Interview with Laura Jayes on News24

Subjects Housing taxes, National Construction Code, net overseas migration, temporary migration, skilled migration and tradies.

E&OE....

Laura Jayes

Let's go live to Canberra now. The Shadow Housing Minister Andrew Bragg joins us. Andrew, good to see you.

Senator Bragg

Hi Laura.

Laura Jayes

I mean, we just heard that there from Paul Bloxham, Chief Economist at HSBC. A big part of this problem is a number of federal and state taxes that go into the building of a new home. It's somewhere between 30 and 40%. Is this one of your central promises going to the next election, that you will make an effort to cut whatever is in your power?

Senator Bragg

Well, we definitely need to relieve the tax burden on housing, which is why we are going to reverse the Labor Party's terrible taxes, the $80 billion of new taxes from the Budget. But we also need to look at our own set of measures and how we might be able to further relieve taxes on housing, because ultimately, the tax burden and the regulatory burden are two things that are making it uneconomic to build homes in Australia.

Laura Jayes

Yeah, it certainly is, and we see that right now. We see the investment, investors moving out of the housing market, but they're not moving into the new housing market. If you could fix the latter part of that, would you keep the policy settings as is?

Senator Bragg

Well, the most important thing is that we make it a viable proposition for people to actually invest in new housing, because we need to get 250,000 houses a year. We'll be lucky to get 170,000 this year under Labor. We used to average 200,000 under the Coalition. So reversing the taxes is very important, as is looking at further ways to reduce taxes. But it's also important that we roll back some of the regulation here, which is why we've pledged that we would cut the Construction Code from 2,000 pages down to 100.

Laura Jayes

Okay, but is that going to do it? That's not taxes.

Senator Bragg

Well, I think it'll make a big difference, because it's an extremely prescriptive way to build, and it's very expensive. And a lot of people just want to build a cheap house. They don't want to build an expensive house. It might be their first house, they might be building on the outskirts of Melbourne or Sydney, and they don't want to build a seven-star house, they don't want to build a house as if they're disabled. They just want to build a cheap home.

Laura Jayes

Well, that's fair enough. Let's look at migration now. We've got Tony Burke standing up at the Press Club in just over half an hour from now. We can see on the screen as well the latest net migration numbers have dropped, that's 292,000. That is 3,000 less than was forecast in the Budget. What does this tell you?

Senator Bragg

Well, Labor is still averaging around 400,000 NOM over the course of their time in office, whereas we were averaging about 175,000. So they are still on the highway to hell here in terms of their migration numbers being way too high and totally misaligned with housing supply. I mean, they've tanked housing supply by 30,000 a year, and they've more than doubled the amount of people coming into the country. So they have cooked up a terrible storm, which has made housing harder, and frankly, everything harder in Australia.

Laura Jayes

Would your numbers be—how much less would it be? You're aiming for what, just below 200,000, which is still a lot higher than One Nation's 130,000? Is Peter Malinauskas right when they say the three major parties now are really in a race to the bottom?

Senator Bragg

Well, it needs to be properly calibrated, and we've said that we will announce that in due course. But there'll be obviously a target for the NOM, but then there's also the amount of temporary migrants currently in the system. So those things will be worked out and announced in due course.

Laura Jayes

At what level does this start to have a negative economic effect? One Nation put out their policy, it was negative net migration over the next three years, a reduction by 750,000. That's popular out there in the electorate, but then economists say that would tank the economy, send it into recession. Where's the line there?

Senator Bragg

Well, people aren't stupid. They know that we have too many temporary migrants, and they know that we need more skilled migrants. So part of this is recalibrating and getting more high-value people into the country. In the building and housing sector, we are desperately in need of tradies to help us build homes, because we can't get enough apprentices through the Australian system.

Laura Jayes

Okay, well, we'll wait to see what Tony Burke has to say. I'm sure you'll be watching that as well, Andrew. Thanks so much for your time today.

Senator Bragg

Thanks, Laura.

[Ends]

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