Weakening building standards won't fix productivity. Building better homes will.
MEDIA STATEMENT, 13 August 2026
Australian Passivhaus Association responds to Senator Bragg's National Press Club address and the Senate Committee on Productivity's interim report.
The Australian Passivhaus Association (APA) has responded to proposals raised in Senator Andrew Bragg's National Press Club address and the Senate Committee on Productivity's interim report, warning that making minimum energy efficiency standards optional would undercut the productivity gains the Committee is trying to unlock.
APA CEO Stalin Chakrabarty said the debate is missing the sector's biggest lever: homes that perform properly from day one.
“Productivity isn't just about approval timelines. It's about building assets that don't cost a fortune to run and don't leave families choosing between heating and groceries. Optional standards trade a short-term headline for decades of avoidable cost,” Mr Chakrabarty said.
Buildings built to the Passivhaus standard typically cut heating and cooling energy use by up to 90 per cent through a better building envelope, a direct productivity dividend in lower running costs, less grid strain, and fewer defects.
“A consistent national standard gives industry certainty to invest in better systems and training. Fragment that into a patchwork of state rules and you get more compliance cost and worse outcomes for the people who live in these buildings,” he said.
The case extends beyond running costs. Cold, damp and mould-affected housing is a well-documented driver of respiratory illness in Australia. Research in Social Science & Medicine estimates that lifting cold homes in south-eastern Australia to a healthy indoor temperature would generate AUD$4.35 billion in additional income earnings and AUD$0.87 billion in health expenditure savings by 2040. Separately, mould exposure alone is modelled to cost Australia $2.82 billion in healthcare and $4.21 billion in lost productivity over 20 years.
“A worker who's had another winter of respiratory illness because their home is cold and damp isn't turning up productive. Energy efficiency is a health and workforce policy as much as an energy one,” Mr Chakrabarty said.
The APA supports streamlining the NCC, modern methods of construction, and national pattern books. These are genuine productivity reforms. Making energy performance optional is not; it shifts cost from builders today onto occupants for the life of the building.
A “basic” standard is a false economy
Senator Bragg's proposed “Basic Australian Standard” would strip the NCC back to structural, fire and health essentials, treating energy performance as an optional extra. Mr Chakrabarty said that gets the economics backwards.
“Energy performance isn't a nice-to-have bolted onto a safe house. It's what keeps a house affordable and healthy to live in for the next 40 years. Strip it out to save a few thousand dollars at construction and the family who buys the house pays the bill,” he said.
A leaner code can speed up delivery, but only if it doesn't gut the performance benchmarks underneath it.
“A house that costs more to run and makes people sick isn't a win for productivity or the community, even if it was quicker or cheaper to put up. It's cost-shifting onto renters and low-income households, the people this housing push is supposed to help,” Mr Chakrabarty said.
The APA is calling on parliamentarians to pursue productivity reform that strengthens rather than weakens minimum energy performance requirements in the NCC, and to recognise Passivhaus and EnerPHit as part of the solution for both new builds and retrofitting Australia's existing housing stock.
Media contact:
media@passivhausassociation.au