Prime Minister, welcome back to the program. Why don’t we start with Barnaby Joyce? We heard your admonition of him and Peter Dutton earlier in the day over Mr Joyce’s remarks about ballots being a bullet and a ballot box being a magazine. Barnaby Joyce has apologised, Peter Dutton says it is appropriate that he did that. So having distanced himself from it, shouldn’t that be the end of it?
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Well, Peter Dutton hasn’t distanced himself from it. He hasn’t said, he hasn’t condemned it, he hasn’t taken any action against Barnaby Joyce. I’m not sure what Barnaby Joyce has to do to lose his job. Peter Dutton has had four reshuffles already, there should have been a fifth today because Barnaby Joyce’s statements, calculated, very clear, very deliberate, to a rally in Wollongong in which he used gun analogies, including a magazine, including bullets to talk about people, including myself, two other Ministers, but to talk about any Australian would have been inappropriate, let alone at a time where we have seen a rise in the number of threats made to people as part of the political process gone wrong. We know that in the United States we’re seeing a polarisation. We’ve seen the attempted assassination of former President Trump. We’ve seen UK members of parliament lose their life. And this bloke goes along to a rally, uses entirely inappropriate, violent language, including that myself and two other Ministers should be gone. And Peter Dutton’s response is, ‘Oh well, the apology is sort of okay and that that should be the end of it’. Well Barnaby Joyce, on top of the other activity that he’s been involved in and other incidents, I mean, what does this guy have to do? It’s one thing to have extreme language on climate change that he has done in the past, such as Whyalla being wiped out and all the absurdities that he’s put forward. But this is a new low and it’s completely unacceptable.
JENNETT: All right, let’s move on Prime Minister, because I do want to cover a bit of ground if that is possible this afternoon.
PRIME MINISTER: Sure.
JENNETT: Your reshuffle is too broad for us to concentrate on all appointments made, so I might zero in on a couple, if that’s ok. Why don’t we go to housing first of all. You’ve got Clare O’Neil running this and I would say appointed, you know, to assertively run against the Greens but with what policies is the question. It seems there’s very little left in contest from a legislative point of view. Yes, there’s the shared equity Help to Buy, which is stalled in the Parliament. But what else? Have you charged Clare O’Neil with rejuvenating Labor’s housing offering as a suite of new policies?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we have a ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾s for Australia Plan, $32 billion of investment rolling out, everything from the Social Housing Accelerator, the increased Housing and ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾lessness Agreement with states and territories. Our Build to Rent scheme is still not being supported by the Coalition or by the Greens. This bizarre position that the Greens had that they would oppose it because it would lead to support for developers – I’m not sure who they think builds high density housing, if not developers. But the Liberal and ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ parties voting with them in this unprincipled Noalition that has opposed all the measures that were put forward. So there are those measures. Of course the key is supply, but there are other measures as well. Our increased Rental Assistance comes into play. Again, the second increase consecutively comes into play in September. And there are other ideas, I’m sure, that someone with the capacity of Clare O’Neil will be able to bring to the portfolio as we go forward.
JENNETT: Sure. I’m pretty sure the Greens are going to continue to demand, in fact they do daily, a rethink on negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions. Just to be clear and to head off a renewed push by them with Clare O’Neil, do you rule out any alterations to those policies in this parliament or the next?
PRIME MINISTER: Well they’ll have their usual nonsense while opposing, actually, any practical measures that will make a difference going forward. What we stand for is the policies that we have, not the ones that we don’t have, and the ones that we have are all about supply. Whether it be the Build to Rent Scheme or, as you said, the Shared Equity Scheme. The Greens have a policy of supporting shared equity schemes, it’s just they won’t vote for them. The Queensland LNP under David Crisafulli is putting forward a shared equity policy at the state election in Queensland in coming months. But here the LNP won’t vote for them. So what we will do is continue to –
JENNETT: So net gearing and capital gains?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we’re talking about things that we are supportive of and that is what we’re talking about, not what we are not doing. What we are doing is a comprehensive plan aimed at supply when it comes to housing. The Greens don’t have any solutions. They don’t support any developments in their own areas, they’ve voted against increased public housing through the Housing Australia Future Fund that they delayed. They’ve voted against private rentals through Build to Rent, and they’ve voted against home ownership through the Shared Equity Scheme. So I’m not quite sure how you solve the housing problem if you’re opposed to increased home ownership, increased private rentals and increased public housing, but that is the position that they’ve been advancing in the Parliament.
JENNETT: Just to nail down the tensing on that phrase, you are not doing negative gearing or capital gains. Does that mean never doing that?
PRIME MINISTER: I’m saying what we are doing, Greg, and what I don’t do is get distracted by nonsense, rule in, rule out games. What I do is say exactly what we are doing and that is what we are doing. So I’m focused on that. Clare O’Neil I’m sure will have other measures, but they’ll all be aimed at supply because that’s the key. And that is why we have focused on that as well as focusing on not just the increased Rental Assistance that we have, but you’d be aware that through the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Cabinet process we had a range of reforms for renters rights. I note that the NSW premier, Chris Minns announced yesterday at the NSW ALP Conference a range of those renters rights will be introduced into NSW following other jurisdictions undertaking reforms as well, consistent with the arrangements that we put in place at the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Cabinet.
JENNETT: I did see that announcement, thank you for highlighting it once again. Now, Murray Watt in Industrial Relations. Unfortunately we don’t get to see his incoming Minister brief, so we’ll have to rely on a question to you, Anthony Albanese. The deadline for cleaning up the criminally infiltrated CFMEU. Have you any update on the progress being made by the regulator to installing an administrator?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, they’re working through those issues in a systematic way. They want to make sure, given the potential of legal challenges which are there that they’re watertight. If need be, we’ve said we’re prepared to legislate. We want the strongest action possible, that is administrators. When I expelled John Setka from the Labor Party just weeks into my leadership in 2019, Mr Setka took the entire Australian Labor Party executive, including myself, to court and then appealed that decision. Lost both those cases. And that is why he remains outside the Labor Party. And that’s why we’re making sure –
JENNETT: So is August 12th, sorry to cut you off, Prime Minister. But is August 12 then the deadline? That’s when Parliament comes back. If there is disputation or an administrator has not by then been inserted, is that the deadline, the date on which you would move legislation into parliament?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, we’ll do what’s needed and what’s necessary, and we’ll do it on a timeline in consultation with the regulator. They’re examining these issues. We have of course a new Minister. To be fair to Murray, he’s about seven hours into the job –
JENNETT: I get that.
PRIME MINISTER: But we’ve already had a meeting with him this afternoon, and Murray Watt will be outstanding. He’s someone who, of course, has led some of the debates in the Senate as part of the government’s team on industrial relations that’s taken place up to now. And of course he has important other jobs in employment, an area where we’ve seen 930,000 jobs created since we came into office. Around about 1000 a day, or more than 1000 a day. More than any government in Australian history since federation. Something I’m really proud of and that Murray will continue to work on.
JENNETT: I’m sure he knows how to get across a brief. Since you mentioned jobs there, Anthony Albanese, you might be across some emerging news this afternoon concerning Rex airlines. There are reports, well we know for a fact that it went into a trading halt and that it may be appearing to reach for commercial administrators to be appointed there. I think the TWU is suggesting 2000 aviation industry workers in the broad could be affected here. What’s the government prepared to do to ensure Rex keeps flying in the short term and remains with a competitive future beyond that?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, aviation is a tough industry, it’s the first point that I’ll make. I’m a former Aviation Minister for six years, and one of the things that we need to do is to make sure that we have a viable and ongoing Australian aviation industry. I’ll always stand up for Australian airlines. It is important that we do that. It’s a very competitive industry globally and every single year there wouldn’t be a week go past where an airline somewhere in the world doesn’t get into trouble. One of the discount airlines here, of course, has gone under in recent times but Rex is an important airline –
JENNETT: Do you think Rex is in a dire predicament?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, I’m very hopeful that they’ll see their way through. They have suspended trading for a short period of time. We have sought information from the airline through Minister Catherine King, who came to see me about this today. And through the department we will continue to monitor what happens there. Rex is particularly important for regional communities, and there are a range of communities in NSW, in Queensland, in South Australia and right around the country that rely upon Rex, where Rex is the only airline to go to some of those destinations, so it’s important. The structure of Rex is that they have a Singapore connection, which has been important historically. They’ve come through Covid and received substantial government support. And we will remain, of course, vigilant when it comes to this airline and continue to work with them because we want to see not just those jobs maintained, but we also want to see those communities continue to have access to aviation, that’s so important for their economy and for their way of life.
JENNETT: Well, I know their situation financially or as a corporate entity, is pretty fluid this afternoon, so we do appreciate a sort of real-time readout from you there, Prime Minister. Alas, I know you’ve got places to be and time is crunching in on us, too. We’ll thank you today and look forward to getting you back on with us at any time.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much, Greg. And I apologise to one of the greats of the Australian Public Service, Dennis Richardson, for interrupting the interview. And I know that Dennis, I was with him last night, he was very happy with his Raiders outcome.
JENNETT: Let’s not go there, I think that might be a sore point between the two of you.
PRIME MINISTER: Myself, not so happy.
JENNETT: I get that and I will convey your gratitude. I think it’s fair to say Dennis has a very broad grin on his face here with us. Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, thank you. And yeah, we do look forward to having the Prime Minister back again before too long.
