E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING
SUBJECTS: Housing; Cost of living; Early childhood education
GREG JENNETT, HOST: Welcome to you both, both familiar to the program but a new combo we are trying here today. Let's start with housing. Kate, I will go to you first. I’m not sure you could credibly deny that the Prime Minister’s purchase with his fiancée of the 4 million dollar property is not a water cooler moment for the nation, it is being discussed widely. Would you acknowledge that?
KATE THWAITES, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SECURITY, AGEING AND WOMEN: It is being discussed Greg, but ultimately it is a matter for the Prime Minister and his fiancée and I think a lot of Australians do recognise that, just like other Australians, they have interest in building a future together and that is what they are doing. What our government more broadly, what the Prime Minister and what I am focused on, is our efforts to build more houses for more Australians, to get more Australians into their first home with our legislation that is currently stuck in the Senate because the Greens and the Liberals won’t vote for it. The investments we are making through the Housing Australia Future Fund to build more houses, including right here in my own community where together with the Victorian Government we’re building more than 100 social and community houses at the Bell Bardia Estate in West Heidelberg. This is the work we're getting on with, I certainly think that that’s the conversation that we are having with the country.
HOST: Angie Bell, it’s striking as we read some of the background comments coming from both the caucus and the Coalition side that parallels are being drawn with Prime Minister Morrison's Hawaii moment. Do you recognise any similarities when it comes to timing and a judgement around this purchase?
ANGIE BELL, MEMBER FOR MONCRIEFF: I think there is timing and judgement at stake here by the Prime Minister. We wish him and his fiancée all the very best and he is entitled to his own home but I think it certainly rubs salt into the wound of many Australians at the moment where housing is simply out of their reach and the great Australian dream of owning a home is gone. We can look at the numbers where the loans for purchases and construction are actually at a 15 year low right now and immigration is up by 60% on pre-Covid levels so that spells disaster for housing for many Australians across the country and as they struggle to meet their repayments with 12 interest rate increases under this government, it does hurt - seeing the Prime Minister buying a house worth $4 million. I’ll also add to that that the government did promise 1.2 million homes and that has halted. That promise is not going to come to fruition and they would have to build something like one house every two minutes or 2.2 minutes to actually deliver on that promise so I think we are a long way behind when it comes to housing and this is pretty bad judgement by the Prime Minister.
HOST: I'm sorry to interrupt but to pick up on your point, a prime ministerial purchase which appears in the plan to come from the sale eventually of an existing property. That doesn't exactly crowd out the market in an atmosphere where, as you point out, immigration is running high and building is running slow. It is a transfer from one to another, isn't it?
BELL: We know it is about supply and demand when it comes to housing. The government has let too many immigrants into the country. I don't have anything against immigration, it is a good thing but they need to review their policy and that is what the Coalition has promised to do - to slow that down for a while until construction catches up to demand in this country. Australians need to be able to be housed and this government has failed on the housing policy.
HOST: I don’t want to labour the point on this too long. One last one to you on this, Prime Minister Morrison was notoriously secretive. I don't need to explain in what ways, I think we are pretty familiar with that. But would it be prudent for leaders in these positions to share even informally, with colleagues, seeking advice, sharing their intentions to embark on what could become politically controversial private endeavours? Be it a holiday or in this case a property purchase.
THWAITES: As politicians I think we put a lot of our lives out there but people still need to be able to lead their lives. I think that is what the Prime Minister is doing here. I will pick up on a bit of what Angie said. We did not get to this situation with housing in Australia overnight. This is a decade-long issue that has been coming at us and an issue that was ignored by the Liberal National party in their 10 years in power so to hear Angie spout off platitudes, when in fact they did not come up with the solutions, they did not put in place the investments we are putting in, the targets we are putting in to drive the supply that we need, that they will not support our legislation before the Senate that would give first home owners, low and middle income Australians their opportunity to buy their first home. What we're getting from those opposite is the usual platitudes, the usual negativity but no solutions and their track record has helped to deliver us to where we are right now.
HOST: Well, there we find ourselves in the housing debate. I will press on, Angie we want to get to childcare, which is in your realm. On a related matter of cost of living though, you may have had the opportunity to hear some criticism from former ACCC chair Graeme Samuel. The thrust of his argument is that this spate of recent announcements from the government, whether it be supermarkets, shrinkflation, ticket prices at concerts, debit card surcharges, that they’re very much at the margins, if they do make a difference those differences won’t come for a couple of years down the line. Angie, let's switch the batting order around on that. Do you consider these worthwhile efforts by a government? Even if, as Graeme Samuel would suggest, they are at the margins?
BELL: Australians know they are paying more now and prices have increased an astonishing amount since this government has come to power. They know that two and a half years ago they were much better off under a Coalition government. Our standard of living across the country has dropped by a massive 10% and Australians, as I just pointed out, are really struggling under this government's 12 interest rate increases and it is because of their big taxing, big spending agenda and so we know that Labor governments cannot control the economy. It is only Coalition governments that can deliver lower prices for all Australians and they are the big policy settings that this government has failed to deliver for Australians.
HOST: I'm sure Kate’s going to contest that all of those interest rate decisions are the responsibility of government fiscal policy.
BELL: But fiscal and monetary policy work together, we know that. And this government has not….
THWAITES: And this government has delivered two surpluses, which the previous Liberal National government failed to be able to do. If we’re going to talk about government spending, we have actually been the government that has been able to deliver surpluses while continuing to provide cost-of-living relief. We absolutely know Australians are doing it tough at the moment. We are focused on supporting them. Every single cost-of-living relief measure we have brought to the Parliament, the Liberal National party have voted against, so again, I say it is very easy for Angie to come on and spout both platitudes and the usual negativity but in fact, we did not see surpluses and a strong economic record from the Liberal National government when they had their decade in power and now, as our government does try and provide cost-of-living relief, every time we come to the Parliament, they vote against it.
HOST: Let's move onto childcare because I know you are both engaged in policy work in that area. We will go to you, Kate, reports emerged that the government, at least in the background, is workshopping a flat fee model for expanded early childhood education rather than larger subsidies, albeit means tested ones as recommended by the Productivity Commission. Why so?
THWAITES: As we’ve talked about many times, childcare has been a huge focus for our government since we came into power and that includes our measures that have made childcare cheaper for many families around Australia. It includes the work we are doing to pay early educators the wages that they deserve, to recognise the skills they bring. And all of this is because we recognise that this isn't just babysitting, this is something that gives our kids the best start in life and it is also something that helps modern families to engage in both family life and in the workforce. So we have hidden nothing about the fact that we are passionate about getting good childcare in place in this country, an area again that in the decade under the Liberals and Nationals, we saw no efforts to do this work. No efforts to make sure we did have a childcare system that was setting our young people up for the best possible future. It’s good for them and for the whole community. As I've said many times, it is good for working women as well and good for families more broadly. We will continue doing that work and we know of those opposite – I have heard reports from the party room of the Liberals that there are those in that party room who do still talk about childcare as babysitting. They are really out of touch with modern families, modern Australian families working lives and how essential this service is and how families are looking for it to work at the highest possible standards and that is what we are doing.
HOST: The recently departed LNP senator, now independent, has certainly expressed that view. I don't really want you to go there, Angie Bell, but on that policy point, you’ve had time to read the Productivity Commission report, as we all have now Angie. Do you see a preference in the funding model between flat fees and in hand subsidies?
BELL: This was option C that the Productivity Commission looked at on the government’s pathway to universal childcare. It was the option that the Productivity Commission did not favour because it would cost the Australian taxpayer $8.3 billion a year extra and it would only increase women's workforce participation by about 7,300 jobs, so if you do the math on that, it's an incredibly expensive exercise that would only benefit those families of the very high end of the income scale. So the Productivity Commission said this was not a good idea, whether the government is looking at that because they want their headline, I'm not sure.
HOST: It sounds like you are not attracted to it.
BELL: This is what the Productivity Commission report outlined and this is what the government asked the Productivity Commission report to look into. And this was option C, the least preferred option. If the government is looking at this, this is against what they asked the Productivity Commission to actually look into. I think the big point here is that the government has spent $4.7 billion on extra childcare subsidies. It’s spent $3.6 billion on wages for educators and it has not delivered one new place for regional and rural communities around the country. There are Australian taxpayers out there who want to access childcare. Sure, the big platitudes around universal child care, the promises, that's great but if you can't access one place for your child or two places for your children so that you can go back to work and pay the bills in a cost of living crisis and 12 interest rate increases, then there is no point.
HOST: It's not my job to pre-empt or summarise arguments that Kate might put in the contrary. I guess the point from their side is probably that this is an evolving piece of work so watch this space. Unfortunately Kate, I'm not going to give you the opportunity. Hopefully that's an accurate summary of your position. We have run out of time. Do appreciate both of you being with us though. Thanks so much and we will see you around here before too long.