Property developer Adrian Fini said today governments are out of touch with normal people and Australia will only get efficient government "when Canberra burns down".
Adrian Fini has called out the federal government and state departments of communities for not acting efficiently to solve the state’s housing crisis.
The Hesperia director and esteemed property developer was speaking at a Swan Chamber of Commerce event around the potential of Midland this morning.
When asked why the government wasn’t acting faster to provide housing to people in need, Mr Fini spoke about the difficulties in getting government to act.
He used Hesperia’s call to free up the Bullsbrook quarantine centre as an example to highlight the frustrations around federal bureaucracy.
“The [Malaga] film studios took 23 years, the State Buildings took 20-something years, [and] we work with government every day,” he said.
“We spoke to government about releasing that [Bullsbrook] facility a couple of years ago, and because it’s federally funded and … ‘no one’s in charge at WA level, we might have another COVID outbreak’.
“There’s 3,000 excuses all the way back to Canberra.
“The only way we’re going to change we’re going to have an efficient government personally is when Canberra burns down, to be honest.
“You’ve got a federal capital sitting only for politicians that doesn’t actually touch normal people. That’s ludicrous.”
Mr Fini also touched on the need for more social housing and his history working in the space.
“I used to love with a passion working for what was called the State Housing Commission,” he said.
“We delivered Karawara, Coolbellup, all the new innovative social integrated housing I started from when I was 25, we did 3000 things with them, and then I just gave up, basically.”
Mr Fini added that his company had submissions with state and federal government for build-to-rent housing for hundreds of dwellings.
“One of my sons works on it and he’s like ‘they are worn out’,” he said.
“The journey is really hard. The Department is [of Communities] is broken.
“The ministers can’t get to the bottom of it. Obviously, the previous minister was removed, there’s a new one trying, they’ve kind of tried to tear apart, they’ve put the housing component back with DevelopmentWA.
“It’s maybe going to get there this year, I don’t know, but you’ve just had a government department that actually hasn’t been able to operate for a decade sadly.”
Mr Fini said Western Australia’s construction market was facing unprecedented challenges, solely due to labour shortages.
“It’s the worst time in the market for construction delivery that I’ve ever seen,” he said.
“We’re still delivering things, but we are delivering them late.”
He said the government’s migration policies, tying about 1,500 migrant workers to builders, had assisted, and the key was to grow people that were “sticky to the construction companies”.
Mr Fini also called out the government’s housing stimulus measures during COVID as having a detrimental impact.
“Obviously it’s a different cycle than we’ve ever seen before, because of COVID, and in COVID the government made some stupid decisions and overstimulated things,” he said.
“That’s what governments do, they make decisions, which they think are great [and] they’re always scared to pull back on them after.
“We were pleading [with] them to just cancel the stimulations soften the market up.”
Mr Fini said building granny flats and freeing up empty bedrooms would go contribute to solving the state’s housing shortage.
“There are million empty bedrooms in Perth and I’m sure when my parents came here, and lots of other people’s parents came here, they slept in people’s bedrooms,” he said.
“If you look at the whole housing density, it’s growing in every city at the moment, people are sharing rooms.
“This is a global problem, so the housing problem is the same in many cities in the world, it’s not that we’re just unique here, there are a lot of people suffering from this issue.
“Granny flats are great, increasing the density to houses, we have very low occupancy relative to house size, so that’s pretty crazy.
“We were trying to convince some councils and government policies to stimulate housing, people moving into housing and care and accommodation, have lots of benefits.”
Mr Fini said the government’s action on Airbnb accommodation exemplified that things could be done, but it just took time.
“We lobbied aggressively, [I’m] anti-Airbnb, because I know what it does to the housing market,” he said.
“The government’s now … buying back Airbnb rights down south and things like that. so there’s things that can be done.
“They take a long time. The Airbnb one took five years, I think from the government committees patient receiving the papers decision, but you got to start somewhere.”
Asked about the role of modular and prefabricated construction, Mr Fini said WA was in a challenging position globally to operate in this market at scale.
“Melbourne’s tried it to didn’t really get there, you’re getting pods and bathrooms and things coming out of a couple of factories,
“The best tech in timber buildings are in Kwinana, and I’ve been told they’re looking at closing.
“We look at all the guys doing partial, call it prefab, you’ve had the Chinese with the factory in Jandakot, didn’t really do much, a couple of examples in the Karratha etc. they put up.
“We’re a very small city and very, very isolated, so to have lots of technology, doing big scale prefab is really, really hard.
“If it’s going to be successful, in most places in the world, I’d say if we’re not last will be second last in getting there to be honest. It’s a long away way.”
Film Studio
Mr Fini also spoke about WA’s potential as a filmmaking hub, as Hesperia’s Malaga film studio is under construction.
He said 100 plus years ago, Australia was a world leader in filmmaking.
“If you look at the leading technology in the world, a couple of them come from Australian manufacturers, one in Adelaide, one in Melbourne, one of the high-tech equipment in the states are actually at Australian companies,” he said.
“When they decided to put Hollywood in Los Angeles, the other choice that they looked at was Perth, Western Australia, because of the 300 days of sunshine.
“You can go to Rotto and tell them you are in the Caribbean, you can go into a forest and tell him you’re in a forest, and hit a desert, it’s all very fast, very close, low population.
“Lots of great scenery, but what it will bring is the kind of the exodus that we’ve had, for the last decades of great people coming back.”
Midland’s reinvention
Dubbed Midland is the New Dalkeith, today’s breakfast event was designed to shift people’s mindsets about Midland, which is renowned for its antisocial behaviour.
Speaking ahead of the breakfast, Swan Chamber of Commerce chief executive Tom Smilovitis said it was designed to open people’s eyes to the possibilities of the region.
The event was attended by more than 100 guests, including former prisoners who have been rehabilitated as valuable contributors to the community.
Chris Bown, who runs prisoner reintegration company Thrive Integration, also spoke at the breakfast about his work with Gerry Hanssen on utilising reformed prisoners on construction projects.
Mr Hanssen attended the breakfast along with several of his workers.
Mr Fini’s property interests in the Midland district include Hesperia’s more than 60-hectare Rivermark residential estate, which is set to provide 650 homes to Viveash.
Mr Fini, business partner Ben Lisle and Birchmead bought Midland Brick from Boral in August 2019 for $86 million.
The conglomerate sold the business the following year to BGC for $51 million and kept the land component.
