: Good morning. Thanks for joining us on this slightly cold morning here in Canberra. This week, the Senate is sitting. This is an opportunity for us to improve housing supply, and we know that this is the key to dealing with affordable issues when it comes to housing. We are building. The Coalition and the Greens have been blocking. Australia does have a housing shortage. We need to build more homes more quickly in more parts of the country. Our ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾s for Australia Plan is a $32 billion plan to deliver that. To deliver more home ownership. To deliver more private rentals. To deliver more public and social housing. Today, the Senate will consider our Help to Buy Scheme. This is based upon successful schemes that have operated in Western Australia for decades and that have been instituted in other parts of the country as well. It’s a simple scheme of shared equity to enable people to get into housing earlier than they would otherwise. This is about supporting home ownership in this country, and it’s something that should, frankly have sailed through the Parliament before now, were it not for the Coalition and the Greens combining in their no-alition to block housing supply. This scheme will help 40,000 Australian households buy a home with an equity contribution from the Government. Australians do want to own their own home. Parents want their kids to be able to enter the housing market. They want solutions, but the Coalition and the Greens have stood in the way. Well, today they get a chance to not just talk about housing, they get a chance to vote for it, and that’s what we asked them to do. As well as helping Australians into the property market, we’re also delivering today more than 13,700 social and affordable homes through our Housing Australia Future Fund. You’d recall this was also legislation that eventually went through the Senate, but was held up by the Greens and the Coalition for a long period of time. This will deliver the first round, some 4,200 social and more than 9,500 affordable homes for Australia. This includes 1,200 homes for women and children escaping domestic violence and older women at risk of homelessness. I grew up in social housing. I know the key to that security that Australians need is a secure roof over their head. That is what this is about today. In just the first round of these programs, we are supporting more social and affordable housing than the Liberals and ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾s did in their entire decade in office. It says a lot about our commitment. So, we support more home ownership, we support more private rentals, and we support more social and affordable housing as well. At the same time, of course, we’ve just had the second increase in rental assistance in the last two years. This is all about making sure that we deliver on the challenge, which is there, of housing issues in this country. But you don’t get to just complain when you vote against the solutions. Today the vote in the Senate is about just one element of the solutions, and I call for the Senate to vote for it.
CLARE O’NEIL, MINISTER FOR HOUSING & HOMELESSNESS: Thank you, PM. As the PM just described there, this is a really big and important week for the housing agenda that we’ve put in place, $32 billion which is targeted at building more homes, helping Australians grow rentals and helping more Australians get into the housing market. On the build side, this is a really important day. The Housing Australian Future Fund has announced that 13,700 homes will be built, social and affordable housing, that our country desperately needs. We’ve got help to rent coming. So, for people who are recipients of Commonwealth Rent Assistance, later this week, there will be that further increase to that payment. In the time that we’ve been in Government, Commonwealth Rent Assistance will have gone up by 40 per cent. This is substantial. And of course, the PM talked about home ownership, that great Australian dream, that we want to make sure is still accessible to childcare workers, to nurses, to paramedics. And the bill that we have in the Senate this week is targeted exactly at that. This is a scheme where the Government comes in as the ‘bank of mum and dad’ and supports workers who would never have a chance of home ownership otherwise, get into the housing market. Now this is such good policy it was part of the Greens election platform in 2022. That’s how we know that beneath it all, they actually support this policy. Now, what we’ve had so far is Peter Dutton trying to stop us from putting this bill into law, and the Greens working to support him, we need that to end. We’ve had lots of politicians talk about their care for home ownership in this Parliament over the last two years. Now is a time for action. We can make a meaningful difference to this problem through that bill, but we need people to come into the Senate and support the Government’s actions.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, given the bill faces an unlikely path through the Senate this week, wouldn’t it have been more prudent to make a deal with the Greens before introducing the legislation?
PRIME MINISTER: We’ve introduced the legislation.
JOURNALIST: But putting it to a vote, I mean.
PRIME MINISTER: It’s gone through the House of Representatives, it’s very clear what the legislation is. It’s not complex. It’s based on things that is their policy, they should vote for it.
JOURNALIST: For the Minister, how much of this, if anything, can you do by regulation, if you don’t have legislation? And can I ask the Prime Minister if you have any comments on the recent shooting incident involving former President Trump.
MINISTER O’NEIL: We can’t move forward on this without legislation, and that’s why we’re trying to push ahead with this. Our Government’s trying to build. The Greens and the Liberals are trying to block and we need them to stop doing it. We want nurses and early educators and paramedics to get into home ownership. This is going to be the only viable pathway for a lot of them, and I cannot believe that we’ve got political parties in this country that are going to stand in the path of these people who we owe so much getting into home ownership.
PRIME MINISTER: Everyone wants the democratic process to be peaceful and to be orderly. This incident in the United States is of concern, again. It is good that President Trump has said he is safe. That the incident, the details of which are still coming out. So it’s not quite clear all of those details, but what is clear is that President Trump is safe. That is a good thing.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, will you be meeting President Trump or members of his camp when you travel to the US later this week? And just also on the Senate and the legislation, are you of the same view as Tanya Plibersek, that the Environment Protection Authority is an election commitment and you’ll get it set up no matter what?
PRIME MINISTER: On the first, I will be travelling to the United States, to Delaware for the Quad Leaders Meeting. I’ll be travelling on Thursday. I will be staying at this stage for one night in the United States. The Quad Leaders Meeting is an important one. I’ll be meeting with President Biden, with Prime Minister Modi and Prime Minister Kishida in Delaware. We will have bilateral meetings as well. There’s much to discuss, including the AUKUS arrangements with the United States. I’m finalising my itinerary, but it is centered on the Quad meeting, which is important in itself. As for environmental law, the Greens Political Party have never seen any piece of legislation they’re not confused by. Any piece of legislation they don’t bring up things that are a distraction in order to justify voting against. They should vote for the Nature Positive legislation as it stands. With regard to climate trigger and other things that they’re raising, I’ve made it clear – including in an interview with Katina Curtis of The West Australian just a couple of weeks ago – that I don’t support adding a trigger to that legislation. Climate issues are dealt with through the safeguard mechanism. We’ve dealt with that. We have a target of 43 per cent and we have a vehicle for emissions of large emitters, as well as part of that program. The Greens and the Coalition, increasingly, are combining to vote against good legislation and whether it is housing legislation, environmental legislation, they need to get out of the way and stop coming up with excuses and start voting for solutions.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, Bill Shorten said Australians weren’t ready at the 2019 election for changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax. The same could have been said at one point for revamping stage three income tax cuts. But when you tried again in Government, you had a victory. Does your Government have the courage to do the same for negative gearing and capital gains tax?
PRIME MINISTER: What we had the courage to do was to change the income tax cuts to income tax cuts to deliver for all 13.6 million Australians. And I note that yesterday and again this morning, you have Coalition spokespeople, including their Finance Shadow Minister, again, being critical of Labor’s tax cuts. Now, the Coalition said that they would oppose them, then they said they’d roll them back, then they said we should have an election on them. Peter Dutton needs to be very clear – and I note the calls from his backbench – he needs to be very clear about what he is doing on income tax. Is he going to roll back and restore the 19 cents rate that we’ve cut to 16 cents? Is he going to restore the top end tax cuts to what they were before? Labor’s tax cuts were fairer. They’ve made a difference to the economy, and we stand by them. That is our agenda. We did it for the right reasons, and it has been the right decision.
JOURNALIST: And will you do the same for housing taxes?
PRIME MINISTER: The right decision.
JOURNALIST: Minister O’Neil, there are people in the Labor Party who want you, obviously you’ve got your current suite of housing legislation in the Senate. There are people who want to see you do more at the election campaign, some of that is wanting to introduce an actual target for home ownership and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac type loans. Are you looking at anything like that at the campaign?
MINISTER O’NEIL: Well, we’re really proud of the policies that we have in place, and I want to remind you that for most of the decade that the Coalition were in office, they didn’t even have a Housing Minister. That’s how tapped out the Commonwealth Government was from housing as a responsibility. We’ve taken a very different approach, and that’s because the man next to me had a life changing access to social housing in his childhood, and I wonder if you’d be PM today without that. I mean, obviously we have a massive agenda, $32 billion helping Australians to buy homes. We’re building more homes, and we’re helping Australians in rentals. So what I’d say to you is, let’s focus on what’s in front of us right now. We’ve got a good scheme here that will help 40,000 childcare workers, paramedics and early educators, get into homeownership, we need to get it through the parliament.
PRIME MINISTER: David, then Jacob, then here, then here. Then that might be about it.
JOURNALIST: PM, Help to Buy was announced during the last election campaign. At the current rate, do you actually anticipate that you can offer any help to anybody, from Help to Buy before the next election. And Minister, a similar question on the Housing Australia Future Fund. Do you anticipate another round from the Housing Australia Future Fund before the next election?
PRIME MINISTER: Well on the former, the key is the no-alition getting out of the way. They say they support this. This is in the Greens policy platform. This is about home ownership. There is no downside to this here. This isn’t a compulsory scheme, what this is doing is adding to the options that people have for getting into home ownership by having a Shared Equity Scheme that’s worked effectively, not just here in Australia, but in other parts of the world as well. And I just say you can’t say that you’re for more housing while you oppose everything that occurs to boost supply. And to go to Paul’s question that went to the Green’s policy before, it’s about supply and what will have an impact on supply is the key. Now the Greens don’t put forward anything that will have an impact on supply. They don’t put anything in this Parliament and in my area, fortunately on the Saturday again, there’ll be a Labor majority, either with support of an independent or two on the council because the Greens oppose any proposal that I’ve seen in the Inner West for affordable housing or to boost housing supply they are against. We actually need to do something here. We have had concrete, practical plans being put forth, and the excuses simply aren’t legitimate.
MINISTER O’NEIL: So as quickly as I can, David, just to your first point, just remember, this is part of the $32 billion ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾s for Australians Plan that is seeing our government work with the states to try to build 1.2 million homes for over five years, assist 110,000 Australians into homeownership, which we’ve already done in the two years that we’ve been in government and supporting renters through our work with the states and the increases to Commonwealth Rent Assistance. So there is a massive agenda here of which this legislation is part. You asked about whether we’ll see a HAFF round two, and I just want to make a quick point. As you all know, you observed through this debate, the Housing Australian Future Fund was delayed for six months because Peter Dutton said no, and the Greens helped him say no. If that had not happened, we’d be handing keys to tenants already in some of these properties. And I just made that point because I want people to understand the delayed costs. Delay costs Australians housing opportunities and if we see this bill delayed again, all we are doing is saying to childcare workers, to paramedics, to nurses, no you have to wait longer, and that is not what our government wants to do. We want to provide better housing options to Australians, and that’s what these bills are about in the Senate.
JOURNALIST: Thank you, Prime Minister. Noted your comment on climate trigger for the EPA. What about climate consideration in the bill? And then my second question is, are you disappointed at business, and particularly the mining industry, for not being more strong in supporting an EPA that they can live with, which was a position they used to have?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, on the first point I’ve indicated, clearly, that there are measures in place already. The Safeguard Mechanism is the way that we see those issues being dealt with. The mining industry have said to me that they support an EPA. And so at the same time, I think that my government has put forward a proposal that is sensible. We also have on the table Production Tax Credits that yesterday explicitly coalition shadow ministers rejected yet again. And their failure to look at proper policy detail is indicated by the fact that they take this as a big save. But the truth is that Production Tax Credits pay on success. You only get the tax credit when the process is successful and it’s producing income for Australia, as well as a return on investment. So what we need to do is to have a constructive plan going forward. We’ve got that, the EPA is a part of that, it’s good legislation. In the past the industry has said that they support it, and when I say the past, I mean last week, they have said that they support it. It should go through, it shouldn’t be the subject either of the sort of nonsense we see from the Coalition about it being somehow something that’s opposed by industry, given industry has in the past supported it, or the sort of nonsense with the Greens. I’m surprised they don’t connect up some social housing ask for the environmental bill, like they try to attach everything everywhere without looking at legislation on its merits. We are an orderly government that work our way through. We have had legislation for social housing through the Housing Australia Future Fund. We’ve had legislation through private rentals to assist, through our Build to Rent incentives. We have this legislation which is about home ownership. So we are orderly, we are considered, and it’s a matter of how the plan all fits together, and all about supply.
JOURNALIST: Striking negative gearing could help anybody who is buying a house to live in, to be able to buy that home, not just the 40,000 people who would be helped by this fund. Why won’t you consider that measure that would help more people get into their first home?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, there’s also an issue of supply, and what the impact that that would have on supply. And the key to housing policy is what we are doing here, is supply. Supply of more homes which are privately owned by families, supply of more private rentals and supply of more social and affordable housing, that is the key to housing policy in this country. That is what will make housing more affordable, and that is what my Government is concentrating on.
JOURNALIST: So two questions, first of all, have the Greens or Opposition presented any counter proposals that would help this legislation pass the Senate? Second of all, you mentioned your US trip. Prime Minister, you mentioned you aren’t sure whether you’ll meet Donald Trump.
PRIME MINISTER: I didn’t say that.
JOURNALIST: Sorry. Are you aware whether or not Vice President Harris will be in Delaware for the conference?
PRIME MINISTER: What we do is, with our American friends, is we release the itinerary appropriately. I’ve said very clearly that this is about QUAD Leaders’ Meeting. That is what I’m going to the United States for. And on the proposals, what you have in the Senate is a debate. If there are alternatives, you have a chance to move amendments, and people vote on those amendments, and then you vote on the leg. That is what is before, whether it’s the Coalition or the Greens, or Senator Lambie, or anyone else, Senator Hanson, they all have that opportunity. But get on with it. Don’t sit back and do what they did with the Housing Australia Future Fund. We’re announcing 13,700 new homes today. We could have been announcing 13,700 new homes, six or eight months ago had they not stood in the way of the legislation. And today, we could have been announcing round two rather than round one. Now they need to get on with it. All of this legislation that is before the Senate, whether it be Build to Rent, whether it be this legislation for shared equity, whether it be the environmental legislation, whether it be the superannuation legislation on accounts of above $3 million. All of these issues the Senate have a week where it’s just them, okay, there’s no distractions here. Can they get anything done? Can they get anything done this week? That’s the question. If not, I reckon Australians will question what they are doing. Because they continually come up with talking to the media, rather than talking in the parliament and moving amendments or coming up with suggestions. They need to get this done, and they need to get it done this week. Thanks very much.
