TRANSCRIPT – 2CC Breakfast with Stephen Cenatiempo

Angie Bell MP

Shadow Minister for the Environment

Shadow Minister for Youth

Federal Member for Moncrieff

TRANSCRIPT

2CC Breakfast with Stephen Cenatiempo

24 November 2025

Subjects: Newspoll; Youth vote; Labor’s housing failures; Awaiting environment reform amendments from Labor to fix their unworkable legislation; Coalition policy development.

E&OE…………………………………………………………………………………………………

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

Well, it is the last sitting week of the year for the Federal Parliament. The circus is back in town and to talk to us about that amongst other things is the Shadow Minister for the Environment and Shadow Minister for Youth, Angie Bell. Angie, good morning.

ANGIE BELL:

Good morning, Stephen. Great to be with you.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

And to you too. The last sitting week starts with a fairly disastrous news poll again. What do you need to do to turn this around? I see green shoots, but there’s a lot of hard work to be done and I don’t see all of your colleagues doing it.

ANGIE BELL:

Well, I think there certainly is some work to be done. There’s no doubt about that, to earn the trust of the Australian people. But I think Sussan is doing a great job of talking about what is important to Australians, which is energy. And they are really having trouble right now paying their energy bills. I think we’re on the right track. We’ve made some good decisions and we’re all about affordable energy for Australians and doing the right thing responsibly with emissions as well. And so, I think it’s something we can get behind and Sussan’s doing a terrific job. She has my support 100 per cent.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

As the spokesperson for youth, that’s a pretty broad thing. Do you get involved in housing and those kind of things? Because what our youth are worried about, and I guess it depends on how you define youth, is I think we need to be talking about housing affordability too. Energy costs are one thing, and obviously that’s crippling most Australians and particularly Australian businesses. But the next thing is creating an environment where people can vote for the Coalition again because they’re the party of home ownership, for lack of a better way of putting it.

ANGIE BELL:

Well, you’re absolutely right. You’ve hit the nail on the head. Young Australians have given up on home ownership under this government. And have been talking quite broadly about their right to own their own home and the generational inequity that exists for the next generation of young Australians who should be able to buy their own home just like their parents did, and their parents before them did. And so, the Coalition’s working hard on our housing policy and we’ll have more to say about that as we move forward.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

The Government’s going to try this week to rush through this Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which from my understanding is effectively going to duplicate things that happen at a state level already. But there’s been a Senate inquiry on this that has served from a lot of stakeholders suggesting a of amendments, but we’re now only a few days out from the end of the year and you haven’t seen those amendments yet.

ANGIE BELL:

Well, we are offering a constructive way forward with the government, and you’re right, we have put forward the substantive changes that we would like to see, and they’ve been outlined in their many numbers. There’s also a secondary list of concerns that I have delivered to the Minister and so the ball is firmly in the Government’s court. We’re waiting on them to come back to us with their amendments and so I would say that really it’s up to the Government to either rush to failure or to take their time and work through these amendments, so that we can get a good outcome on the other end for productivity, for jobs and of course for the environment.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

Because effectively you’ve only got four days to deal with this. Is that long enough or is this something that should be held over to the new year?

ANGIE BELL:

Well certainly the Senate inquiry is due to report back on the 24th of March and we’ve had three days of inquiry so far and every stakeholder has said that the bills are unworkable the way they are. And so the government needs to come back to the Coalition with their amendments so that we can look at those on their merits and decide whether that would be a good outcome for, as I said, productivity, for jobs, for industry, but also for the environment.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

Angie, I earlier this morning and another old campaigner who I spoke to this morning suggested the same thing, that this can’t be a holiday. If the Coalition wants to get back on a winning footing or at least a footing where they can start to build back, as front benchers, you all need to go away and come up with a policy over the Christmas break and come back hitting the ground running. What’s going to be your focus?

ANGIE BELL:

Well, certainly my focus will be on environmental laws. Obviously, the EPBC right now is my focus. But in the new year, obviously, we’ll be looking at what our policies are as we move towards the election. I’ll be focused on environment and youth which obviously are my portfolios. But, you know, we’re sort of seven months in from an election. It’s a long way to election day. And so my colleagues and I will be working on a suite of policies that will make a difference to Australians who are hurting right now under this government, because every single government policy that they come up with seems to be hurting Australians, particularly when it comes to cost of living, when it comes to housing, when it comes to energy. They’re failing on every measure.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

Having said that, though, when you say it’s a long way to the next election, I mean, we’re talking about two and a half years tops. That’s not a long time in the overall scheme of things.

ANGIE BELL:

Well, certainly there is enough time to make sure that we get our policy settings right and that we deliver policies that really will make a difference to young Australians in particular, as you said, with housing. And I’m certain that will be in the top suite of policies that we deliver. Sussan Ley is already talking about tax cuts. She’s talking about generational inequity, and so we will move forward and put those suite of policies together to present to the Australian people in time for the next election.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

Angie, great to speak to you. Good luck with the last sitting week of the year.

ANGIE BELL:

Thank you so much.

ENDS.