Maria Palumbo: Understanding Housing Systems and the Cost of Compliance

Paul Edginton and Milly Albers sit down with Maria Palumbo, CEO of Junction Australia, to explore her career journey, her early experiences with poverty, and her path from mining and government work into the not for profit sector. Maria shares how those experiences shaped her leadership and her understanding of housing systems, frontline pressures, and the complexity of building homes for vulnerable communities.

In this conversation Maria explains why Australia has struggled to keep up with housing demand, how layers of compliance slowed construction, and what she observed during her years in government as processes grew faster than outcomes. She talks through the years of stalled housing programs, the limits faced by community organisations, and the impact of public expectations on government decisions. Maria also reflects on the value of commercial skills in community leadership and how working at every level of an organisation shaped her approach to decision making.

In this episode:
• Maria’s career path from mining to community housing and the turning points that shaped her purpose
• The pressure of navigating poverty as a young parent and how that experience influenced her work
• How compliance, regulation and administration slowed Australia’s ability to build housing
• The long term effect of stalled housing programs and why the system struggled to meet demand
• What Maria learned about leadership, decision making and building capability inside complex systems

This episode is for leaders and practitioners across government, community services and housing who want a clear, grounded view of how systems actually work on the ground and what it takes to create progress inside pressure filled environments.

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