PATRICIA KARVELAS (HOST): Tanya Plibersek, welcome to the program.
MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES, TANYA PLIBERSEK: Great to be with you.
KARVELAS: Of course, it's July 1st, everyone knows that, and that means lots of different changes come through. One of the big ones is Paid Parental Leave. Eligible families with a child born or adopted from today will get that six months of leave. You've been talking about this coming up for a long time, but you've really focused a lot of your anti One Nation language around this. Is this kind of the centrepiece of one of the cases you're mounting against One Nation?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, let's take a step back. It was Labor that introduced Paid Parental Leave in 2011. I was the Minister for Women when we did that and Jenny Macklin was absolutely instrumental. Now we've expanded it to the full six months, so people get about $30,000 worth of Paid Parental Leave. It's the full six months, it's at a higher rate, more than $1,000 a week. We're also, of course, pay superannuation on Paid Parental Leave these days, so we reduce that retirement income gap. There's more flexibility for parents to take time off together and more people are eligible. So, we're very proud of that Paid Parental Leave. And look, I don't think, you've kind of described what I'm doing as a political strategy. It's not that. I'm simply saying, if you look at Pauline Hanson's record on this, since 2017, she's been saying things like, women just get pregnant for the money. She said in April, you've got the equipment, love, you know, don't complain if you have to take time off to have babies. She said something very similar at the press club. This is a pattern of criticising Paid Parental Leave. You've got the Liberals who've called working mums double dippers and rorters. You've got the now Shadow Treasurer who has said it's not his choice that women have children, it's genetic. Like, this is a pattern of opposition to Paid Parental Leave. And the reason that I'm talking about it is because these are the sorts of things that are at risk if people want to vote One Nation or they want to vote Liberal or National, they need to know what's at stake.
KARVELAS: I understand the point you make about One Nation, although Pauline Hanson did clarify that it was in relation to business that she was referring to. If you look at the quote, it was business.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: No, but hang on a minute. When you look at what she, certainly what she said in 2017 and what she said in April this year, she wasn't referring to business, she was just criticising Paid Parental Leave. And even in her criticism of Paid Parental Leave and business, saying business shouldn't have to pay for it. Well, business doesn't pay for it, taxpayers pay for it. And, and just as a point of interest, 68% of businesses also voluntarily pay parental leave on top of the government funded scheme because they know it helps them attract and retain the best workers. So, she's even out of touch on what businesses think about Paid Parental Leave.
KARVELAS: Part of the changes today include encouraging more fathers to take the leave. Just explain that change and the take up of that. Trying to get men more involved in their children.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: So we’re saying that parents can take more leave off at the same time and that's very important, particularly if you've had a rough birth. It's actually really good to have your partner around for a bit longer to help out. And we're also, we've got a use it or lose it provision in there for men as well for a couple of weeks there. The reason we've done that is because we know that it is so good and so healthy for babies to have both parents engaged and looking after them and it's so good for, I'm talking about mums and dads, but of course, you know, this goes for same sex couples and so on as well. It is so good for babies to have that care from both parents if they've got two parents. It's good for their relationships lifelong. We know that countries where fathers play a bigger role and in those early days of a baby's life, you get better lifelong outcomes from that. And men love it. The men that I speak to who've been able to take Paid Parental Leave when they can, will universally report to you, they understand it's tough, but they love it because it gives them that close and loving bond with their child. It's good for everyone.
KARVELAS: It makes a very big difference. I just want to go to housing. Housing is of course a huge issue. It was the focus really and cost of living of the Coalition's Question Time strategy today. We've got house prices-
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I think it's generous of you to call it a strategy Patricia, but sure.
KARVELAS: Well, let’s go with the word of the political day rather than judgement from me. But on, on that issue though, of housing, we've got, you know, a situation where people haven't seen clearance rates like this since COVID I know the government wants to make housing cheaper for young people and that's a reasonable endeavour. But does it worry you, seeing the market behave as it is?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Not at all. We know that housing prices bump up and down. We know that different markets in different parts of Australia behave differently. We already saw some impacts of the increased interest rates before the budget. I think you've got to really look at the big picture here. Every weekend when I'm out doing street stalls in my electorate, the most common thing that people would come to my street stall to talk to me about is how worried they were about their kids or grandkids ever being able to afford a home of their own. We live in a country where an ordinary person working hard in an average job can no longer afford an ordinary home. There's something wrong with that. We want to be a country where Australians can expect that if they work hard and they save, they'll be able to put a roof over their family's head. That's what we're doing. That's the changes that we're making. And just on, you know, negative gearing. People, everything they're already negatively gearing, they keep negatively gearing. If they want to negatively gear in the future, they can invest in a new property. There is still a pathway to wealth through housing investment if people really want to do that. What we're saying is that young first home buyers deserve a shot at the market where they're not competing with cashed up investors for the bulk of Australia's stock.
KARVELAS: That's about existing stock. We've got house approvals down. You're not the housing Minister, but you are certainly interacting with this system. You deal with, you know, rent assistance through your portfolio. All of the helps that happen when you cannot own your home. We're also seeing housing approvals lower than you'd want them to. I mean, there is a kind of problem in the market, isn't there?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah. So, of course we need to keep building. Housing supply is the key to this. Yes, we need to keep building. And it's great to see local government, state government, cooperating with the federal government. We put another $2 billion in the budget to help with those infrastructure costs when they're opening up new areas. And we're working with, we launched our new Environment Protection Agency today that's going to speed up those big housing approvals on greenfield sites. We've got our 5% first deposit policy that's helped more than 260,000 people into the market. Instead of saving 20% for their deposit, if they can save 5%, they can get into the housing market. We're investing in 55,000 more social housing dwellings. We're pulling every lever in the housing market. We've worked with the states and territories to reform rules around for renters. We want people to be able to afford to an affordable rental property, to have security there. We want people to be able to afford a home of their own. That's why we're working on building and housing supply. But we also had to change the tax system because we had a tax system that was stacked against first home buyers.
KARVELAS: Do you think the Prime Minister will be dogged by questions around breaking his policy promise? He talked about his word being his bond that's being used in advertising already. Do you think that will haunt him?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: This is a hard problem and we're taking a tough decision in the national interest. I think, you know, I think that our opponents will say whatever they want to say. But if you agree that a young Australian should be able to afford a home of their own and you know the tax system is locking them out of home ownership and, and you ignore that, as a government or as a Prime Minister, you are not doing your duty to this country.
KARVELAS: Gambling reform is the other issue. Again, not your portfolio. But it's a pretty significant change that people have been calling for. It's already hit a bit of a roadblock in the Parliament. The Coalition's, you know, MPs wanting it to go further. Are you willing to negotiate to strengthen this proposal, this legislation?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, of course, we always, we always spend, especially in the Senate, talk to the crossbench and the opposition about all of our legislation. But I'll say a couple of things about gambling. The first thing is we are absolutely determined to reduce the harm that gambling does in our families and communities. There is not a single Australian who doesn't know someone who's been badly affected by gambling. And for every person that is directly impacted, about six people around them will also feel the consequences of the harm that's being done. So, we are determined to act. The advertising stuff that's in this bill is a really important reduction in the ads, particularly the ads that kids will see. There's a reduction on TV and radio, but the restrictions on online advertising are particularly strong as well. But it's not just about advertising. We're banning pocket pokies, the sort of kenos, mobile keno that you can play. We're stopping the matched lotteries where people are losing money to shady figures overseas. And in my portfolio, we're doubling the number of people that will be supported to access gambling counselling. We're increasing our community awareness efforts. We've got this fantastic thing called BetStop. The people who use it really like it. They report it's really successful, but not enough people know that it exists. So, we value opportunities like this to talk about what more we can do to stop the impact of gambling.
KARVELAS: People like Tim Costello, who've been, you know, campaigning about this for a long time, think it's not strong enough. Now that the Coalition is raising some issues with them. How do you see your pathway through the Senate with this? Is it working?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, it'd be interesting to hear from the Coalition what their specific proposals are at the moment. We've heard from a couple of people within the coalition who say they've got an interest in it. We haven't really heard anything from the party, either the Liberals or the Nationals. Well, let's hear from them.
KARVELAS: Okay, just finally, AI. A group of artists, in fact, one of these artists is on our show today. You know Paul Dempsey, who of course is from Something for Kate, an excellent band if you're into Australian music. They've come here because they're really worried that the government's going to negotiate on copyright. Is, can you guarantee that you will not water down these laws?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I can tell you we are absolutely determined to protect Australian artists and protect Australian voices. And, you know, I think we've been really world leading when it comes to taking on big tech, to our own detriment. We know that we've had plenty of pushback from the big social media companies, but, big tech more generally. Yeah, we're prepared to stand up to them because we value Australian artists and we value Australian voices.
KARVELAS: They're worried that there is a sort of quiet subterranean campaign by these big companies which is clearly going on to try and influence the government on this. Are you saying you're standing firm on it as a cabinet?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I don't think we could have been clearer than we have been with the artists that we want to, we want to make sure they get the value for the work that they are producing. We respect them as workers, as producers. But also, I love being able to hear Australian music. I love reading Australian novels, I love seeing Australian art and movies and TV. We want to make sure that that exists for future generations and unless we pay people in that industry properly, we won't see it for future generations.
KARVELAS: Minister, thanks for coming in.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Pleasure.