Interview with Tom Connell on News24

‍INTERVIEW WITH TOM CONNELL ON NEWS24

07 September 2026

Subjects: Housing, Superannuation, One Nation, Labor, 5% deposit scheme, Cost-of-living crisis, Lifelong Renters, Inflation,  

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

Tom Connell

Joining me now for more on this, Shadow Housing and Environment Minister, and someone always interested in superannuation, Andrew Bragg. Thank you for your time.

Senator Bragg

Tom, how are you?

Tom Connell

I'm well. So you've called super a scam, amongst other things. Are you behind the Pauline Hanson plan to get people to access more of their super in cash up front?

Senator Bragg

Tom, I thought your first question was going to be about the football, but obviously not. It's a shame. Maybe next time.

Tom Connell

Maybe next time.

Senator Bragg

Anything that's going to help Australians with their cost of living right now is going to be worth looking at. But I make the point that it doesn't address the long-term structural challenge here, which is that we see a doubling of retired renters over the next couple of decades. That's a trend we want to kill because we want people to be in their own house when they are retired.

Tom Connell

Okay, so let's tackle what you said first of all. Anything that helps cost of living should be looked at. Does this help cost of living if you get the money? And then for anybody with a mortgage, every economist seems to say you'll probably pay it back in an interest rate rise. Is that— do you believe in that? Is that accurate?

Senator Bragg

Well, if the Treasurer stops spending, maybe we won't have interest rate rises.

Tom Connell

That's one thing, but this is an extra $4,500 per couple or per person that accesses it. That's inflationary, isn't it?

Senator Bragg

Well, Labour argues that their 5% deposit scheme isn't inflationary, but this is. I mean, it's just incoherent. I think anything that allows people to use their own money is going to be worth looking at in a cost-of-living crisis. But I say again that this does not address the long-term structural challenge we have in this country, which is that we are transitioning to a country where too many people are not going to own a house in retirement, which is not what we had back in the '90s when we had the big debates on national savings which led to superannuation.

Tom Connell

You said that government spending is inflationary, extra spending.

Senator Bragg

Of course it is.

Tom Connell

So wouldn't extra spending by people be inflationary as well?

Senator Bragg

But I mean, the government is—

Tom Connell

You've said the government, tick.

Senator Bragg

Right, tick. Good, right? But you don't know how people—

Tom Connell

Sure, you don't know how many, but it is dependent. If it's taken up by a lot of people, it'd put a rocket under inflation, wouldn't it?

Senator Bragg

I think it's clear that when people have access to their own money, they make wise judgements. They might improve their personal balance sheets. They may choose to spend it. The idea that—

Tom Connell

Is that clear? What's clear about that?

Senator Bragg

Hang on, hang on. The extension of your idea is that we're going to have a Super Guarantee of 20% or 30%. I mean—

Tom Connell

No, it's not. But it's when you, in one fell swoop, go from 12% to 9% is the question mark, right?

Senator Bragg

Well, we've gone from 9% to 12% over the last few years.

Tom Connell

Not in one go— the point is, if you take it off in one go, that extra money— when you say it's clear people will spend it on things like reducing their debt, why is that clear? What's the evidence for that?

Senator Bragg

Well, they did it in the COVID pandemic when they could take money out. As you will point out in a second, I'm sure, that some people used it for gambling.

Tom Connell

Quite a few people did.

Senator Bragg

But the biggest issue was paying back debt.

Tom Connell

The number one was debt and a whole lot below that— clothing, electronics, gambling, as you mentioned. That's all inflationary, right?

Senator Bragg

Well, I mean, people chose with the biggest sum of money to reduce their own debts. That's the most recent data point that we have, which is probably not an exact comparison to what this would be. But if you're asking—

Tom Connell

But that's not all they did. There was clearly an inflationary aspect to that released money into super, wasn't there?

Senator Bragg

You can make the same point for everything this government's done on subsidisation of things and giveaways and everything else.

Tom Connell

Sure, if you make that argument, that's why I'm asking, if you make the argument on the government spending, surely you have to say that if there's a big take-up—

Senator Bragg

Because it’s people’s own money.

Tom Connell

Sure it is.

Senator Bragg

Because the government doesn't care about how its own money is spent. This socialist government doesn't really have many guardrails around how it spends money. It just throws— it's like Monopoly money. It throws it out the door. It doesn't really give a rat's. People will be more protective of their own money. It's just the psychology of money.

Tom Connell

But don’t you have to be consistent on the psychology of money, that if the government's spending right now extra money is inflationary, so would it be if you gave people overnight access to a quarter of their superannuation. Not the account, but as it's coming in. It has to be, doesn't it?

Senator Bragg

The way people spend their own money is different to how government spends money, which is why Margaret Thatcher coined the term around other people's money, because governments traditionally are not good at targeting money and can be wasteful and don't deal with the productivity issues that they have—

Tom Connell

But as we just discussed, when the one real-time experiment on pulling out super, a lot of line items were discretionary spending, which is inflationary.

Senator Bragg

But the biggest one was paying down debts.

Tom Connell

But all the ones below it?

Senator Bragg

Sure, but—

Tom Connell

Yeah, well, I'm not saying every single dollar is, but clearly there'll be an inflationary aspect if a whole heap of people take up this plan.

Senator Bragg

There's no other way I can answer your question other than—

Tom Connell

You could say yes.

Senator Bragg

Helping people with cost of living is always worth looking at. The idea that you default to— you can never, ever, ever improve cost of living, I think, is very dangerous thinking.

Tom Connell

Do you— is your party supporting 12% super? Are you locked in behind that?

Senator Bragg

Our policy has been that we have wanted people to have more access to their own money the last two elections.

Tom Connell

That's a broad statement. Mine's a specific one about 12%.

Senator Bragg

We are reviewing the intersection of the retirement and housing policies. I can tell you that much.

Tom Connell

OK. Does that mean 12% is part of that?

Senator Bragg

We're reviewing the intersection of the housing and the retirement portfolios.

Tom Connell

As in access to money for super, are you saying, or 12%?

Senator Bragg

We're looking at how— so your retirement system includes your house, your private savings, your superannuation. We're looking at how all those things intersect, because we want to arrest the decline in the amount of retired renters we have. Because if you are retired—

Tom Connell

That's what you're alluding to, accessing super for houses. Is that— yes?

Senator Bragg

It's under review. I'm not announcing policies today.

Tom Connell

Yes, but you said a broad thing and I'm just trying to decipher for the viewers what that means.

Senator Bragg

Because it's a complicated undertaking.

Tom Connell

Does it also mean all the different things around if you're a renter? I mean, essentially the retirement system screams at you to buy a house because the difference between what you pay in rent and the higher amount you get in the pension doesn't balance, right? So are you looking at whether or not maybe if you're a renter and retired, you get a better deal than you do at the moment?

Senator Bragg

We just want it to be better calibrated. Like, 32% of the lump sums out of super were paid off through— used to pay off mortgages, right, according to the latest ABS data, which is a large sum of money. So we just want to make sure that everything is calibrated to make sure that people have the maximum amount of choices and that we get more people into housing.

Tom Connell

So that sounds like they should be able to pay off their house earlier.

Senator Bragg

There's a whole lot of different ways you can do this, right? There are equity models, there's cash-out models, there's collateral models, there's offset models. There are a lot of ways that you could improve the choices Australians have that maximise home ownership. Now, to make this point again, that home ownership transcends economics. It's also psychological, and having a house in retirement is your best bet of a safe retirement.

Tom Connell

Quickly on this, I'm already in trouble for going over and interrupting you because I can tell what you’re thinking.

Senator Bragg

You have interrupted me a lot actually.

Tom Connell

Okay, I gave you some room to finish.

Senator Bragg

I understand why you're angry. I would be too. But you’re back next week. Double chance.

Tom Connell

So it sounds as though you're going to go beyond just housing for your first home for super? Is that what you're looking at? Is that the— when you're sitting there—

Senator Bragg

I've just told you, we're looking at how the retirement system intersects with the housing system because the housing system is part of the retirement system.

Tom Connell

But perhaps paying—

Senator Bragg

In Labour's world, it's all, you know—

Tom Connell

Not just about a first homebuyer thing though. Now you might pivot to say paying off your house.

Senator Bragg

We're going to look at all those things.

Tom Connell

Okay.

Senator Bragg

Of course, that's the job of—

Tom Connell

I get the broad, I'm just trying to go specifics.

Senator Bragg

We're well paid to do this sort of policy work. That's what people want us to do.

Tom Connell

All right, look forward to it.

Senator Bragg

Thank you.

Tom Connell

Andrew Bragg, until next time, thank you.

[Ends]

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