HA Housing Insights: A unified approach to tackling the housing crisis with Tom Niklai, Goodhouse Partners
“Aligning the diverse goals of stakeholders—ranging from CHPs and developers to government entities and investors—requires a nuanced approach. By fostering collaboration among all stakeholders, the housing sector in Australia can move toward a more sustainable and equitable future”
The housing crisis remains a critical issue in Australia.
In this HA Housing Insights series, our social and affordable housing team speak with key industry experts – including developers, builders, community housing providers, investors and property and tax specialists – to gain a well-rounded perspective on the challenges faced in delivering housing outcomes and potential solutions.
Various industry experts have joined the conversation to date, including:
Jesse Radisich, Director of the Victorian JLL Capital Markets – Development Team
Jess Jones, Head of Strategy and Business Development at Balmain and Co
Brian Farrelly, Partner and Executive Director at Pitcher Partners
Brad Hosking, Chief Executive Officer at National Affordable Housing
To close our series, Tom Niklai, Director at Goodhouse Partners tackles the issue of forging partnerships in the housing sector and how we can drive collaboration between different stakeholders.
Tom has extensive experience in the housing and development sector, particularly in building partnerships and navigating the complex interplay between private, public, and nonprofit entities.
Over the years, he has collaborated with community housing providers (CHPs), institutional investors, landowners, developers, builders, industry consultants, and three tiers of government to deliver affordable and innovative housing outcomes for Australians in need. From securing funding and aligning stakeholder goals during the procurement process, his work focuses on fostering collaboration, mitigating risks, and ensuring project viability.
Tom Niklai
Director
goodhousepartners.com.au
Q. Tell us about the role that Goodhouse Partners plays in connecting stakeholders to deliver more housing outcomes.
A. Goodhouse Partners plays a key role as a bridge between different stakeholders in the housing sector. The organisation operates as a connector, aligning the interests of CHPs, developers, investors, and government agencies to accelerate housing outcomes.
By fostering genuine collaboration, Goodhouse Partners’ model breaks down silos and promotes shared accountability. This involves facilitating open discussions, mediating negotiations, and designing frameworks that prioritise transparency and trust among stakeholders.
Goodhouse Partners also provides capability uplift within the sector, particularly for CHPs, enabling them to access funding, strengthen their operational capabilities, and align their projects with government policy objectives. In doing so, the organisation addresses the fragmented nature of Australia's housing market and promotes a more integrated, unified approach to tackling the housing crisis.
Q. What are the key challenges you are seeing in bringing partners together and delivering projects? How can these challenges be overcome?
A. There are a number of factors that can deter partnerships from being forged and projects subsequently being delivered, including:
Lack of a unified vision: The absence of a shared vision for housing often creates misaligned priorities among stakeholders.
Fragmentation of markets: Many, small, overregulated sub-markets lead to inefficiencies and reliance on external factors like imported capital, labour and materials.
Resource constraints: Historically both CHPs and governments operate with limited financial resources and face challenges in meeting policy targets.
Risk aversion: Risk averse nature of governments often unfairly push risks onto their counterparts, leading to imbalanced project structures.
Communication gaps: Limited feedback from the government procurement process and lack of transparency hinder the collaborative process.
These challenges can be overcome, but a multi-layered approach is required, including:
Establishing a shared vision: Convene all stakeholders to co-create a national housing strategy with clear objectives and benchmarks.
Streamlining regulations: Simplify regulatory processes to reduce market fragmentation and improve efficiency.
Capacity building: Invest in training and resources for CHPs and government to enhance their ability to fund and execute projects.
Risk sharing models: Implement frameworks that distribute risks equitably among stakeholders.
Promoting open dialogue: Foster transparent communication channels to ensure ongoing feedback and conflict resolution.
Q. In your experience, what are the main obstacles faced during the tendering process for government funding? Are there any improvements that could be made to this process?
A. The tendering process for government funding is often characterised by complexity, inefficiency, and high costs. Key obstacles include:
Lengthy and expensive processes: Preparing competitive bids requires significant time and financial resources, which can be prohibitive for many market players.
Lack of transparency: Ambiguity in selection criteria and decision-making processes creates uncertainty and discourages participation.
Imbalanced risk allocation: Government tends to offload risks onto undercapitalised CHPs, further straining their capacity.
Insufficient feedback mechanisms: Applicants often receive limited information on why they were unsuccessful, hindering improvement for future tenders.
Proposed improvements include:
Streamline tendering processes to reduce costs and administrative burden.
Establish transparent and well-defined selection criteria with clear benchmarks.
Introduce meaningful feedback mechanisms to support continuous learning and improvement.
Create pre-qualification systems to minimise waste of time and already limited resources.
Q. How do you manage competing interests and objectives of various stakeholders throughout the life cycle of a project?
A. Aligning the diverse goals of stakeholders—ranging from CHPs and developers to government entities and investors—requires a nuanced approach. Strategies include:
Clear communication: Establish open lines of dialogue to ensure that each stakeholder's priorities are understood and addressed.
Shared accountability: Develop frameworks that distribute responsibilities and risks equitably among all parties.
Facilitating compromise: Use mediation and negotiation techniques to find common ground without sacrificing project goals.
Transparent decision-making: Ensure that all stakeholders have access to relevant information and are involved in key decisions.
Goodhouse Partners leverages its expertise in stakeholder management to navigate these challenges, fostering collaboration and alignment throughout the project lifecycle.
Q. Have you noticed a shift recently in how projects are being structured, funded and delivered?
A. Recent years have seen notable changes in how housing projects are structured, funded, and delivered:
Changing government subsidy structure: Governments can no longer sustain large upfront capital grants for subsidised housing, which currently range up to $650,000 per dwelling. Instead, they now favour long-term availability payments to bridge the gap between market rent and tenants' ability to pay. For instance, under the Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF), the government has budgeted $12,500 per dwelling annually ($500 million per year for 25 years) to support 40,000 social and affordable homes, leaving private, public and not for profit housing providers to arrange their own financing.
Increased collaboration: There is a growing trend toward partnership models that bring together CHPs, financiers, and government bodies.
Innovative funding mechanisms: Examples include cross subsidisation across tenancy segments, in kind land contribution, planning concessions, grants, concessional loans, subsidised financial terms, access to direct and indirect tax subsidies and asset sales on contract expriration.
Focus on sustainability: Projects prioritise location with strong existing amenity, environmental and social sustainability, integrating green technologies, solutions offering low operating costs, community-oriented designs, and social procurement.
Policy reforms: Governments are introducing policy changes aimed at streamlining planning processes and improving procurement efficiency, though progress remains uneven.
Tech-enabled solutions: Digital tools and platforms are being used to enhance project planning, monitoring, and execution.
While these shifts represent positive developments, their success hinges on addressing systemic challenges such as long term funding, equitable risk allocation, more efficient government procurement policies and a healthy ecosystem to deliver more housing outcomes.
By addressing these challenges and fostering collaboration among all stakeholders, the housing sector in Australia can move toward a more sustainable and equitable future. Goodhouse Partners remains committed to playing its role as a catalyst for positive change, leveraging its expertise to connect stakeholders and deliver meaningful housing outcomes.
The information provided in this article is for general informational and conversational purposes only. While we strive to ensure the accuracy and relevance of all content, we make no guarantees about the completeness, reliability, or suitability of the information for any particular purpose. The views and opinions expressed in this article or associated materials are those of the respective contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Harwood Andrews or any of its affiliates.
This article is the final in a series of Housing Insights.
1st instalment: HA Housing Insights: A Policy Perspective - Q&A with Mike Myers, QLD Chair of Housing All Australians
2nd instalment: HA Housing Insights: Housing market overview with - Q&A with Jesse Radisich, JLL
3rd instalment: HA Housing Insights: A builder perspective on the housing crisis - Q&A with Jess Jones, Balmain & Co
4th instalment: HA Housing Insights: A lender’s perspective on the housing crisis - Q&A with Bruce Wan, MaxCap Group
5th instalment: HA Housing Insights: Tax Considerations for tackling the housing crisis - Q&A with Brian Farrelly, Pitcher Partners
6th instalment: HA Housing Insights: A developer’s perspective on housing solutions - Q&A with Tim Copley, McNab
7th instalment: HA Housing Insights: Innovative ways to change the housing landscape - Q&A with Brad Hosking, National Affordable Housing
For more information or to collaborate with our Social & Affordable housing team please contact:
Briget O’Callaghan
Principal Lawyer
0457 117 925
bocallaghan@ha.legal
Evelyn Zeglinas
Associate
03 5225 5245
ezeglinas@ha.legal
