protective materials and systems for a number of companies in the civil, defence and security industries.

• How the modular, mobile, off-grid housing system is utilizing the Inactivated Urban Sites
• Showcasing the first flat pack on building your house at 65k and how is this bridging the supply gap temporarily
• Housing flexibility: How flat pack houses offer affordability and solving the ‘space’ puzzle for first time house owners and young families

After several formative years practicing architecture, Alexander Symes felt unsatisfied with his architectural approach to sustainability. Motivated to change this, Alex joined multi-disciplinary technical services firm Arup and in 2010 begun a process of up-skilling himself as a building physicist and facade engineer.

Over the 4 years at Arup, Alex learnt the fundamentals of environmental quantification, sustainability governance frameworks and developed his capability to detail striking facades that were also responsible. Alex established Alexander Symes Architect in 2014 and has since delivered a number of award winning projects for Austinmer beach house, butterfly house and Dresden mobile and was awarded the 2016 Sustainability Awards Best Newcomer.

• Viable forms of co-operative, mutual and community led housing in the UK
• Who is funding it? – The challenges in co-operative housing financing · Adopting the UK model in Australia

Blase has been a leading player in the UK co-operative housing sector for the last 20 years and is currently the Chief Officer of the Confederation of Co-operative Housing (CCH).

Blase led the development of the CCH / NHF Code of Governance for Housing Co-operatives, Accreditation Frameworks, Centre of Excellence training programme and leads the CCH support and advice service. Blase is a Board member of Co-operative Housing International and the Co-operative Housing Finance Society.

Attracting institutional financing to fund affordable housing has been viewed one of the most viable and discussed options in expediting the supply of housing targeted at low to moderate income households. With various funding mechanism proposed, it is vital for the state and private sector to have a clear understanding on the risks and opportunities of the methods proposed to develop a collective plan in solving the housing affordability issues.

This workshop strives to provide participants with practical insights on how to successfully leverage on the communities competitive edge to unlock housing growth opportunities. It will also provide participants with a holistic understanding and approach in crafting the agenda for engaging with the stakeholders to unlock the benefits of the financing model available.

Key Takeaways:

• Understand how institutional financing work and the drivers for attracting institutional financing
• Understand various financing and delivery models, and risk and opportunities in the delivery of affordable housing
• Realize the benefits of institutional financing and how they might be ease the housing supple pressure
• Develop a strategic roadmap to engage partnership among stakeholders to capitalize on the funding options

Shared Ownership Model has been brought to the government latest agenda recently, suggesting that government and home owners go in to buy a house together. The pilot shared home ownership scheme has been operating in two states and has put more than 70,000 people into home over the past years. Thus, it would be important for us to look into the potential of attracting both public and private sector into investing into this model under the current national scheme.

This workshop strives to provide participants with practical insights on how shared ownerships model could help in easing the housing affordability crisis face by Australian today. It will also provide participants with the latest updates around the regulations and laws on the shared ownerships model and explore the challenges and schemes require in unlocking the benefits of shared ownership in the delivery of affordable housing.

Key Takeaways:

• Keep up with the latest updates risk and regulations around shared ownership housing model in capitalizing on the mixed tenure development
• Understand the challenges of delivering shared ownership outside of the regions of traditional high demand
• Develop a strategic roadmap to develop a successful schemes in promoting the share ownership model
• Understanding the demographic profile for the applicants under shared ownership model to develop effective strategy in the shared ownership offering