Doorstop Interview - 10 May 2026

‍Subjects: Housing supply, negative gearing, 5% deposit scheme, migration, Farrer by-election result

E&OE.........

Senator Bragg 

All right, well, the announcement today from the government about housing really is another announcement that I doubt will be followed through on. Because the government have spent $80 billion to build fewer houses than the last Liberal government. So over the course of these four years, they have only built on average 170,000 houses. Under the last coalition government, there was 200,000 houses being built every year on average. So the government have spent $80 billion of taxpayer funds to build 30,000 fewer houses each year. They have collapsed supply, and meanwhile they have really made things ugly for younger Australians by pump priming house prices at the entry level with their ridiculous non-means tested 5% deposit scheme. After having failed on supply for four years, they now want to say "well we want to spend two or three billion dollars more on housing". I mean, it is just ugly stuff to see a government be so willful in their waste of taxpayer funds. So ultimately the scoreboard is the scoreboard. 30,000 fewer houses each year under this government is there for everyone to see, and I doubt that this announcement will make any difference. Now, the second point is, when you've already collapsed housing supply and you've got high interest rates, now you've got the prospect of high taxes in the budget. So the idea that the government will solve the housing crisis with high taxes is absolutely insane. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer must be clear on Tuesday that their plan to change negative gearing and capital gains tax will fix the housing crisis or it will materially fix it. If not, why on earth would you risk higher taxes? No economist can suggest that more taxes and negative gearing fiddle and capital gains tax fiddle is going to fix the housing crisis. In fact, almost every economist says more tax is going to be bad for housing. Half the cost of a new house goes in government fees, charges, and taxes. So why the hell would you consider putting a new tax on something which is already so heavily taxed? We need more houses and fewer taxes. This government couldn't build a dunny. With 80 billion bucks, they've failed to do that, and with another $2 billion on infrastructure funding, I suspect they wouldn't even be able to build a path for the dunny. So, I'll leave my comment to that, but just to make the point again, that more taxes on housing will only result in one thing: fewer houses.

Journalist 

Thanks Senator. Can I ask you then, this housing issue's been red hot for a long time now, not just recently, but how much do you think housing played into last night's result at Farrer? How much is this an issue bleeding votes for both the major parties?

Senator Bragg 

Well look, I think we are where we deserve to be. I mean over the last 10 years, we haven't done enough policy work, and I think the generation of millennials—my generation—are pretty dirty on the major parties, and with good reason. Because most of the policies that have been turned out have been junk. The government has been horrendous. They have destroyed housing opportunities for younger Australians. And our job is to do a better job and to actually do the policy work that we've done in prior decades. But I mean, it's been about a decade since we've had a decent policy. And the last decent policy was the stage three tax cuts.

Journalist 

I want to come back to policy—to housing policy in a minute, but I just want to quickly follow up on Farrer. Your colleague Tim Wilson has suggested that it's up to the Australian people to decide who they vote for when asked whether the coalition would ever enter into a governing agreement with One Nation. Is this the reality that the future of the coalition as it stands is that it will never re-enter government without the support of One Nation? Is it a thing that you would ever entertain—opening the door to coalition with One Nation?

Senator Bragg 

Well, no. And the point is that we can be a majority government if we do the policy work that is needed to show the Australian people that we have a platform worth voting for. I mean over the past 10 years, we haven't done the work. So we are where we deserve to be. There is a trust deficit. I understand that acutely as a millennial. I get it. And we haven't done the work that is needed. We have been too close to the Labor Party on economic policy. We haven't done the work on taxation policy, on spending policy. We haven't done enough to promote entrepreneurialism. We haven't done enough to support small businesses. And so these are the things that we have to work very hard on if we are to win the trust again of the Australian people.

Journalist 

Senator, is this simply a supply-side issue? This has been a lot of the conversation for recent years is that boosting supply. Can you address the housing issue by only addressing supply?

Senator Bragg 

It is a supply-side issue. And just like the energy market, we need more energy. We just need more stuff in Australia. And so more houses will come if you eat red tape and you lower taxes. So we are looking to cut red tape, we're looking to cut taxes because we understand that's how you get the supply side moving. I mean, one of the obvious points about housing is that it's very hard to make a buck out of housing if you're a tradie or you're a developer. And that's one of the reasons why we don't have enough houses. So you need to look at the things which are holding back supply. I mean sure, you can look at targeted demand-side measures. Maybe for lower-income earners, or maybe you can find ways to give people more freedom to use their own money. But ultimately, this is a supply-side challenge that the Commonwealth government must work on with the states and with local councils. But the main point is that in life and in policy, it's always good to focus on what you can control. And what we can control are the Commonwealth pieces of red tape and the federal taxes.

Journalist 

You say it's hard to make a buck, but I know one of the other concerns that the coalition holds is around CFMEU-driven increases in housing construction costs, and there are some very well-paid tradies out there. How do you temper that? How do you bring down those housing construction costs and perhaps some of those union-driven concerns while also ensuring that you attract—that you still make this attractive to bring in more workers?

Senator Bragg 

Well, productivity is in the toilet in this country, and productivity in the building sector is negative—heavily negative. That's because of the CFMEU and some of the other malfeasance that has been going on for many years. We need to improve productivity. We also need to ensure that the national construction code and other pieces of red tape are actually promoting home building. Now, one of the things I've been saying in recent weeks is that if you want to build a cheap house, you should be allowed to build a cheap house. Now, in Australia, you cannot build a cheap house even if you want to. You have to have gold plating. You've got to be building a house on the basis that you are disabled and that you are having the most energy-efficient house in the whole world. Now, for many Australians, that is not realistic given their incomes. So we want to have a system where the red tape doesn't destroy the prospect of a person building a house in the outer suburbs, but we also want to make sure that we don't add to the tax burden. Which is why it's absolutely insane to think that when a new home—when the costs of a new home is 50% government fees, charges, and taxes—why the hell would Canberra think "oh we're going to have more taxes"? I mean it's just insane. It shows that this government is out of ideas. And the other point to make is that since the election, the government have had two housing policies, both of which they pooh-poohed during the election campaign. The first one was they made changes to the national construction code. The second one is this idea of trunk infrastructure. Both of which they pooh-poohed during the last election campaign. So this is a government that is out of ideas. Dr. Chalmers, or whatever he calls himself, has got no idea what he's doing. This guy couldn't run a bath.

Journalist 

Is it the reality that some of those levers that perhaps you would like to pull are held by the states? You talk about the taxes on housing, but I mean a lot of that is land tax—that's a state lever. How much do the states hold responsibility here? What should the states be doing right now?

Senator Bragg 

Well, I'm not going to spend my life worrying about the states and territories. I mean I just think it's a fool's errand, it's like complaining about the Swiss Alps. So we need to focus on what we can control. I think part of the result in Farrer and more broadly is people are over the buck-passing. There are things that are within our preserve, like federal red tape, like federal taxation, that we can actually make better. And that's what we ought to do over these next few months.

Journalist 

Senator, thank you. Just one last question on migration. You'd like to see migration tied to some of those economic outcomes, obviously housing is a big conversation there, ensuring that housing construction is keeping up with the pace of migration. How do you ensure that you don't damage that necessary flow of workers into construction that is also required? How do you make sure that you're still getting that?

Senator Bragg 

Well, for many years I've been asking questions at Senate estimates to Katy Gallagher about why doesn't the government model the impact of only building 600,000 houses when they've let 1.4 million people into the country? Her answer is "I don't give a crap about that, I'm not doing that piece of modeling". Our position is the nexus between migration and housing is there, it needs to be modeled, it needs to be an input into policy formulation. Now, if you can't get the houses built, then you've got to look at whether all the visa classes that you have should be left open as they are today. We think there should be caps in place. But what we wouldn't do is damage the economy by stopping skilled migration that we need. And so we'd be looking to bring in more skilled tradies. There are 80,000 trade vacancies in this country on home building sites, and last year we only got 4,000 tradies on visas. So we need to recalibrate that.

Journalist 

So fewer students, fewer family reunions in favor of sort of skilled work?

Senator Bragg 

Well, that may be the case, but I mean that's a piece of work we need to do.

Journalist 

Sure thing. Thank you so much Senator, really appreciate your time. I mean if these new 5% home buyers go into negative equity as a consequence of the housing market shrinking—we've already seen it static in Sydney—and potentially these changes in the budget push prices down. If we see some of those 5% home buyers going into negative equity as a consequence, should the government have an obligation to support them in some way?

Senator Bragg 

Well, the government shouldn't have been peddling mortgages which it knew that people couldn't repay. Now they've presided over another three interest rate rises since the election. This means that effectively there are people who've taken out these mortgages which will never be able to repay them. Now that is very ugly for those Australians. And ultimately, a 95% mortgage is a risky mortgage. Now, I feel for people who feel that this is the only way in, but the reality is that this has been necessary perhaps because the government have not been able to build the houses. So a supply-side focus here is essential, and for the Australians who are now exposed because of the government's peddling of these mortgages, that is something that the government will have to explain themselves over.

Journalist 

Yeah. Thanks.

Senator Bragg 

Okay. Thanks guys.

[Ends]

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