Oliver Hume at UDIA National Congress 2026 | Adelaide

Australia’s Premier Property Industry Event Returns to Adelaide

The UDIA National Congress is the most significant gathering in Australia’s urban development calendar. Each year, it brings together the country’s leading developers, economists, researchers, and policymakers to take stock of where the industry stands -and where it needs to go. In 2026, it returned to South Australia for the first time in a decade.

Over three days at the Adelaide Convention Centre and Adelaide Oval, more than 700 delegates from every state and territory worked through the most pressing challenges facing Australia’s housing sector: supply constraints, affordability, infrastructure investment, planning reform, and the demographic shifts reshaping demand.

Oliver Hume has been a long-standing partner of UDIA National. For over 70 years, we’ve helped shape Australia’s residential land market -and Congress is where we engage with the broader industry conversation that informs that work. Here’s what we heard, and what we think it means.

Oliver Hume at Congress: Hosting, Participating, and Contributing

Oliver Hume’s involvement at Congress went beyond attendance. On opening night, we were proud to host the Welcome Reception at Adelaide Oval -bringing the national industry together before formal sessions began.

CEO Julian Coppini represented Oliver Hume on the Industry Panel alongside Ian Sanders(Colliers) and Cherie McMahon (Stockland), in a frank discussion on land lease communities and social and affordable housing. Two areas where the gap between policy ambition and on-the-ground delivery remains wide -and where Oliver Hume’s operational perspective carries weight.

Coppini also captured the mood of the broader Congress with characteristic directness:

“There are plenty of people from Perth, Adelaide and Queensland walking a little taller compared to Victorians right now.” Different market conditions, one industry, and no shortage of things to work through.

The Opening Address: A Premier Who Said What Others Won’t

South Australian Premier the Hon. Peter Malinauskas MP opened Day One with one of the more direct keynotes Congress has produced in recent years. His position was unambiguous: housing supply is the only policy lever that moves the dial. Everything else is a distraction.

Premier Malinauskas outlined concrete action already underway in South Australia -including removing the 85% infill target to accelerate housing delivery - and confronted the infrastructure funding challenge directly, particularly around water. His approach combines transparent pricing, significant government investment, and developer contributions that have driven a tenfold increase in trunk water infrastructure.

His closing message deserves to travel beyond the Convention Centre: avoid populist rhetoric, stay focused on practical supply-driven solutions, and measure policy by outcomes. It’s the kind of clarity the national conversation has been lacking.

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State of the Land 2026: The Numbers Behind the Challenge

UDIA National President Oscar Stanley launched the 2026 State of the Land report -UDIA’s flagship annual review of Australia’s residential market -alongside Colin Keane (Research4), Tim Lawless (Cotality),and Richard Temlett (Charter Keck Cramer).

The findings confirmed what those working in the sector already know: Australia is still falling well short of what’s required. Stanley was direct: accelerating planning reform and delivering more housing across every typology is not a policy option -it is an essential service. The human cost of inaction is measurable, and growing.

Sophie Renton from McCrindle added the demographic dimension-shifting age profiles, migration patterns, and evolving household structures that are fundamentally changing who needs housing, in what form, and where. Understanding these trends isn’t optional for developers operating at scale. It’s the baseline.

The Economic Outlook: Alan Kohler Doesn’t Sugar Coat It

Alan Kohler AM -one of Australia’s most respected financial journalists and economists -set the macroeconomic scene on Day Two. His assessment of Australia’s Housing Accord targets was blunt: achieving them would require a 60 per cent increase in housing completions. He described that outcome as unrealistic given current structural conditions.

Kohler identified the converging pressures bearing down on the sector: interest rates, global tariffs, fuel costs, declining consumer confidence, and the accelerating influence of artificial intelligence on business and market behaviour. Each factor individually is manageable. In combination, they present a materially more complex operating environment.

His infrastructure point landed with the room: passing infrastructure costs onto future home buyers does not solve the affordability problem. It defers it, compounds it, and ultimately undermines the delivery pipeline the industry is trying to build.

Global Perspective: Building Cities from the Ground Up

Dean Landy from Rendeavour brought a perspective that reframed the Australian housing conversation usefully. Rendeavour is the largest developer of new cities in Africa -active across 30,000 acres of new urban development in Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, and the DRC. Their flagship project, Tatu City in Nairobi, is a master-planned, mixed-use community designed from the ground up for a continent where one billion people are expected to move to cities by 2050.

The scale is different. The principles aren’t. Community-focused design, integrated infrastructure, and long-term thinking about how people actually live -these translate regardless of geography. It was a useful reminder that the best thinking in urban development is happening across a much larger canvas than the one we typically look at.

Jordan Jones and Justin Kearnan AIA made the domestic case for modular housing as a practical response to Australia’s affordability and delivery challenges -an argument gaining traction as traditional construction timelines continue to stretch against unmet demand.

The Awards: Recognising What Good Development Looks Like

The 2026 UDIA National Awards for Excellence, hosted by Celia Pacquola at the Gala Dinner, recognised exemplary work across 17 categories. These awards matter -not as industry back-patting, but as a record of what community-focused, well-executed development actually looks like when the conditions are right.

Congratulations to Moremac Property Group, winners of the Residential Subdivision category for Alira at Berwick -a near 70-hectare estate built around wetlands and open space. Back-to-back national wins. Outstanding work.

Congratulations also to Villawood Properties on their Affordable Housing nomination for VillaRange. The work being done in this space deserves recognition, and the nomination reflects it.

What It Means for the Market: Oliver Hume’s View

Congress didn’t produce new problems. It produced clearer language around the ones the industry has been working through for years. A few things stand out from our perspective.

Supply remains the defining issue - and the political will to address it is more visible than it has been in some time. Premier Malinauskas ’keynote and the consistent messaging from UDIA National suggest that the policy conversation is moving in the right direction. The question is pace.

Infrastructure funding is the constraint that doesn’t get resolved by planning reform alone. The trunk water infrastructure example from South Australia is instructive: government investment at scale, combined with transparent developer contribution frameworks, can move the dial. That model is worth examining in other jurisdictions.

Demographic change is not a future consideration -it is a current one. The household structures, migration patterns, and age profiles McCrindle presented are already shaping demand. Developers who are designing for the buyer of five years ago are building the wrong product.

Land lease communities and affordable housing are no longer peripheral conversations. Their presence on the Congress panel agenda -and the calibre of the participants in that discussion -reflects where institutional attention is moving. Oliver Hume will continue to contribute to that conversation with the same depth of market knowledge we bring to everything else.

We’ve been operating in this industry for over 70 years, across market cycles that have tested the sector’s resolve more than once. The fundamentals that matter -well-located land, community-focused development, and deep market research -remain the same. Congress reinforced that. The work continues.