Interview on 4BC Mornings with Jason Matthews

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

Jason Matthews

As that starts to clear up real soon. And if you missed the intro at the top of my show this morning, the second tranche of the Coalition's immigration policy has been leaked. Leaked? Opposition Leader Angus Taylor will use his Budget in Reply speech on Thursday to formally unveil the plans. But they want to cap net overseas migration in line with new home completions under a tougher immigration policy that ties the number of people coming into Australia with available housing supply. Hallelujah. Common sense is in the hallways of Canberra. What a great idea. It's tough, it makes a lot of sense and I think it's what this country needs right now, particularly after a call I had from Catherine this morning. Let's learn more. The Shadow Minister for Housing, Senator Andrew Bragg joins me now. Good morning, Senator.

Senator Bragg

Jason, how are you?

Jason Matthews

Good mate. What the hell's going on in Canberra when there's some common sense being spoken about?

Senator Bragg

Well, they've changed the water supply there. No, look, I mean, I've been asking in Senate Estimates for years about why the government doesn't model the impact of letting 1.4 million people into the country but not building more than 600,000 houses. And they always give blank stares. And so what this is about is recognising that there is a link between these things and therefore that will now be part of our policy process going forward.

Jason Matthews

I think it's quite good and I think it could probably go a step further. I mean, we've got about 400,000 Australians who can't even get into housing at the moment, so we've got an issue there at the moment. Like, what are we going to do with that? Are we just going to stop immigration until we sort out who's already here and then bring in the new policy if you are elected?

Senator Bragg

Well, the policy would take into account how many houses have been completed, and it would look of course at the economic needs the country has, which can be served by migration. And if frankly there aren't enough houses then that would have implications for some of the caps that we have in place for certain visa classes. So that's effectively how it would work in a technical sense. But at a broader level, I mean the starting point is just looking that there is a nexus here between how many houses you supply and how many people come into the country. And so Angus will be saying more about this next Thursday in his Budget Reply speech.

Jason Matthews

Yeah, so 311,000 migrants arrived last year, only 173,000 homes were finished.

Senator Bragg

Yeah, well I mean, there are a number of elements in the housing crisis. I mean, the main one would be the supply failure of the government where they've spent $80 billion to build fewer houses. Then there's the migration piece, then there's productivity. There's the costs of building. There's a whole lot of factors that we need to look at in terms of our own policy. But the migration one is part of it. But there's also a massive supply failure. I mean, who could believe that you could spend $80 billion to build fewer houses?

Jason Matthews

Yeah. Well, it's happened. Senator, I want to play some audio. And this is one of my listeners who rang me before, 55-year-old woman. And I want you to take this back to the likes of Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan and whoever else is running the coalition. And for yourself, because, you know, you are the Shadow Minister for Housing. This is what's happening with our homelessness situation in this country right now. And she was very emotional, her name is Catherine, she's been forced to live out of a van in Longreach. She moved out west for cheaper rentals but can't find a rental. Mate, I want you to hear this because this is the real face of homelessness in Australia.

Catherine

...landscape now and unfortunately I found myself as a 55-year-old woman to the point in the last 18 months I just couldn't afford the rent on my own. You know you're looking at in the major cities 650 for a, you know, a rental accommodation.

Jason Matthews

So you've just made the decision now that your life is now going to be in a van?

Catherine

Well I have no choice. I honestly do not have a choice. Which is embarrassing. Sorry.

Jason Matthews

No you're right.

Catherine

My friends don't even know because I'm embarrassed. And I just tell people that I'm travelling Australia. When they come over to say oh what are you up to? I'm just travelling Australia because I'm not going to tell them I'm homeless. I've come out to the country because it's cheaper rentals but even then you can't get a rental.

Jason Matthews

Senator, I love your plan and I said that off the top of the show today. But when we've still got 400,000 people who can't find a home, you've got to go harder. You've got to go much hard- well you've got to build more for starters. But you've got to go hard- you've just got to pause immigration until we get everybody sorted out because I could bring you stories of thousands of Catherines in Queensland, in Brisbane, who are living on the bloody streets.

Senator Bragg

Well look it's a terrible situation for Catherine there and unfortunately in the country towns and regional centres it's not necessarily always all that much cheaper which shows the extent of the housing crisis. I mean it's Australia-wide. We just have not built enough houses for our people. And that's why we've announced this migration measure because we think that will ease the squeeze in the immediate term. But I mean we've got to really get building quickly and so one of the other things we're looking at is the fact that in Australia it's illegal to build a cheap house. I mean we think that you should be able to build cheaply if you want to because not everyone can spend, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars on new houses in the outer suburbs. So like unfortunately the country's made it very hard to build houses. We've had this migration and housing thing out of whack and it's just had terrible consequences for typical working people. So we understand that and that's why we've announced this measure today but we have more to come Jason.

Jason Matthews

Senator, where are these skilled migrants that Tony Burke claimed last week in a podcast he did with an Indian podcaster and business leader saying that we're bringing in skilled migrants, we're about to make 3 million residents now permanent citizens in our country. He says we've been focusing on skilled migrants. If that is the case, why isn't development happening?

Senator Bragg

Well one of the issues is that we've not been bringing in the right mix of people into the country.

Jason Matthews

But he claims they are.

Senator Bragg

Well but that's not right. I mean in terms of the building and construction sector, they're about 80,000 to 85,000 tradies short, right, in terms of the building supply we need. Last year we only brought in 4,000 people on building and trade visas. So if you're going to run a migration program I would have thought the first thing would be to make it strategic for your national interest. And so we need to be, if we're going to be bringing in skilled migrants, bringing in people who can build houses, for example, like urgently.

Jason Matthews

Right. Makes sense, right?

Senator Bragg

So we're looking at that. So there'll be a policy on that. There'll be policy on serious red tape reduction because we think it's too expensive to build houses and frankly even though a lot of the politicians in Canberra don't admit this, I mean one of the reasons there's not enough houses is because you can't make a buck out of housing. And so, you know, builders and tradies would know that it's just not worth it. So we have to make home building frankly affordable and sustainable again.

Jason Matthews

So are you saying under your proposed Coalition policy that the only migrants that will come to our country under a Coalition Government will be skilled migrants who can build this nation for us?

Senator Bragg

No I'm not saying that. I'm saying that we've recognised there is a nexus between housing and migration and that will be factored into our policies and if there aren't enough houses built then we'll have to look at caps on certain visa classes because we want to make sure that we get this right because we understand how hard this has been on Australians who are trying to access housing like Catherine.

Jason Matthews

Yeah. All right mate. I don't mind that at all. As I've said on this program before we don't need any more Uber Eats delivery drivers. We need people that are going to help build us out of this mess and that's going to be your responsibility. Just on housing, just one more thing for you. What about foreign ownership? The ability for foreigners to buy homes, will you scrap that?

Senator Bragg

Well there's already a temporary ban in place. We'll look at that as part of our policy formulation process. It's something that we have looked at in the past and it's something that we'll look at again as part of our election policy suite. But look we won't be waiting till the election to announce all our policies which is why Angus has announced this policy today on housing and migration. He'll have more to say on Thursday next week in the budget reply and then more swiftly thereafter because we understand that Australians are hungry for solutions. Australians want leadership and I'm confident that we have the capacity to show that.

Jason Matthews

Well this is a good start Senator Andrew Bragg. I like it and I think well we build this much housing and that's how many immigrants can come to our country. We need to chip away that 400,000 though. We've got to get that sorted like Canada have started to do and I think this is a good start but I think it could probably go that little bit a little bit further, be a little bit tougher on maybe pausing for a little bit. Senator I really appreciate your time today, go well.

Senator Bragg

Thanks Jason, see you, bye.

Jason Matthews

There we go Senator Andrew Bragg.

[Ends]

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