TRANSCRIPT – ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING

Angie Bell MP
Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education
Shadow Minister for Youth
Federal Member for Moncrieff

TRANSCRIPT

ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING

16 October 2024

Subjects: Prime Minister’s $4.3 million house, cost-of-living, universal child care

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

GREG JENNETT:

Time to bring in our political panel now. From Melbourne Assistant Minister Kate Thwaites is with us once again. Good to see you, Kate. And from the Gold Coast Coalition frontbencher, Angie Bell, welcome to you to Angie, both familiar to the program, but a slightly new combo. I think we’re trying here today.

Why don’t we start out on housing and Kate Thwaites, I’ll go to you first. I’m not sure you could credibly deny, could you, Kate, that the Prime Minister’s purchase with his fiancée of the $4 million dollar property is not a water cooler moment for the nation. It is being discussed widely. Would you acknowledge that?

KATE THWAITES MP:

It is being discussed Greg, but ultimately it is a matter for the Prime Minister and for his fiancée. And I think a lot of Australians do recognise that, that just like other Australians, they have interest in building a future together, and that’s what they’re doing. But what our government, more broadly, what the Prime Minister, what I am focused on, is our efforts to build more houses for more Australians, to get more Australians into their first home with our legislation that is currently stuck in the Senate because the Greens and the Liberals won’t vote for it, the investments we are making through the Housing Australia Future Fund, to build more houses, including right here in my own community, where, together with the Victorian Government, we’re building more than 100 social and community houses at the Belle Bardia Estate in West Heidelberg. This is the work we’re getting on with. I certainly think that’s the conversation that we are having with the country.

GREG JENNETT:

All right Angie Bell, it’s striking as we read some of the backgrounded comments coming from both the caucus and the Coalition side that parallels are being drawn with Prime Minister Morrison’s Hawaii moment. Do you recognise any similarities when it comes to timing and judgment around this purchase?

ANGIE BELL MP:

There is some timing and judgment at stake here by the Prime Minister. We wish him and his fiancée, of course, all the very best, and he’s entitled to a home, but I think it certainly rubs salt into the wound of many Australians at the moment where housing is simply out of their reach, and the great Australian dream of owning a home is gone.

We can look at the numbers Greg, where the loans for purchases and construction are actually at a 15-year low right now, and immigration is up by 60 per cent on pre-covid levels. So that spells disaster for housing for many Australians across the country, and as they struggle to meet their repayments with 12 interest rate increases under this government. It does hurt, that the Prime Minister buying a house worth $4 million… interrupted.

GREG JENNETT:

Does it though Angie? Sorry, yeah go on, finish your point.

ANGIE BELL MP:

I’ll add to that that the Government did promise, 1.2 million homes, and that has halted. That promise is not going to come to fruition, and they would have to build something like one house every two minutes, or 2.2 minutes to actually deliver on that promise. We’re a long way behind when it comes to housing, and this is pretty bad judgment from a Prime Minister.

GREG JENNETT:

I’m sorry to interrupt, but just to pick up on your point, there Angie, a Prime Ministerial purchase, which appears in the plan to come from the sale eventually of an existing property, that doesn’t exactly crowd out the market, does it, in an atmosphere where, as you correctly point out, immigration is running high and building is running slow, it’s a transfer from one to another, isn’t it?

ANGIE BELL MP:

We know that it’s about supply and demand when it comes to housing, and the Government has let too many immigrants into the country. Don’t have anything against immigration. It’s a good thing, but they need to review their policy, and that’s what the Coalition has promised to do, is just slow that down for a while, until construction actually catches up with demand in this country.

Australians need to be able to be housed, and this Government has failed on housing policy.

GREG JENNETT:

All right, Kate, I don’t want to labour the point on this too long. One last one to you on this. Prime Minister Morrison was notoriously secretive. I don’t need to explain in what ways, I think we’re pretty familiar with that. But would it be prudent for leaders in these positions to share, even informally, with colleagues, seeking advice, sharing their intentions to embark on what could become politically controversial, private endeavours, be it a holiday or, in this case, a property purchase?

KATE THWAITES MP:

Look Greg as politicians, I think we put a lot of our lives out there, but people still need to be able to lead their lives. I think that’s what the Prime Minister is doing here. I will pick up on a bit of what Angie said. We did not get to this situation with housing in Australia overnight. This is a decades long issue that has been coming at us, and an issue that was ignored by the Liberal National Party in their 10 years in power. So to hear Angie’s spout of platitudes, when in fact they did not come up with the solutions they did not put in place, the investments we are putting in, the targets we are putting in to drive the supply that we need, that they will not support our legislation before the Senate that would give first home owners, low and middle income Australians their opportunity to buy their first home. What we are getting from those opposite is the usual platitudes, the usual negativity, but no solutions, and their track record has helped to deliver us to where we are right now.

GREG JENNETT:

All right. Well, there we find ourselves in the in the housing debate. Look, I will press on Angie. We want to try and get some child care, which is in your realm. On a related matter of cost-of-living, though you may have had the opportunity to hear some criticism from former ACCC chair, Graham Samuel. The thrust of his argument is that the spate of recent announcements from the government, whether it be supermarket shrinkflation, combating that ticket prices at concerts, debit card surcharges, that they’re very much at the margins, if they do make a difference, those differences won’t come for a couple of years down the line.

Angie, let’s switch the batting order around on that. Do you consider these worthwhile efforts by a government, even if, as Graham Samuel would suggest, they’re at the margins?

ANGIE BELL MP:

Australians know they are paying more now, and prices have increased in an astonishing amount since this Government has come to power. They know that two and a half years ago, they were much better off under a Coalition Government. I mean, our standard of living across the country has dropped by a massive 10 per cent and Australians, as I just pointed out, are really struggling under this Government’s 12 interest rate increases, and it’s because of their big taxing, big spending agenda.

We know that Labor Governments cannot control the economy. It’s only Coalition Governments that can deliver lower prices for all Australians, and they are the big policy settings that this Government has failed to deliver for Australians.

GREG JENNETT:

All right, I’m sure Kate’s going to contest that.

ANGIE BELL MP:

I’m sure.

GREG JENNETT:

…All of those interest rate decisions are the responsibility of government fiscal policy,

ANGIE BELL MP:

Yes, but fiscal policy and monetary policy work together, we know that. And this Government…interrupted.

KATE THWAITES MP:

And this government has delivered two surpluses, which the previous Liberal National government failed to be able to do. If we’re going to talk about government spending… interrupted

ANGIE BELL MP:

Don’t forget COVID in there Kate. COVID was in the middle.

KATE THWAITES MP:

… to deliver surpluses while continuing to provide cost of living relief. We absolutely know Australians are doing it tough at the moment. We are focused on supporting them. Every single cost of living relief measure we have brought to the Parliament, the Liberal and National Party have voted against. So again, I say it is very easy for Angie to come on and spout those platitudes and the usual negativity. But in fact, we did not see surpluses and a strong economic record from the Liberal National Government when they had their decade in power, and now, as our Government does try and provide cost of living relief, every time we come to the Parliament, they vote against it.

GREG JENNETT:

All right, let’s move on to child care, because I know you’re both vitally engaged in policy work in that area, Kate, we’ll go to you on this. Reports emerge that the Government, at least in the background, is workshopping a flat fee model for expanded early childhood education, rather than larger subsidies, albeit means tested ones, as recommended by the Productivity Commission. Why so?

KATE THWAITES MP:

Well, Greg, as we’ve talked about many times, child care has been a huge focus for our Government since we came into power, and that includes our measures that have made child care cheaper for many families around Australia. It includes the work we are doing to pay early educators the wages that they deserve, to recognise the skills they bring. And all of this is to because we recognise that this isn’t just babysitting. This is something that gives our kids the best start in life, and it is also something that helps modern families to engage in both family life and in the workforce. So we’ve hidden nothing about the fact that we are passionate about getting good child care in place in this country, again, an area that in the decade under the Liberals and Nationals, we saw no efforts to do this work, no efforts to make sure that we did have a child care system that we’re setting our young people up for the best possible future. That’s good for them, that’s good for the whole community. As I’ve said many times, it’s good for working women as well, and good for families more broadly. So we will continue doing that work. And we know, again, that those opposite, you know, I have heard reports from the party room of the Liberals that there are those in that party room who do still talk about child care as babysitting. They’re just really out of touch with modern families, modern Australian families, working lives, and how essential this is, and how families are looking for it to work at the highest possible standards, and that’s what we’re doing.

GREG JENNETT:

Well, a recently departed LNP senator, now independent, has certainly expressed that view. I don’t really want you to go there Angie Bell, but on that policy point, you’ve had time to read the Productivity Commission, as we all have now. Angie, do you see a preference in the funding model between flat fees, enhanced subsidies?

ANGIE BELL MP:

Well, this was option C that the Productivity Commission looked at on the Government’s pathway to universal child care, and it was the option that the Productivity Commission did not favour, because it would cost the Australian taxpayer $8.3 billion a year extra, and it would only increase women’s workforce participation by about 7,300 jobs. So, if you do the math on that, it’s an incredibly expensive exercise that would only benefit those families at the very high end of the income scale.

The Productivity Commission said this was not a good idea. Whether the Government’s looking at that because they want that headline, I’m not sure…interrupted

GREG JENNETT:

It sounds like you’re not attracted to it Angie.

ANGIE BELL MP:

Well, this is what the Productivity Commission report outlined Greg, and this is what the Government asked the Productivity Commission to look into, and this was option C, the least preferred option. So, if the government’s looking at this, this is against what they asked the Productivity Commission to actually look into.

I think the big point here is that the government has spent $4.7 billion on extra child care subsidy. It’s spent $3.6 billion on wages for educators, and it hasn’t delivered one new place for regional and rural communities around the country. There are Australian taxpayers out there who want to access child care. Sure, the big platitudes around universal child care, the promises, that’s great, but if you can’t access one place for your child or two places for your children, so that you can go back to work and pay the bills in a cost-of-living crisis and 12 interest rate increases, then there’s no point.

GREG JENNETT:

All right, it’s not my job to pre-empt or summarise arguments that Kate might put in the contrary, I guess the point from their side is probably that this is an evolving piece of work, so watch this space. Unfortunately, Kate, I’m not going to give you the opportunity. Hopefully, that’s an accurate summary of your position. Run out of time, not going to give you a chance to come back at Angie on that. Do appreciate both of you being with us, though.

Thanks so much, and we’ll see you around here before too long.

[ENDS]