Transcript - Press Conference

Senator Bragg

Look, effectively, what was extraordinary at Senate estimates last night was that the government have issued 51,000 guarantees, home guarantees, to non-citizens. So, the Australian 5% deposit scheme was originally designed for low-income earners, Australians. And in 2023 the Government changed the design of the scheme to allow permanent residents to access it. Now, I think a typical Australian would say, "Why are we subsidising 51,000 non-Australians, in an Australian home buyer scheme?" I just think that's absolutely extraordinary, and the Government really should explain what they were thinking when they expanded this program to include non-citizens. I don't believe that Australia should be subsidising foreign citizens to purchase Australian houses. And so that's why we've announced a policy to change that.

The other thing that was extraordinary last night was the statements that the Treasurer made last year after the Economic Roundtable have now fallen into the sand, because the promises that the Government made about a four-year freeze on the National Construction Code, have now been cancelled by Minister Tim Ayres. Tim Ayres told the Senate last night that the four-year freeze was no longer in force and the Government would change the Construction Code as it saw fit. Now, this comes on top of the current proposal to make the National Construction Code even more complex and convoluted. It is illegal to build a cheap house in Australia. It should be legal to build a cheap and inexpensive house, if you want to. One of the reasons the Australian dream is dying is because of all of Labor's ridiculous playing around with the laws and the regulations, which assume that everyone is disabled and everyone wants the most super-duper energy-efficient home. The reality is, for many Australians, that they would just like to purchase a cheap and basic home as an entry level into the housing system, and the fact that we've made that illegal is a national disgrace.

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Journalist

Senator, the other topic, I think last week, Clare O'Neil said that she wasn't hearing from builders that they wanted a roll back of the Construction Code regulations on disability and energy efficiency. Is that what you're hearing from builders?

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Senator Bragg

Well, that is not true, and as I said this week, I think the Minister is struggling to be the Housing Minister. I don't think she knows much about housing, and in terms of the submissions that have been provided to the Senate Committee on Productivity, whether it be the Master Builders, or whether it be the Housing Industry Association - they're all saying this thing is stuffed. This thing is stuffed. It's gone from 200 pages 30 years ago, to 2,000 pages. If you are a home builder here in the capital, Capital Territory, you've got no chance of actually understanding and reading the building code. I can't think of any other industry where a typical operator is not able to understand their own industry's regulations.

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Journalist

How big do you think the building code should be in terms of pages?

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Senator Bragg

We would like to get it to a readable size of a couple of hundred pages, and the Senate will report back in August about how exactly we intend to do that.

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Journalist

Senator, just a short time ago, I understand this is just breaking, um, the Government's tax reform legislation has passed the Lower House unamended. Of course, it is undergoing the Senate inquiry, and then into the Senate. Uh, what's your initial reaction to this? Where to next?

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Senator Bragg

Well, the Government are seeking to pass higher taxes in order to have smaller taxes elsewhere. The reality is that the 30% Capital Gains Tax on everything is going to be a sledgehammer across the economy. And the fact that the Government now have a, as a deliberate design feature, a policy to have fewer houses because of high taxes, actually is insane. So, we need more houses, and the more taxes we have, we'll have fewer houses. So like, our position on this is very clear: we are against the Government's legislation to increase more taxes. And our policy is to have lower taxes through not having their taxes, but also our own policy to combat bracket creep - which is insidious.

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Journalist

Senator, yesterday you said that you wanted to see the Capital Gains Tax discount not only remain at 50%, but to be increased. What impact do you think that would have on affordability, not just on not just on house...

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Senator Bragg

It would increase affordability, and we are committed to affordability in housing. We want to see more houses built because - if you have more houses built, you will have lower prices, by definition. And so, we should be incentivising investment into housing. The idea that there is some investment that is bad, and some that is good - is insane. It shows the brain rot inside the government. They think that it's bad for mums and dads to invest into housing, but it's fantastic if super funds and the government fund invest in housing. So, it doesn't make any sense. We just need to have more investment in housing.

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Journalist

But how would it increase affordability when reducing that discount is lowering the cost of housing, as we're seeing now with, you know, economists forecasting that house prices could fall by up to 10%, as a result of the tax changes...

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Senator Bragg

I don't accept the connection between... I mean, sorry, higher taxes in the Budget is going to result in fewer houses - 35,000 fewer by the Treasurer's own estimates.

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Journalist

But supply and affordability are different, right?

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Senator Bragg

Right. I understand that, but we want to see more houses across the board. So, I don't see why reducing supply can be sustained in any way. And so, we are going to explore avenues to further cut taxes in the housing domain, because we think that lower taxes is what's needed. We think we need a supply-side revolution to get the country to 250,000 houses a year. Under this Government, we've had an average of 170,000 houses a year. This year, we'll be lucky to get 180,000, despite their multi-billion dollar investment that they brag about every day. Just because you spend more money on something, doesn't mean you get more stuff.

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Journalist

Just returning to the Bill, um, in the Senate, I know independent Senator David Pocock has called for the Bill to be split. I know that obviously, the Coalition liked some parts of this Bill, hated other parts of it. Would you like to see, um, as I suppose, the tax cuts in one Bill...

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Senator Bragg

We've tried to do that, but the Government wanted to play politics, and they want to have it all bundled up. That's their political imperative. But we, of course, would have a bigger tax cut for Australians through our tax back guarantee. So, we'd be happy for the Bill to be split. But as you know, the Government, uh, haven't sought to do that.

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Journalist

Would you be willing to work with the Greens to see if you can get any order on, um, their current legislation, in exchange for a longer inquiry on the NDIS changes as well?

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Senator Bragg

Oh, look, I mean, that's a broader judgment for the Shadow Cabinet. But I mean, on principle, I would have thought that the NDIS changes make a lot of sense, uh, and are reasonably urgent. Uh, but they also, by the same token, need to be right. Uh, so I don't think dragging it out forever is necessarily the right approach, because the Budget is absolutely cooked. Secondly, on the tax legislation, uh, it was supposed to report on the 22nd of June, now it will report on the 19th of June. They've truncated it by three days. Uh, less than three weeks is stupid, when you consider that they haven't even defined what a new house is. The Government can't say whether a granny flat is in or out, in terms of the negative gearing arrangements. And so, the Government has given the Treasurer god-like powers. Maybe he has a god-like complex, so he's given himself, um, the appropriate powers. And I think that needs more than a three-week explanation.

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Journalist

Senator, you said that we need, uh, a revolution for housing delivery. Yeah. The Opposition Leader seemingly said that it's more obviously tied to migration. How do you, as a moderate, find that balance? Do you think that we need to tie our housing and migration to the same thing?

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Senator Bragg

Well, we need to build more houses, so we need a supply-side revolution.

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Journalist

But do you want to see it tied together?

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Senator Bragg

Well, I think absolutely it makes sense that you want to be able to house your own citizens and new Australians, and we've been a great migrant nation. But it's a very important part of the Australian compact that we can actually house the people that we want to bring in. And so, for a whole lot of reasons we've discussed in the past, home building is uneconomic because of the regulatory quagmire, because of the CFMEU and all their corrupt, uh, unproductive dynamics, and a number of other factors. So, we need to get home building up so we can house our own people, of course, but also so we can house more new Australians - because we've always been a great migrant nation.

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Journalist

Did you ever get approaches from the Teals to join this party, that they were talking about last week?

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Senator Bragg

No, I'm not sure what party they have. I thought they were independents, which by definition means you can't have a party.

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Journalist

For young Australians looking at the housing market and thinking that the status quo is broken...What can you offer them, you know, by saying that we're going to revert these changes back to the way they were, but we've just got to...

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Senator Bragg

Because we've got to be honest.

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Journalist

But what's actually going to change?

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Senator Bragg

Because as I've said before, leadership is not about making up stuff that sounds good on social media. Leadership is about being honest about the problem. Now, if you change the laws, as the Government is proposing to do on negative gearing and CGT, it won't solve the problem, right? I mean, it won't make a big difference overall. It's still immaterial. So, if you want to solve housing, you've got to build more of them. Like, it is maybe boring, but that is ultimately the task. And if I was the Housing Minister, I would work like hell to get the houses built. Which is why we've already announced the changes to the Construction Code, and we've announced the large infrastructure fund, which I would be ringing everyone in my phone and saying, "How can I get the most houses for this federal investment?" Right? And I would be working like a dog to get the money out the door to stack up the housing. Because we need to have all sorts all forms of houses being built right now in this country. We shouldn't be fussy about what form they come in because we are desperately short of houses.

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Journalist

Senator, just quickly back to, um, the taxes. Angus Taylor this morning reiterated what I think I've heard a couple of times this week...is that the Coalition will work with anyone to, just a quote, "block Labor's toxic taxes". Do you agree with that? Will you work with anyone in the Senate? Uh, I know my colleagues asked about the Greens before on that, on that issue.

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Senator Bragg

Of course, but I mean, ultimately, the numbers are the numbers, and there's not many ways that you can block things, but we will work with any anyone we can to stop these taxes coming into force. And if we win the election, to get rid of them. Okay?

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Journalist

Thanks Senator.

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Senator Bragg

Thanks guys.

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