Press conference, Melbourne

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Well, thanks everyone for coming along on a glorious Melbourne morning. It's as if we've got something to celebrate, and we do have something to celebrate. Today I'm very pleased to announce that the Federal Government has granted environmental approval for a major new housing development here adjacent to the historic Queen Victoria Markets, and we have also imposed a number of conditions on that development to preserve the vital heritage characteristics of this really important site. I think all Australians, let alone everyone in Melbourne, understands how important and loved the Queen Victoria Markets and its precinct are, and it's very exciting that Lendlease have put forward a proposal to build more accommodation to deal with the real pressures that renters and young people especially are facing getting into the housing market, but as I say, what we're also doing through this approval is preserving the important heritage values of this site.

In short, today's announcement is a win for heritage, and it's a win for housing right here in Melbourne's CBD. Just to give you a couple of quick facts about this development, and others know this better than me and will be able to elaborate, but this development will provide housing for up to 3,700 people, it will revitalise the Queen Victoria Market precinct, as you can see from those drawings, turning a carpark that, let's face it, isn't the most pretty site in the world, into an incredible new park for the people of Melbourne when they arrive while preserving the car parking facilities that are needed for this busy site, and it will also preserve the heritage values, as I say, of this site, including the restoration of the Franklin Street stores that you can see just behind you there. The development will involve two residential towers, one student accommodation tower, a low rise civic building and all up over 2,200 apartments to accommodate, as I say, up to around 3,700 people.

There has been a lot of work done between my Department and Lendlease, and I thank Lendlease for their efforts in that regard, to preserve the heritage values, as I was saying. And some of the conditions that we've imposed on the development which Lendlease finds acceptable as well to allow the development to go ahead, is that there will be restrictions on the encroachment of the development into the heritage area. Of course, we want to make sure that the heritage values are preserved without buildings boxing them in too much or encroaching on that heritage site. As a result of the changes that we've talked through with Lendlease, it's actually increased the number of housing, number of apartments in this development, which is fabulous to provide that at a time when people need housing, and there are also conditions regarding the restoration and removal of canopies of the Franklin Street stores.

So as I say, I think this is a terrific outcome for the people of Melbourne in getting the balance right between preserving heritage values while recognising the very real needs of housing in Melbourne, and to elaborate more on the housing benefits of this proposal, I'd like to introduce my colleague, Clare O'Neil.

CLARE O'NEIL, MINISTER FOR HOUSING: Well, Murray, it's so great to have you in the most beautiful city in the world. This is a great day for Melbourne, and it's a great day for the housing challenge confronting our country. We've got a housing crisis in Australia because for 40 years we have not been building enough homes, and one of the most important things that we need to do as a country to make sure that young people have better housing opportunities is build, build, build, and that's what we're seeing happen today. Now, we have as a government taken the Commonwealth from being really a negligent bystander on the housing problem for the decade preceding our government being elected, to becoming easily the boldest and most ambitious Australian Government on housing that our country has seen since the post‑war period. We have got a $43 billion package, and the majority of that funding is going towards the building of more homes for Australians. We've got an Economic Reform Roundtable coming up, which is going to be a really important next chapter in our government's story of trying to transform Australia's housing market.

It is too hard to build a house in our country today. I spoke to a builder on site a couple of days ago who said to me, you know, "Clare, the really hard thing about building back in the day used to be actually building a house; today it's the bureaucracy and the red tape and the delays". I want builders to be out on site building the housing Australians desperately need and not sitting in the back office filling in forms. Now there is a lot to that problem. One of the things that makes housing a big challenge for our country is that it is shared across the three levels of government. And I might just point out today we've got a Commonwealth Government that's pro housing, we've a State Government in Victoria that's pro housing, and we've got a local Council here in the City of Melbourne that is pro housing, and that is why we are seeing the great successes like we're announcing today. Now the Economic Reform Roundtable is going to look at a whole bunch of things, but what I am really pushing the participants

NICHOLAS REECE, LORD MAYOR CITY OF MELBOURNE: Thank you. Can I begin by thanking Minister Murray Watt and Minister Clare O'Neil for their attention to detail and for the decision that they've made on this project.

This is a great day for Melbourne, this is a win for affordable housing in the right locations in our city and it's a win for the Queen Victoria Market. This decision will allow ‑

[Dogs barking]

SPEAKER: They're excited too.

NICHOLAS REECE: Even the dogs are happy. This decision allows the City of Melbourne and Lendlease to press on with this vital new housing project and allows the City of Melbourne to press on with the new Market Square. Not only will this project deliver 2,200 plus new dwellings for Melbourne in the midst of a housing crisis, but also allows the City of Melbourne to get on with converting what is currently an ugly carpark into a beautiful new park for our city. Market Square will be the biggest new park in Melbourne since Federation Square more than 20 years ago. It will be a wonderful gathering place for the people of our city, it will be the place that people go on big occasions, it's a place they'll go to recreate, to celebrate and to enjoy all the good things about Melbourne. Melbourne is in the middle of a housing crisis, we desperately need new homes. This project will deliver thousands of quality affordable homes in an ideal location. It's in the inner city where there are plenty of services and amenity available. As Lord Mayor, I couldn't be happier.

MIKE ZORBAS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE PROPERTY COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA: Mike Zorbas, I'm the CEO of the Property Council of Australia, and I want to say a couple of things about this development. This is a beautiful piece of [inaudible]. It's a remarkable partnership between three levels of government, and I want to congratulate the Federal Government, the State Government and of course the Lord Mayor for working so thoughtfully [inaudible] on this wonderful site. And I do particularly want to pay respect to Lendlease and Scape for the work they've done here, you won't see a finer piece of place making; a beautiful park in the space, which has so been underutilised, which now can contribute to closing the gap with the housing supply issues that we have in this country, so that's a really wonderful thing to see [inaudible] occurring over the course of the project.

TOM MACKELLAR, CEO OF DEVELOPMENT LENDLEASE: Tom Mackeller, CEO of Development for Lendlease. First of all, we'd like to thank Minister Watt and Minister O'Neil for this approval. We're delighted to be restoring this very iconic piece of Melbourne and preserving the heritage aspects of this important piece of the city whilst delivering much needed housing for the City of Melbourne. We're keen to get on and start delivering these houses, and we should be up and running over the next 12 months. Thank you.

JOURNALIST: I have some questions on the roundtable. Will you be taking Treasury's recommendations and pausing the National Construction Code, and if so for how long?

CLARE O'NEIL: The Economic Reform Roundtable that's coming up next week is going to be a really important opportunity for the country to come together again and look at what might be the next wave of reforms to help us tackle the very deep housing challenges that Australia is facing. One of the main things that I am pushing the roundtable to think about is the significant issues that builders face today with red tape and regulation. I'm not someone who would normally come to a problem like this assuming that regulation is a bad thing, but I'm telling you I've looked at this myself, and we have made it incredibly difficult for builders to do what they do best, which is build fantastic quality housing for Australians.

So the National Construction Code I'm sure will be a part of that conversation, but I don't want to pre‑empt what the roundtable may come up with. What I can tell is that we are a pro housing government. We are the first Commonwealth Government since the Second World War to seriously step in to the mainstream housing market in our country and ask what we can do as a Commonwealth to make that market function more effectively, and the roundtable's going to progress that discussion for us.

JOURNALIST: When the Coalition proposed that change, Labor didn't agree with it, what's changed since then?

CLARE O'NEIL: So, again, I'm not going to pre‑empt the conversation that will happen at the roundtable, the roundtable is a week away, and the National Construction Code is one of a whole bunch of different things that I think are going to be under discussion here, so I'll probably have a little bit to say about that after that conversation [inaudible].

JOURNALIST: So, how productive is it to have a roundtable when a list of potential outcomes has already been presented to Cabinet?

CLARE O'NEIL: This roundtable's going to be a really important opportunity for us to bring experts around the country together to find consensus on some of the things that are the biggest problems facing the country. And if I can say with housing, you know, the word productivity might sound a bit airy fairy, this is where the rubber hits the road for millions of people around our country. The productivity challenges facing us in housing are the reason why many people around our country are paying too much rent, why house prices are rising too quickly and why in fact we have this growing problem of homelessness that's visible right around our suburbs. So I'm really looking forward to hearing what the roundtable has to say, not just on the issue of red tape and regulation, and of course we're sharing ideas with the people who are at the roundtable, but this is a serious delivery of exercise and that's why I won't be commenting on the outcomes until they've actually talked it through and made some decisions.

JOURNALIST: On the roundtable, is it just a talk fest considering there's been a pre‑written list of responses?

MURRAY WATT: No, absolutely not. As Clare has made clear, we are interested in bringing together a wide range of perspectives to help provide advice to government about some of the major challenges Australia faces. I've seen the reports this morning about a list of suggestions from Treasury. You will have seen that in the course of this roundtable, any number of groups have made suggestions to government about things that could be achieved, so we'll always listen to advice, whether it be from Treasury, from the private sector, from environmental groups, as we work to solve the challenges the nation faces.

JOURNALIST: One of those items is a national AI plan to help manage environmental approvals. What is that?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah. So you would be aware that I'm leading the work for the Government now in the reform of our environmental laws, and the processes that we have in place for the approval of developments, whether they be housing, renewable energy or other industrial development, aren't working at the moment; they're not working for business, they're not working for the environment, and that's why we're seeking to reform those laws. In addition, we are examining all sorts of ways that internally we can improve the processing of applications for development. Every business, every government department in Australia is looking at how it can use AI, technology, and other improvements to upgrade their processes, and we will continue to look at those sorts of options as well.

JOURNALIST: So, what kind of environmental reforms are we talking about here?

MURRAY WATT: Well, if you go back to the review that Graeme Samuel conducted of our Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act nearly five years ago when Sussan Ley was the Federal Environment Minister, he made the point that, as I say, our environmental laws are broken, and they're not working for business and they're not working for the environment. They're holding up development unnecessarily, and they're also allowing environmental construction to continue occurring at a rate that is simply unsustainable. So what we're doing is working again with a very wide range number of groups ‑ I was in Perth earlier this week, I'll be having further discussions over the course of this week with industry groups, with environmental groups, with everyone who's got a view about this, about how we can improve our environmental laws to provide stronger environmental protections than what we have at the moment to deliver quicker and more efficient approvals, and to have greater transparency in the system, and I'm very hopeful that we will be able to deliver on those reforms.

JOURNALIST: How much pressure is there on the Government to fix the country's productivity problems?

MURRAY WATT: Look, I think whether it be the Prime Minister, the Treasurer or every Minister in our Government, we have acknowledged that Australia's productivity level has been too low for too long. This is not a new problem, we've had productivity at ridiculously low levels for 20 years. If you look at the decade leading into us coming into power, we recorded as a country the lowest productivity growth that we had seen over the decade for 60 years. So, this has been a big problem that Australia's been facing. As a Labor Government we acknowledge that lifting productivity is key to lifting people's living standards, and that's why we've already undertaken a range of reforms led by the Treasurer to lift our productivity growth, and that's why we want to hear from people over the course of the Economic Roundtable about what more we can be doing.

I was expecting a question on the plastics treaty, do you mind if I just say something on that as well? There's some interest in that as well. You may be aware right now in Geneva negotiations are underway for a Global Plastics Treaty to try to reduce the incredible pollution we are seeing from plastics right around the world. Just to provide an update on this, I think it's widely known that Australia is part of what's known as the High Ambition Coalition of around 100 countries who are seeking strong, binding global rules around plastics, whether it be the design of plastics or how they are released and recycled. Overnight we have made clear that we will not be supporting the draft treaty that has been presented because simply it is too weak. We're in this to actually make a difference when it comes to plastic pollution. There are around 100 other countries around the world who want to do the same thing. Negotiations are continuing, and we will continue advancing a strong agenda to reduce plastic pollution.

JOURNALIST: What will you do to talk around those countries that are opposing this, like Saudi Arabia?

MURRAY WATT: Well, there are intensive negotiations underway as we speak, and we are, as I say, along with about 100 other countries doing as much arm twisting, negotiating and cajoling as we can possibly do with the relatively small number of countries who are opposing strong action. We'll have to wait and see how those negotiations go, but we will continue fighting for that as long as the negotiations continue.

JOURNALIST: Just on the small number of countries, but they're powerful countries, how do you do that?

MURRAY WATT: It's one of the things about the international system, is that you need to work with everyone, whether they share your views or they don't share your views, and I'm proud of the fact that Australia under the Albanese Government is taking a strong position when it comes to global binding rules around plastics. There are a vast number of other countries who share that view, and collectively we will continue putting pressure on those countries who don't support that.