INSIGHT · DEVELOPMENT & REPORTING

One target, three published finish dates:
the June, September and December quarters of 2030.

The National Housing Accord target is 1.2 million new well-located homes over five years from 1 July 2024, and the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council (NHSAC) measures progress in gross dwelling completions published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Its estimate of when 1.2 million is reached has been published three times in 2026: June quarter 2030 in the March Quarterly Report, September quarter 2030 in State of the Housing System 2026, and December quarter 2030 in the August Quarterly Report. June 2029 is the end of the Accord period, not a national estimate.

Analysed 28 September 2026 · NHSAC Quarterly Report March 2026 (published 25 March 2026), State of the Housing System 2026 (released 30 April 2026), State of the Housing System 2025 (released 21 May 2025) and Quarterly Report August 2026 (published 21 August 2026) · Treasury's National Housing Accord page (no date shown) · ABS Building Activity, March 2026 (released 8 July 2026) · all pages read 28 September 2026.

Key takeaways

• The target counts completions, gross: Treasury records the target as 1.2 million new well-located homes over 5 years from 1 July 2024. The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council (NHSAC) states the target is measured in terms of gross supply, tracked with the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) quarterly dwelling completions series, and that net supply figures should not be compared with it.
• The finish date is an estimate with a version number: NHSAC's national estimate of when 1.2 million is reached was June quarter 2030 on 25 March 2026, September quarter 2030 on 30 April 2026, and December quarter 2030 on 21 August 2026. Each rests on a different data cut-off. June 2029 is the Accord's end date.
• One report holds several reference periods: In the August 2026 report, approvals growth compares the June quarter 2026 with the June quarter 2024, while commencements and completions run to the March quarter 2026. The 308,000 completions cover 7 of the 20 quarters in the Accord period.
• State dates move separately, and not always later: Western Australia and the ACT moved from Sep 2029 to Jun 2029 and then to Dec 2029 across the three reports. South Australia moved from Sep 2030 to Mar 2031 and was unchanged in August. NHSAC states its state shares do not reflect formal agreement between governments.
• We would store the report, the measure and the reference period with every Accord figure: A system-design recommendation: any figure cited against the Accord in a feasibility paper, board pack or funding application should carry the publishing report and its date, the measure and basis, the quarter the data ends, and the date it was read.

What the target counts,
and over which period.

Treasury's Accord page records the target in two steps. The Accord began with an initial aspirational target of one million new well-located homes over 5 years from mid-2024. On 16 August 2023, National Cabinet agreed to a new national target to build 1.2 million new well-located homes over 5 years, from 1 July 2024. The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council (NHSAC), which reports on progress, describes the same window as 5 years to June 2029.

• Measured as gross completions: NHSAC's State of the Housing System 2025 states that the target is measured in terms of gross supply, and that using gross supply allows progress to be easily tracked using the dwelling completions series released quarterly by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The 2026 report's glossary defines gross new housing supply as the number of new dwelling completions in a given time period.
• Net supply is a different number: The 2025 report also states that net housing supply figures should not be compared with the 1.2 million target. NHSAC still publishes net figures: State of the Housing System 2026 reports around 263,000 dwellings completed in the first 18 months of the Accord period, resulting in around 232,000 net new dwelling completions. Both figures describe the same months; only one is on the target's measure.
• State shares are NHSAC's apportionment: NHSAC apportions the national target by each jurisdiction's share of the national population in December 2022, and states that the calculated target shares do not reflect formal agreement between the Australian and state and territory governments. On that method, South Australia's share is 84,000 homes.
• Two targets on one official page: The same Treasury page describes the New Home Bonus as performance-based funding for states and territories that achieve more than their share of the one million well-located homes target. A document that quotes the page needs to say which of the two numbers it is using.

Three reports,
three finish dates.

In 2026, the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council (NHSAC) has published three national estimates of the quarter in which cumulative gross completions reach 1.2 million. Each was produced from a different data cut-off, and one states the conditions it assumes.

State of the Housing System 2026 places the national estimate slightly over a year beyond the Accord's end date of June 2029.

• The April estimate carries a condition: State of the Housing System (SoHS) 2026 gives September quarter 2030 for conditions in the absence of global disruptions to commodity prices and supply chains. It then sets out two construction-cost scenarios in which completions over the Accord period could be 10,000 and 33,000 lower, and states that estimates by state and territory have not been presented for those scenarios.
• The August estimate states that it will move: The August report's notes say there remains significant uncertainty in the housing market outlook, and that expected completion dates will be revised for updated data and information in future quarterly reports. The publisher has told its readers the date is a version.
• The reasons are published alongside: NHSAC's August report cites higher fuel and petrochemical prices flowing through to construction costs, softer market sentiment and recent interest rate increases.

The states move separately,
and not always in one direction.

Each National Housing Supply and Affordability Council (NHSAC) report also estimates the quarter in which each state and territory reaches its NHSAC-apportioned share of the target. Western Australia and the ACT moved earlier between March and April, then later in August. South Australia moved from Sep 2030 to Mar 2031 and held there. New South Wales moved only in August, from Jun 2031 to Mar 2032.

The August report's "change since last report" column compares against State of the Housing System 2026, not against the March Quarterly Report. A business computing the change from its own stored history will get a different answer from the one NHSAC prints, unless it stores which report each value came from.

Four clocks
in one quarterly report.

The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council (NHSAC) August 2026 Quarterly Report's national highlights use the most recent data available as at 6 August 2026. Approvals, commencements, completions and dwellings under construction are different stages of the pipeline, published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on different schedules, so one page of highlights spans more than one reference quarter.

• A newer figure is not always a larger one: Commencement growth was published as 17% in March and 15% in August, each against its own reference quarter. A dashboard that keeps only the latest value loses the fact that the earlier one was published, and may have been relied on.
• The underlying series is revised: ABS Building Activity for the March quarter 2026, released 8 July 2026, records that the number of residential dwellings commenced in the December 2025 quarter has been revised up by 885 dwellings or 1.7% (original). The inputs to an NHSAC estimate can change after the estimate is published.
• Our cross-check of the completions count: Summing ABS total dwellings completed, seasonally adjusted, from the September quarter 2024 to the March quarter 2026, as shown on the ABS page read 28 September 2026, gives 307,635, consistent with NHSAC's 308,000. The same sum to the September quarter 2025 gives 219,840, against the 219,000 NHSAC published in March from earlier data. Our calculation; we did not establish whether the gap is revision, rounding or both.

Why a finish date belongs in your records
with its version attached.

A developer or construction group rarely cites the Accord for its own sake. It appears as context in a feasibility paper, a planning submission, an application to a government housing programme, or a board pack explaining why a pipeline is timed the way it is. A paper written in May 2026 could correctly cite September quarter 2030 as the estimate of the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council (NHSAC); by late August the current estimate was December quarter 2030. Neither paper is wrong. The difficulty arrives later, when someone asks what was known when a decision was made, and the paper says only "the Accord". Three things need to travel with it.

• Which report: The March and August Quarterly Reports and State of the Housing System 2026 are three versions of one estimate. The report name and its publication date are what make a cited date checkable.
• Which clock: NHSAC states that recent Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data on dwelling approvals drive its near-term projections for commencements and supply. The progress count against the target is completions. An approvals figure and a completions figure from the same report describe different stages and end in different quarters.
• Which geography and which condition: A national estimate, an NHSAC-apportioned state share and a state government's own target are three different things. The April estimate also carries a stated condition: the absence of global disruptions to commodity prices and supply chains.

What we would put in a system

The useful output is small. For each figure a business cites against the Accord, we would test for five fields.

Where agents help here is narrow. A reporting agent can read a new NHSAC or Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) release, extract each figure with its report, publication date, measure, basis and reference period, and draft an update that flags which stored figures it would supersede - and a person confirms before anything is changed. No agent decides whether the target will be met, which estimate a board should rely on, or what a figure means for a project's feasibility.

• Development Management: The project record where external context, such as an Accord estimate, is stored with its source and read date.
• Reporting: Board and portfolio reports that cite a named report and reference period, not a bare date.
• Feasibility: Feasibility papers where market context is versioned alongside the assumptions it informed.
• A suburb figure has a boundary version: The same versioning problem, applied to area-level statistics.

Questions worth asking
of your own records

For a developer: when a feasibility paper or board pack cites an Accord date, does it name the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council (NHSAC) report and its publication date?

September quarter 2030 and December quarter 2030 were both the current NHSAC estimate at different points in 2026, less than four months apart. Without the report name, the paper cannot later be checked against what was known when it was written.

For a construction group: which measure does your pipeline commentary mean when it says "Accord progress"?

Approvals up 26% and 308,000 completions came from the same NHSAC report. They describe different stages of the pipeline and end in different quarters. Only completions are on the target's measure.

For a development manager working in one state: does your record distinguish NHSAC's apportioned state share from a target a government has agreed?

NHSAC states that its calculated target shares do not reflect formal agreement between the Australian and state and territory governments. A field that stores "the state target" without saying whose it is has stored a label, not a source.

For anyone reporting "change since the last report": against which report?

NHSAC's August report measures its changes against State of the Housing System 2026, not against the March Quarterly Report. Your own history may compare differently unless each stored value carries its report.

For a group reporting across jurisdictions: when NHSAC revises again, can you list the internal documents that quoted the superseded estimate?

NHSAC has stated that expected completion dates will be revised in future quarterly reports. If each citation is stored with its report, that list is a query. If not, it is a search through documents.

What this analysis
does and does not show.

What to watch next

The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council (NHSAC) states that expected completion dates will be revised in future quarterly reports; as read on 28 September 2026, the pages we read do not give a date for the next one. The next inputs are scheduled by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

• 30 September 2026: ABS Building Approvals, Australia, reference period August 2026, 11:30am AEST, per the ABS release calendar.
• 7 October 2026: ABS Building Activity, Australia, June 2026: the next quarter of completions, commencements and dwellings under construction, per the ABS Building Activity release page.
• 13 January 2027: ABS Building Activity, Australia, September 2026, per the same page. Each Building Activity release can also revise earlier quarters.

Bring us one paper that cites the Accord.

A feasibility study, a board pack or a funding application. We will show you which National Housing Supply and Affordability Council report and which measure each figure came from, and what a record that keeps them, with their versions, would look like.

General information about published government reports and statistics, not financial, investment, planning or legal advice. Estimates of when the target is reached are the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council's, attributed to it, and cover Australia nationally and by state and territory. Figures and quotations are as read on 28 September 2026 from the sources listed.

Send us the paper · For developers

Sources

Suggested citation: Cyberate research team, "One target, three published finish dates", Cyberate Technologies, 28 September 2026. Derived figures: the completion sums of 307,635 (September quarter 2024 to March quarter 2026) and 219,840 (September quarter 2024 to September quarter 2025) are our calculation from ABS total dwellings completed, seasonally adjusted, as shown on the ABS Building Activity March 2026 page read 28 September 2026. Other figures are as published.

• National Housing Supply and Affordability Council - Quarterly Report - August 2026: Published 21 August 2026 · read 28 September 2026 · Statutory advisory council - quarterly progress report
• National Housing Supply and Affordability Council - Quarterly Report - March 2026: Published 25 March 2026 · read 28 September 2026 · Statutory advisory council - quarterly progress report
• National Housing Supply and Affordability Council - State of the Housing System 2026: Released 30 April 2026 · read 28 September 2026 · Statutory advisory council - annual report (PDF)
• National Housing Supply and Affordability Council - State of the Housing System 2025: Released 21 May 2025 · read 28 September 2026 · Statutory advisory council - annual report (PDF)
• The Treasury - Delivering the National Housing Accord: No date shown on page · read 28 September 2026 · Government department - policy page
• Australian Bureau of Statistics - Building Activity, Australia, March 2026: Released 8 July 2026 · read 28 September 2026 · Official statistics - quarterly release
• Australian Bureau of Statistics - Release calendar, future releases: Read 28 September 2026 · Official statistics - release calendar