E&OE TRANSCRIPT
LAURA JAYES: Joining me now is the Social Services Minister, Tanya Plibersek. Tanya, great to see you. Does Labor own this market correction?
MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES, TANYA PLIBERSEK: Well, what we expect is that over time, house prices will continue to grow, but they'll grow more slowly. And that's really important because for years the growth in house prices has been outstripping growth in wages. It's meant that it's harder and harder for a young person to get into the housing market in the first place. And we want to change that. We think that owning your own home is a really fundamental part of what Australians should be able to expect in their lives. An ordinary person working hard should be able to afford an ordinary home. And that just hasn't been the case in recent times. We want young Australians to get into the housing market and what we're seeing at auctions on the weekends, this is what real estate agents are reporting to us and you know, what I and my colleagues are seeing at auctions in our own electorates is that first, home buyers are back in the market - they're bidding, they're buying places. And particularly when you combine the tax changes with our 5% deposit scheme, which has seen more than 260,000 people get into the housing market, what we hope is that housing will be rebalanced so, first home buyers have a shot once again.
JAYES: Is this really a rebalance? When you say Labor wants to see house price growth more slowly and more sustainable, you have to admit that's not what we're seeing at the moment. We're actually seeing prices drop, not growth dropping.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, Laura, the simple fact is there's more Australians who want to buy a house than the number of houses that we've been building for many, many decades. And so those first home buyers who have been saving hard, saving a deposit, getting themselves ready, I think are looking at the market now and thinking, now's my time, and good luck to them. This is a big change. Big changes are always difficult and controversial and we know that, we know that there'll be people who don't like this change who wanted to buy another investment property and wanted, you know, the taxpayer backing to be competing against those first home buyers. We are saying that it's more important that young Australians can afford a home of their own. And if you want to still have the benefits of negative gearing and capital gains tax, then buy a newly built home so that you're adding to housing supply in this country as well.
JAYES: But Tanya, do you accept that the trade off here might be that there's a slower growth in the economy and a slump in the housing market, not what you say is the intended consequence of slower growth in prices? When does the slump become a real downturn?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I don't think this is like petrol prices that go up and down every week, Laura. When people buy a house, they stay in it. I think the average time is about seven years. Many people buy the one house and stay in it for 20 or 30 or 40 years as well. So, I don't think people are looking at this and thinking week on week what the auction rates are. Homeowners like me are looking at it and thinking, thank goodness that my kids are going to have a chance to buy a home of their own one day. Not this year, not this week, not this year, but maybe in 5 years time and 10 years time as well. These are long term propositions. And of course there's debate about whether the legislation will get through the Senate today and so on. There's a little bit of uncertainty, but the long term proposition here is that we want young Australians to be able to afford a home of their own, to buy a home of their own one day. We've had to change the tax policies because investors were getting taxpayer help to compete against first home buyers in the housing market. That's not the society that we want to build. That's not the society that we want where older people like me have every advantage and can buy their fifth or 10th or, you know, 20th investment property. But young Australians can never hope to own a home of their own. A lot of them -
JAYES: Isn’t that ironic that you can still do that. You can still do that. But negative gearing isn't afforded to younger people unless they want to buy into a new build.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, it is.
JAYES: That's not entirely fair. That's not evening up the tax system, though, is it? It's locking in those benefits for older Australians.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Do you know what, Laura? If we encourage more new building because the benefits of negative gearing are directed to new building, that has a great economic benefit as well. It means we're adding to housing supply. Supply is constantly the thing that we want to focus on. We're creating jobs as those new homes are built. That means that the tax subsidies that people are getting to do that are having a benefit for them as individuals and a benefit for the nation as well. And today in the Senate, we'll see whether One Nation, the Liberals and the Nationals vote against these changes to help young Australians get a home of their own, whether they vote against a tax cut for 13 million Australians, whether they vote against a tax cut for those sole traders, whether they vote against tax cuts for small businesses. I'm really expecting that these conservative parties will vote against all of this today. Well, they need to be held to account for the fact that young Australians have been locked out of the housing market and unless we make these changes, they will continue to be locked out. Defending the status quo is not good enough when we see the social dislocation that comes from the unaffordability in the housing market.
JAYES: Let's talk about One Nation for a moment. I've noted that Labor in particular hasn't wanted to, is wanting to take Pauline Hanson on, particularly when it comes to Paid Parental Leave, and some of the comments she made at the National Press Club. I think what she was talking about was the gender pay gap more specifically. Subsequent days, she said she supports Paid Parental Leave. Is there a shift in the way that you're thinking about the political contest here and how you should take on Pauline Hanson? Has that been by, is that a deliberate design, given one of the phenomenons we've seen is a rise in women supporting Pauline Hanson, according to the polling?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, I think, Laura, what has changed is as One Nation's polling has increased, journalists and commentators and others are looking more closely at what the party has said on the record, how they've voted, their voting record, and is actually starting to ask the leader to account for that. You know, in 2017, Pauline Hanson made clear that she was against paid parental leave. A couple of weeks ago, she said, you know, if you don't want to have, if you don't want to have a career break, don't have a baby. At the press club, she was talking about Paid Parental Leave and journalists, you know, pushed her on that and said, you don't support Paid Parental Leave. Well, she answered that question and now she's had pushback from the hundreds of thousands of Australians who rely on this support and welcome it at that time when they have a beautiful little new baby at home. She's had negative blowback on it. So, she's changed her mind. I'm really proud of the fact that we're actually increasing Paid Parental Leave next week from the 1st of July. It'll be the full six months. People get more than $1,000 a week while they're on leave and they'll have more flexibility so mums and dads can take more time off together. That's what we're doing. If Pauline Hanson is now on board, well, that'll be a nice change from the decade of opposition that she’s had.
JAYES: Okay, let me ask you about the Teals. We have a party of two today. What do you think about, what do you think about the name? What do you think about the whole process of it? And does it make them a more formidable entity?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Oh, look, it's really a matter for them. I have a good working relationship with the crossbench and I expect that to continue whether they're in a party or as individuals. That's really entirely a matter of a matter for them. Good luck to them.
JAYES: Tanya Plibersek, good to see you. Actually, we're about to cross live to Bondi Beach. A great white shark, you're a Sydney MP, your electorate is a little far away from the ocean, but this is quite terrifying. Now, do you think the NSW Government and is there a role for federal Government to do something more dramatic about this? Make people feel safer getting into the water?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Okay, so my electorate's not far from Maroubra beach in particular. My husband's a surfer. The kids are in the water all the time. So, I watch these shark attacks with a great deal of interest and some trepidation. Look, one of the things that's changed is water temperature bringing more bull sharks further south. The distribution pattern of sharks has obviously changed. Of course we need to observe what kind of new technologies might be available. There's some shark deterrent, technologies that are proving to be relatively more effective. I don't frankly think the netting has been the answer to all of this. And there's a lot of unfortunate by-kill when it comes to netting. But some of the, you know, basically electronic devices that people are wearing and putting on surfboards and stuff look a bit promising. So, I think it is an important area of research for us.
JAYES: Okay, thank you for that. I appreciate it. Let's go live to Bondi beach now. Thank you, Tanya Plibersek.