A smarter way to plan: ending development delays for Australians

As Australia races to meet ambitious housing targets, a quiet crisis is playing out in council offices across the country. Council planning systems—often the bottleneck in the housing supply chain—are still running on spreadsheets, manual processes, and retrofitted ERPs. 

Meanwhile, statutory planners—many with postgraduate qualifications and deep, local knowledge—are spending their days formatting letters, tracking referrals, and rechecking policies across fragmented systems. 

Objective Build, a new platform revealed today at the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) Congress in Darwin, is designed to change that. 

Built specifically for Australian councils, and shaped through direct feedback from planning teams, Objective Build streamlines development assessments, eliminates manual admin, and gives planners back time to focus on shaping better communities. 

“We’re not replacing planning expertise—we’re giving it room to thrive,” said Andrea Breen, VP of Local Government Solutions at Objective. “It’s about helping planners spend less time box-checking and more time applying judgment.” 

Planners: educated, essential, and exhausted 

Statutory planners are experts in urban development, policy, and community consultation. They’re trained to weigh complex and often competing priorities—growth, sustainability, heritage, infrastructure—and make informed, context-rich recommendations. 

But they’re being stretched by: 

• Repetitive admin: Drafting letters, reformatting reports, re-keying data across tools. 
• Time pressure: Growing development application (DA) volumes, tight deadlines, and limited support. 
• Planner shortage: A shrinking pool of qualified professionals, with many councils struggling to fill vacant roles. 
• Public distrust: Communities frustrated by delays, unaware of the internal barriers. 

“Planning is one of the most important levers we have for shaping better communities,” said Matt Collins, CEO, Planning Institute Australia. “We can’t afford to waste our best people on formatting reports when we have housing targets to hit. Technology can’t replace human judgment—but it can finally let them shine.” 

Objective Build directly addresses these pain points by: 

• Streamlining everyday tasks without removing professional discretion. 
• Surfacing relevant planning precedents and context. 
• Equipping team leaders with real-time visibility to better manage workflow and reduce burnout. 

Built for planning. Not adapted to it. 

Objective Build isn't a repurposed finance system or another bolt-on module. It’s a digital platform designed, from the ground up, to support modern council planning teams—from assessment and compliance to internal collaboration and reporting. 

It enables: 

• Faster assessments, without rushing. 
• More consistent decisions, grounded in precedent. 
• Transparent audit trails and better applicant communication. 

“I didn’t study for six years to format planning reports and conditions,” said one NSW planner. “Tools like Objective Build let me do actual planning again—and that’s why I got into the profession.” 

Delivering outcomes that matter 

Australia can’t hit its housing targets if councils can’t assess DAs efficiently. This is more than a policy challenge—it’s a technology infrastructure challenge that councils can no longer afford to ignore. 

“You can’t just throw more planners at the problem—they don’t exist,” said Breen. “We have to make the planners we do have more effective.” 

Objective Build helps councils meet demand, build public trust, and support the people doing the real work of shaping our communities.