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About Kooky and Shaka →Queensland is approving far more homes than it was a year ago, and finishing slightly fewer. That is the picture in the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council's quarterly report, published on Friday 21 August 2026.
The Council estimates that 24 per cent of Queensland's share of the National Housing Accord target has been built so far, and that the State is now on course to complete its share in March 2031. The Council's previous estimate had put that date at September 2030.
Approvals up, completions down
The Accord is the agreement between the Commonwealth, the states and territories to build 1.2 million well-located homes over five years from 1 July 2024. The Council's report tracks each jurisdiction against its share.
For Queensland, the two main measures have moved in different directions since the Council's quarterly report of 25 March 2026.
| Measure | March 2026 report | August 2026 report |
|---|---|---|
| Approvals, change over 12 months | Up 16% | Up 23% |
| Completions, change over 12 months | Up 4% | Down 2% |
| Share of target approved | 26% | 35% |
| Share of target built | 17% | 24% |
| Expected finish | September 2030 | March 2031 |
Source: National Housing Supply and Affordability Council, Quarterly Reports of 25 March 2026 and 21 August 2026. Twelve-month changes are rolling totals compared with the previous 12 months.
The two shares are measured over slightly different periods, and the report's notes spell that out. Approvals are counted to June 2026, by which point eight of the Accord's 20 quarters had passed, or 40 per cent of the period. Completions are counted to the March quarter of 2026, when seven quarters had passed, or 35 per cent.
Against those yardsticks Queensland is behind on both, by different margins. Its approvals, at 35 per cent of its share, are five percentage points short of the time elapsed. Its completions, at 24 per cent, are about 11 points short.
An approval is permission to build. A completion is a home someone can move into. The distance between the two is the construction industry's capacity: trades, materials, finance and weather. A State where approvals are rising quickly and completions are edging down is one where projects are queuing or taking longer on site.
Related readStockland named first partner in the State's new developer programThe change in the completions line is the detail that moved Queensland's date. In March the Council had the State's completions rising 4 per cent over 12 months. Five months later the same rolling measure shows a fall of 2 per cent.
Queensland beside the other states
Queensland is not an outlier. The Council's table shows every jurisdiction behind the pace of time on completions, and most with later finish dates than in the previous estimate.
| Jurisdiction | Target approved | Target built | Expected finish |
|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | 27% | 21% | March 2032 |
| Victoria | 37% | 32% | December 2029 |
| Queensland | 35% | 24% | March 2031 |
| South Australia | 35% | 28% | March 2031 |
| Western Australia | 38% | 29% | December 2029 |
| Tasmania | 20% | 16% | June 2034 |
| Northern Territory | 14% | 9% | After 2034 |
| Australian Capital Territory | 33% | 34% | December 2029 |
| Australia | 33% | 26% | December 2030 |
Source: National Housing Supply and Affordability Council, Quarterly Report, 21 August 2026. Approvals to June 2026; completions to the March quarter 2026.
Queensland and South Australia share the same share approved and the same expected finish, but South Australia has built four points more of its target. Among the five largest states, only New South Wales has built a smaller share than Queensland. On approvals over the past 12 months the order reverses: Queensland's 23 per cent rise is the largest of those five states, ahead of Western Australia at 11 per cent, New South Wales at 6 per cent and South Australia at 4 per cent, with Victoria down 2 per cent.
On completions over the same period, Queensland's 2 per cent fall is milder than the 9 per cent falls in Victoria and Western Australia and the 13 per cent fall in Tasmania. South Australia, up 16 per cent, is the exception among the states.
Five jurisdictions had their dates pushed back in this report: New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory. New South Wales moved furthest, by three quarters, from June 2031 to March 2032. Queensland's move of two quarters is the same as those of Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory, which both went from June 2029 to December 2029, and of Tasmania, which went from December 2033 to June 2034. Victoria, South Australia and the Northern Territory are unchanged.
Related readToowoomba water plant grant is the largest yet from the State fundThe national figures
Nationally, the Council reports, 308,000 new homes were completed between the start of the Accord and the March quarter of 2026, about one quarter of the 1.2 million target. Its March report had counted 219,000 over the first five quarters, so about 89,000 homes were completed in the two quarters since.
Simple division shows the gap. Reaching 1.2 million in 20 quarters requires an average of 60,000 completions a quarter. The first seven quarters have averaged 44,000.
The Council now expects the national target to be reached in the December quarter of 2030. In its March quarterly report the date was June 2030, two quarters earlier. On the Council's estimates, then, Queensland finishes one quarter after the country as a whole.
The pipeline behind those numbers is large. The Council says 244,000 dwellings were under construction across Australia in the March quarter, the highest number since records began in 1984. Quarterly commencements were 15 per cent higher than when the Accord started, and quarterly building approvals were 26 per cent higher. In the March report both of those increases stood at 17 per cent, so approvals have pulled further ahead while the gain in commencements has narrowed.
What the bureau's Queensland figures add
The Council builds its estimates on Australian Bureau of Statistics data, and the bureau's own releases give the Queensland counts behind the percentages.
The Building Activity release for the March quarter, published on 8 July 2026, shows 8,944 dwellings completed in Queensland in the quarter in seasonally adjusted terms, up from 7,896 in the December quarter of 2025. Commencements were 10,861, down from 11,711 in December and up from 9,012 in the March quarter of 2025.
Related readTownsville's Upper Ross gets $80 million in trunk works for 3,500 homesThose quarterly figures sit comfortably with the Council's rolling ones. A single quarter improved, while the 12-month total it belongs to is still a little below the 12 months before. They also show why the stock keeps growing: Queensland started 1,917 more homes in the March quarter than it finished. A Queensland Government statement of 27 July, citing the same bureau release, said 50,000 homes were under construction in the State, a record, and 25.6 per cent more than a year earlier.
On the approvals side, the bureau's June release of 30 July recorded 4,841 dwellings approved in Queensland in seasonally adjusted terms, up 33.4 per cent on May. The Queensland Government Statistician's Office put the trend estimate at 4,314, which was 24.7 per cent higher than in June 2025.
Why a full pipeline can still mean a late finish
A record number of homes under construction can mean two things at once: more homes are coming, and each is taking longer to finish. The Council's report has evidence on both.
On speed, there is some good news. The Council says new houses are being built 10 per cent faster than when the Accord started, a comparison of 2024-25 with 2023-24.
On cost, the direction has turned. House construction costs rose 2 per cent in the June quarter of 2026 and are now 51 per cent higher than before the pandemic, the report says. Measured in real terms, after general inflation, they are 0.2 per cent higher than at the start of the Accord. In the March report the same real measure showed a fall of 0.9 per cent. The Council links the latest increase to conflict in the Middle East and its effect on fuel and petrochemical prices.
On finance, the Council expects higher interest rates to defer some construction activity. It judges that recent tax changes will have a modest positive effect on affordability.
The finish dates are model estimates and have moved before
The Council's dates come from a forecasting model built on leading indicators and expected market conditions, and its notes say they are uncertain and will be revised. Queensland's date moved two quarters between one estimate and the next. It could move again in either direction.
For households, the report's meaning is indirect. It does not measure the price of any one home or the completion date of any one contract. It measures how quickly the stock of homes is growing against a target that governments set for themselves. On that measure Queensland has lifted its approvals faster than any other large state, and the open question is how quickly they become front doors.
The State's own planning target is on a different timescale. Queensland Government statements this month have repeated a goal of one million homes by 2044, including 53,500 social and community homes.
The next data points are scheduled. The bureau lists its Building Activity release for the June quarter for 7 October 2026, which will add an eighth quarter of completions to the Accord count.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
