Press conference in Sydney with Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek

SUBJECTS: Home Guarantee Scheme; Help to Buy; Build to Rent; Housing Australia Future Fund; $32 Billion Homes for Australia Plan; Labor's Tax Cuts; Energy Bill Relief; Cheaper Child Care; Aged Care Reforms; NDIS; Energy Transition; Nature Positive Laws.

TANYA PLIBERSEK, MEMBER FOR SYDNEY: Well, welcome everybody to the federal seat of Sydney. It's so wonderful to have the Prime Minister here today and to have the Housing Minister, Clare O'Neil, here. We've been having a lovely time with Codie, hearing about her exciting journey to home ownership. When my parents came to Australia in the 1950s they came with nothing, and one of the first things they wanted to do was buy a home of their own. Because they know that when you have your own home, it provides a level of certainty, a level of security and a level of confidence that is so important to establishing yourself and raising a family. And what they did, ordinary people saving up for an ordinary home - that's really what Labor wants to be possible for every Australian. An ordinary person with an ordinary job should be able to afford an ordinary home of their own, whether to rent or to buy. Clare's working on a whole range of housing policies, from homelessness, to long term rental and in this case, home ownership, which is such an important foundation for society. Codie, we're so pleased that you've been able to achieve this dream of yours because it really sets you up so well for the future. And I'm so glad you've chosen the federal electorate of Sydney to live in.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Well thanks very much, Tanya, and it's great to be here in Rosebery, and I do want to give Codie a big thank you for welcoming us into her new home. It's a beautiful home in a great location. Codie is able to live close to her parents, and her brother is just around the corner, and that is what we want to see. So many Australians, of course, have the dream of home ownership. We want that dream to become a reality, which is why we want the Senate today to pass our Help to Buy legislation. Now, Codie’s been helped into this program through the Home Guarantee Scheme. She's one of 120,000 people who've been helped in the home ownership under that scheme since we came to office. Double what those people who were helped into home ownership under the Morrison Government under this scheme. The fact of the 5 per cent deposit made it possible for Codie to make that leap from renting into home ownership and to have that security of knowing that the roof over her head is something that she owns. But we want more Australians to have access to home ownership, which is why the shared equity scheme, through the Help to Buy legislation that's before the Senate today, that's been held up now for over 200 days, needs to be passed today. The key to fixing housing issues in this country is housing supply. So what we have is a three pronged approach. Home ownership through programs like this one and the Help to Buy Scheme. More private rentals through our Build to Rent Scheme that has been blocked also by the Coalition of the Greens, the Liberal Party and the National Party in the Senate. Something that will provide for more private rentals and a tax incentive for the private sector to invest there. And of course, our Housing Australia Future Fund, that was also held up, where we announced just yesterday, the first instalment of 13,700 homes that are either social housing or affordable housing. That should have been the second or third tranche of that announcement, had it not been held up for so long by the Senate. Now we want the Senate to pass this legislation, because it will assist more people like Codie into home ownership. This is a practical plan, a shared equity scheme that is actually a Greens Party policy and that has been supported by the Coalition in other states, including WA where it's operated successfully for decades. We think that it's time that the Senate stopped with their nonsense of trying to connect other things with legislation, and actually passed it in order to support home ownership. So more home ownership, more private rentals, more social housing, all part of our $32 billion Homes for Australia Plan that is being led by the Minister, who I'll ask to make some comments now before we take questions.

CLARE O’NEIL, MINISTER FOR HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS: Thank you, PM, and I really want to thank Codie for having us in her beautiful new home. She makes a really mean cup of tea, and I can say that the PM, and Minister Plibersek and I were just overwhelmed to hear this amazing story about a young person living in our country who’s I think, you told us Codie, you had to move seven times in five years, we don’t want that for Australians. What we want to see is people like Codie get in to home ownership, and that is our aspiration for this country. Now, we have a piece of legislation before the Senate today. It may get voted on today, and I really want to make sure Australians understand that as it stands, the Coalition and the Greens are teaming up to prevent child care workers and paramedics in our country from getting access to home ownership, and they need to be held accountable for that. This scheme is a 40,000 place scheme which will allow people on low and middle incomes to get into the housing market when they would otherwise have Buckley's chance of doing it on their own. Now who could argue with such a scheme? I think if I went out to the people in the suburbs around where we are right now and talk to them, they'd say this is exactly what they want their government to be doing in the middle of a housing crisis, but we've got the Coalition and the Greens teaming up to stop child care workers from getting access to home ownership. It is an absolute disgrace. Now we want the Coalition and the Greens to come into the Senate and do their jobs and to vote this into law. We know it's good law. We know it's going to make a difference. And in fact, the Greens already have this as part of their party platform. In a sense with housing, we don't expect much better from the Coalition. For most of the decade that the Coalition were previously in office, they didn't even have a Commonwealth Housing Minister. They had completely tapped out of the Commonwealth's role in housing, and that of course, has changed with our government and our $32 billion commitment to trying to provide better housing options for Australians. With the Greens, I have to say that, you know, we have to call this what it is, and that is absolute rank hypocrisy. For two years the Greens have run around the country behind crocodile tears for people who can't get into home ownership, and then when they have the chance to do something about it and work with the Labor Government to support low and middle income Australians into home ownership, they're going to say no, they're going to stand in the path of us actually taking action. Now this attitude of politics first, second and third is not the way for us to help deal with this crisis facing our country. What we need is, for once, the Greens and the Liberals to put politics to the side and help us make progress on the aspiration Australians have to own their own home. 

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, you address the Business Council of Australia tonight. We’ve had a per capita recession for six quarters, 1200 Australian businesses were forced to close their doors this month alone. At a time business is on its knees because of high interest rates and wages are growing because of a labour shortage anyway, is it really the time to be hitting businesses with your wave of IR reforms, increasing red tape, and requirements on business?

PRIME MINISTER: Let's be very clear, those reforms have passed, and under those reforms, this Thursday, two days’ time, the clock's ticking on whether we will reach 1 million new jobs being created since we're elected the government. So what we're seeing is more jobs being created. We are seeing higher wages, we're seeing continued growth, we're seeing a continued rise in business investment - we're seeing all of those factors. My Government has a responsibility to keep that downward pressure on inflation. We have halved inflation since we've come to office, but without punishing people on the way through, whilst making sure that cost of living measures continue to be addressed.

JOURNALIST: Is the economy in trouble though?

PRIME MINISTER: We're continuing to see an economy that grows. We have delivered tax cuts for every taxpayer, not just some. We've delivered energy price relief for every household. We're delivering on major reform. I note, the BCA has five things that they've put forward tonight in their advanced speech that they've dropped out. One of those is housing. We're here today talking about housing. The second is cost of living. We're providing that cost of living support. The third is the care economy. What we have there is cheaper child care, that we've delivered. The biggest aged care reforms in a generation, that we are delivering. Reform of the NDIS, that we are delivering as well. So that's the third element. The fourth is Net Zero, something that we agree with. We've got a 43 per cent target. We're working with business. We're seeing the investment in renewables and in storage to deliver on that transition to net zero by 2050. And a skilled workforce - we've delivered over half a million Fee Free TAFE places. We have our Universities Accord, so we're delivering in terms of the skilled workforce as well. So one of the things that I noticed from the BCA’s list of five priorities is that they're my Government's priorities as well. And that's a good thing, that we're in sync on what the priorities are, as well as addressing the challenges.

JOURNALIST: The Premier of New South Wales, Chris Minns, said yesterday that the New South Wales local government elections were a wake-up call for the major parties. He said households and families under pressure have moved away from Labor. There's an argument that you're not very good at selling what you're doing, so here's an opportunity. The ten second television news pitch, why should people back Labor to get them through this crisis, compared with the other mob given we’re months away from an election? Just the quick pitch.

PRIME MINISTER: Because we've halved inflation while dealing with cost of living pressures, while creating, on our watch, a million jobs. We are making sure that Australians are looked after at what are difficult global economic times.

JOURNALIST: What will you do if your housing bills are blocked? What's plan B?

PRIME MINISTER: We will continue to advocate for this. The Greens and the Liberals and the Nationals have to decide whether they are just blockers or whether they're looking for a solution. And we're at the stage in the political cycle, after two and a half years, where increasingly, it would appear that the Coalition and the Greens are teaming up together to block things that are just common sense reforms. That if you ask them in isolation, is this a good reform or not? They will answer yes. Well if it's good reform, they should vote for it. If not, they'll be judged for just playing politics rather than looking for the solutions that are required.

JOURNALIST: Just on that same subject, what's the purpose of putting the housing bills to the Senate if no one's moving, and is it possible that you're trying to set up a Double Dissolution trigger?

PRIME MINISTER: Well it’s called a democracy. We have legislation. We support it. There's no one putting forward a rational argument of why they shouldn't vote for it. In some cases, it's just immaturity and spite from the Greens spokesperson who says he supports more housing, but never will vote for it. And in the Liberals and Nationals case, they're just blockers. They've never been very good on housing, as the Housing Minister has just pointed out, Minister O'Neil, they didn't have a Housing Minister for a whole lot of their time in government. They gutted support for social housing, they’re opposing built to rent. The Greens argument there is that if you build to rent, then it will help developers. Well I’ll give the Greens the big tip, these places behind us were not built by single tradies, they were built by developers, and that is what we need in terms of housing supply.

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, Bill Kelty has reportedly said there's not enough imagination in your Government. You've got polls showing your Government at risk of losing. Certainly all of them indicate you'll lose your majority. It does feel a bit like the political strategy is hope and wait for a rate cut and you can't get this housing agenda through the Senate. So do you fear a hung parliament where it would be even harder to get anything through?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, I don't accept the premise, because every indication is certainly not that. I'm very confident that when Australians focus on what the next term is about a Government that's making a difference to the economy, a Government that wants an economy to work for people, not the other way around, a Government that's seen a million jobs created on our watch at the same time as there’s those global pressures, are there. That's halved inflation. That has Fee-Free TAFE, cheaper child care, that's reforming the NDIS, aged care, that's making a difference on the shift to net zero, and that's restored our international relationships and restored respect – that we will receive support at the next election. That's what my focus is on. And I note that during these difficult economic times when we've seen economies like the UK, Japan and New Zealand go into recession, what we've done is manage to keep the economy in the black to deliver not one but two budget surpluses at the same time as we're providing support for that social agenda and that cost of living support.

JOURNALIST: Do you expect a rate cut before the election?

PRIME MINISTER: I don't comment on the responsibilities of the Reserve Bank. What our job is to do, is to deal with that downward pressure on inflation, and I note that we've halved it.

JOURNALIST: Just on another matter, should heads roll at the ABC over a new story on the former commander Heston Russell that had doctor audio?

PRIME MINISTER: The ABC should continue to be independent of political interference.

JOURNALIST: You're travelling to the Quad meeting in Delaware this week. Why have this meeting when the current President is departing and the Japanese Prime Minister's departing, and you've essentially got a couple of lame ducks there?

PRIME MINISTER: The Quad is an important body. It is important that the Quad continue to meet. This will be the third meeting of the Quad that I've attended as Prime Minister. The relationship between the United States, India and Japan is an important one, and us gathering together to reaffirm that is important. I look forward –

JOURNALIST: Two of them will be gone soon, Prime Minister.

PRIME MINISTER: I look forward to meeting with President Biden in Delaware, his home state, of course. And it will be an important meeting. The relationship with the United States has never been more important. We'll be discussing the implementation of the AUKUS arrangements. And with India, of course, I spoke with Prime Minister Modi on the phone just a couple of weeks ago. He's very much looking forward to the engagement. India will grow to be the third largest economy in the world, and it will happen sooner than people envisage. When you look at the growth, it's the fastest growing economy in the world as the world's largest democracy. It's an important relationship. And of course, the relationship with Japan goes beyond a relationship between just individuals. So between myself and Prime Minister Kishida, as important as that relationship has been, he will be – there'll be a new leader of the LDP next week – so it will be the final meeting that we have. It'll be an opportunity for us to thank him as well for the building of the relationship. If you look at the relationship, not just in the economy and trade, but in defence and other areas as well, the relationship with Japan has never been stronger.

JOURNALIST: Your Climate Minister has contributed to you on whether you would do a deal with Greens in order to get a climate trigger or climate considerations into the EPA bill. Are you ruling out any kind of deal with the Greens on that legislation?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, the Greens should vote for the legislation. And the Climate Minister, Chris Bowen, supports the legislation. It's actually the Environment Minister who has carriage of it. We support the legislation. The Greens, just like on housing on – do they support an EPA? They've said that they supported it. So has the Coalition. So has industry. So have environmental groups. They should get on with voting for it.

JOURNALIST: Have you overruled the Minister? Because even with me, she didn't rule out the climate trigger being part of negotiations.

PRIME MINISTER: We have legislation before the Parliament. What we won't be doing is including a – I've seen the comments of the Minister. What the Minister referred to was the safeguard mechanism. That's what we have. We won't be inserting a climate change trigger into the legislation, because that is not what the legislation is about. The climate change trigger is something that – the Greens want to attack things to give them an excuse to vote against things. Now there's three pieces of legislation before the Senate. There is the housing legislation, there's environmental legislation, and there's legislation on the Future Made in Australia. Now, on all of those three things the Greens and the Coalition are blocking. Labor is the builders, we’re the reformers, we’re the political party that's getting things done. If the Greens and the Liberals and the Nationals in their new no-alition want to continue to vote against legislation, that will be a matter for them.

JOURNALIST: Would you consider a Double Dissolution, back to this question?

PRIME MINISTER: The Greens, of course – in 2009 everybody remembers when the Greens blocked climate legislation. They blocked the CPRS because, at a similar time in the cycle, they decided that they were just going to be blockers.

JOURNALIST: You could go to a DD though. You probably won’t go to a DD because it wouldn’t be a great result for you, would it?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, we’ll wait and see. We leave. It's up to – I’ll tell you a way to avoid a DD. It's for the Coalition and the Greens to vote for legislation that they support. There's nothing in the legislation on the Nature Positive Act that they say they're opposed to. So why would you vote against it? Why would you vote against legislation where there isn't any disagreement with the merits of that legislation going forward? That's a matter for the Greens and the Coalition.

JOURNALIST: A question for the Minister, if I may, Tanya Plibersek. Have you or your office ever had discussions with the Greens or crossbenchers about inserting a climate trigger into that environment legislation?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, first of all, I don't conduct negotiations through the media, but just on this issue of getting our laws through, the Prime Minister's quite right. This bill stands on its own. It's gone through the House of Representatives unamended because the legislation is good legislation. There's something here for people who want to see better, stronger protections for nature, and there's something here for people who want to see faster, clearer decisions for business.

JOURNALIST: Has the Prime Minister told you not to put a trigger in there?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, don't let me interrupt your questions with my answers. The legislation stands on its own. The Senate should support it. Of course, I've said all the way through that we are open to sensible suggestions, and so far, unfortunately, we don't have the agreement of the Liberals, the Nationals or the Greens to back legislation that has measures in it that they've previously welcomed and supported. I'll keep my door open. If we can get some sensible suggestions, I'll be happy to listen to them.

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, you mentioned the Housing Australia Future Fund. But just 5 per cent of those housing projects have been completed. Firstly, is there any scope to speed that process up? And secondly, how do you reconcile that with the fact that last year 24,000 homes in Sydney were derelict?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, that's the sort of argument that's put by our friends in the Greens. There's two different policies put forward. One is – the Housing Australia Future Fund would have been more advanced if people had voted for it. They ended up voting for it. They blocked and they had all this rhetoric out there, and then they voted for it. And I think similarly to this legislation, be it the Help to Buy legislation, the Nature Positive leg, a Future Made in Australia – the Greens and the Coalition are refusing to say they'll vote for that. Like, if they want to vote against making things here in Australia, then let them put that argument of why. But don't let the argument be attaching some obscure amendment about something that's nothing to do with the legislation, and therefore saying “you won't support our amendment, that's why we're voting against the leg.” We will put legislation to the Parliament. We're always open of course, to sensible discussions and amendments are put forward and voted on on their merits. But what we won't do is undermine our own legislation with amendments when it stands on its merits and when in the case of those three pieces of legislation – Help to Buy, Nature Positive and a Future Made in Australia – everyone in the Parliament says they support the framework and the objective of that legislation. It's as simple as that. Now with regard to the Social Housing Accelerator, if you have a look at my social media there’s a place I was at in Canada Bay, where we were fixing up public housing. Right around the country, the Social Housing Accelerator, which was $2 billion we forwarded to state and territory governments last June – that is 16 months ago – is about making sure that houses which weren't occupied because they were unlivable, are made liveable. That we put people in them, and that is what we have been doing. Here in New South Wales, there were less public housing dwellings at the end of 12 years of Coalition Government than there was at the beginning. Now, that is a disgrace. It’s an indictment. In Tanya’s electorate, here of Sydney, the flogging off of housing in Miller’s Point and the Rocks and those communities where money was going to be put back into public housing and it just didn’t happen. It went missing on the way through. Now, that is a disgrace. I actually think that public housing is okay to be in nice areas like Miller's Point. I think that was a disgrace. I campaigned against it, so did the Member for Sydney, and I'm sure if Claire O'Neil was the Housing Minister at that time she would have as well.

JOURNALIST: Just on your point about making unliveable housing liveable, why were there 24,000 homes vacant?

PRIME MINISTER: Because the Liberals didn't put any money into public housing. The State Liberal Government had less public housing at the end of 12 years of Government than they did at the beginning, and they left places that were derelict. I've been to many of them with Premier Minns. I've been to them in the Hurstville area. I've been to them in Canada Bay. I've been to them in my local community as well. They left them to be derelict. They didn't invest in social housing. My Government is getting on with that. We have a specific program through the Social Housing Accelerator, $2 billion of our $32 billion plan to make sure that is looked after.

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, you say you’ve halved inflation, but hasn’t the Reserve Bank done the heavy lifting on that and do you accept that interest rates are where they need to be at the moment?

PRIME MINISTER: Two surpluses, Andrew. Two surpluses. Two more. Give you a really easy figure to remember – the number of surpluses under the former Government – zero. We've delivered two surpluses, making a difference. Thanks very much.