INTERVIEW WITH SALLY SARA ON RADIO NATIONAL BREAKFAST

Sally Sara

Federal politics, and turning to the opposition, Andrew Bragg is the Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness, and joins me now. Andrew Bragg, welcome back to Breakfast.

Senator Bragg

Hi Sally, how are you?

Sally Sara

Very well, thank you. The federal government is getting hammered by business groups for applying its capital gains and negative gearing changes to shares and other asset classes. But there's been very little public blowback to changing the tax settings for housing. Has the government won that argument?

Senator Bragg

Well, I think the idea that more taxes on housing, which would reduce housing supply by 35,000 dwellings, is a crazy policy. And I think that having now lower levels of supply as a deliberate design feature is actually going to be very...

Sally Sara

The government says that supply will go up, when you're accounting for other measures as well - the 35,000 is of this policy alone…

Senator Bragg

This is a government that has reduced housing supply by 30,000 homes each year since they've been in government. Every promise they've made, whether it be the housing targets, or the Housing Australia Future Fund, or anything else, they've never met any housing target they've ever set for themselves. So, their Budget says that they will reduce housing supply by 35,000 due to their tax changes. And what we need is an abundance of housing. We don't need measures which suppress housing supply, because that's going to make it harder for young people.

Sally Sara

If the government restricted its changes to housing only, would you still oppose that?

Senator Bragg

We don't believe in higher taxes. I mean, it doesn't make any sense that you want to suppress housing supply. So, they've brought in 1.6 million people since they've been in office, and they've only built 600,000 houses. So, we need to build more houses. And the idea that you want to suppress one form of investment is also quite insane. I mean, they're desperate for their mates at the super funds to be building houses and for them to become big landlords, but they want to chase individuals out of being investors in property. So, it's very incoherent like most things this government does.

Sally Sar

a One Nation now says that negative gearing should be limited to two properties, joining Labor, the Greens, and the Teal independents in favour of scaling back housing tax concessions in some way. Why is the Liberal Party the odd one out here?

Senator Bragg

Well Sally, as you know, leadership is not about lowest common denominator things and things that sound good on social media. Leadership is about explaining there are difficult challenges, and here is how we're going to solve them. And I can't find any credible economist that can argue that fiddling around with CGT and negative gearing will fix the housing crisis. Ultimately, it's about supply and demand, right? And if you look at the Budget Paper, Budget Paper 1, which details the government's political justification for changing the taxes, I mean, there's virtually no discussion on supply. I mean, you honestly couldn't make it up. The fact that they've collapsed supply, the fact that they've let so many people into the country, and the fact that those two things have come together - should have been featured in their Budget analysis, but you can't even find that.

Sally Sara

Housing Minister Clare O'Neil says there are already signs at auctions over the past two weekends that home buyers are getting a leg up over investors. Is that a good thing?

Senator Bragg

Well, let's see. I mean, my take on that is that the government have reduced supply. So, at the end of the day, that will make it harder for everyone to access housing. It will also push up rents, and at the end of the day, if you don't have enough houses to house your population, you're not actually going to improve the situation for anyone.

Sally Sara

The government is expected to announce an almost $40 million investment to support innovation in the construction sector later today. Do you agree with the Minister Clare O'Neil that, quote, "if we want housing to be more affordable, Australia needs to find smarter ways to build more homes"?

Senator Bragg

Oh look, definitely. And unfortunately, what they've done with the National Construction Code, which are the rules for housing in Australia, is that they've made that more complex. And in the two iterations of the National Construction Code since they've been in office, they've blown it out to 2,000 pages. And as Angus Taylor said in the Budget Reply, we'll be looking to have a National Construction Code more like 200 pages. Because in Australia, it is illegal to build a cheap house. Now, I believe that you should be able to build a cheap house if you want to. And the way that Labor have established all their construction rules is that it assumes that everyone is disabled, and that everyone wants the most super-duper energy-efficient house in the whole world.

Sally Sara

Should the federal government actually be trying to encourage the use of prefabricated and modular construction to address the housing crisis?

Senator Bragg

Yes, definitely. And this is the sort of stuff that the National Construction Code should be able to facilitate, but Clare O'Neil has turned this into an absolute boondoggle. And you should just be able to have, you know, if you want to build a cheap and basic house, you should be able to. If you want to have one with bells and whistles, you should be able to. If you want to do Modern Methods of Construction, you should be able to easily. But I mean, no one can understand the ridiculous system that they've established. It's way too complex. I mean, let me give you a very bad example. The typical home builder in Australia, the small business person, wouldn't be able to read the 2,000 pages of the National Construction Code. I mean, how bad is that?

Sally Sara

Just finally, we've just heard from the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations about the government's proposed reforms to the national employment services system. Does the Coalition support these changes?

Senator Bragg

Oh look, that's something we'll have to look at in detail. But I'll just make the point that you know, they're desperate to rush all these Bills through Parliament now, particularly their new taxes. And these are taxes which are going to make it harder for people, not easier. And it just shows the vacuous nature of this government that they've cooked up this stuff. Their Budget papers are more political than economic. They want to rush these Bills through, some sort of a wedge. But ultimately higher taxes is going to reduce housing supply, and it's going to damage the economy.

Sally Sara

Andrew Bragg, thank you for joining me this morning.

Senator Bragg Thanks, Sally.

Sally Sara

Andrew Bragg, is the Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness.

[Ends]

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