Press conference, Canberra

an announcement that will make planning approvals that much quicker and that much more certain for both business and environment interests so that areas like this can be developed in a way that's environmentally sensitive but delivers on our commitments to deliver affordable housing across Australia. And without any further ado, I'll pass to my friend, Murray Watt.

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Thanks very much, Dave. It's terrific to join you in your electorate, and I know you're such a hard-working member here in the western south of the ACTU- of the ACT even, the former portfolio coming up. Also, of course, terrific to join my friend and colleague Clare O'Neil, who's been doing a mountain of work to deliver the homes that Australians need, whether it be here in the ACT or further afield.

Now, as you can see here in the suburb of Whitlam, there are new homes going up as far as the eye can see. And that's something that this Budget is very focused on making sure that we deliver right across the country. Delivering more housing is a key focus for this year's Budget, and that's why you saw Clare and the Treasurer Jim Chalmers out yesterday committing an extra $2 billion towards essential infrastructure.

And it's why today we're announcing that this year's Budget will contain over $500 million over the next four years to get on with the work of delivering our historic environmental law reforms that were delivered last year. Last year after a very long battle, we saw the Parliament pass historic reforms to our national environmental laws and that was badly needed, because the laws as they currently stand have been tying up housing projects, energy projects and other important projects that we need in unnecessary red tape while also not doing enough to protect the environment.

That's what those reforms that we passed last year were about, was delivering stronger environmental protections and also the faster and simpler assessment and approvals that we need to get the homes, energy projects and other projects that the country needs. And now, in this year's Budget, we're putting those laws to work by dedicating over $500 million towards things like greater use of AI when it comes to assessments of projects, towards streamlined pathways for getting those projects up and running much more quickly, and for reaching agreements with states and territories which remove the duplication in the current system that sees requirements for assessments and approvals at a state level and then to be duplicated at a federal level as well.

So what we want to do through these environmental law reforms is deliver the housing that Australians desperately need much more quickly than what we've seen in the past, and that of course comes on top of the other measures that Clare and my colleagues have announced over the course of the run up to this Budget. I'll hand over to Clare, and then we're happy to take any questions.

CLARE O’NEIL, MINISTER FOR HOUSING, HOMELESSNESS AND CITIES: Thanks so much, Murray. We've got a housing challenge in our country that's been building for 40 years. And while it's complicated and there are lots of different reasons for it, there is one thing that matters more than any other, and that is building more homes.

We have not been building enough homes in this country for 40 years, and when you look at all of the challenge that housing is pushing onto Australians today, whether it's house prices rising too quickly, rents going up too fast or that increasing number of Australians who are actually falling out of the bottom of the market altogether into homelessness, the single answer for them is we've got to build more homes, because more housing means more affordable homes for Australians.

Our government is shamelessly pro-supply, and the reforms that Murray Watt is announcing today are an integral part of our approach to dealing with this issue. When I talk to builders about what's stopping them from getting the homes built that we need, they usually pick up on one point, and that is red tape and regulation. They are spending far too much time in the back office filling in forms, dealing with certifications, when we actually want them out on the site building the homes that our country needs.

And the reforms being announced today will help us do that. One of the most important roles that the Commonwealth has in the red tape and regulation problem is the EPBC Act that Minister Watt is responsible for. Now, Murray has done an amazing job in working through the Parliament the biggest reforms to that legislation that our country has seen in decades.

Everyone involved in this debate knew that those laws weren't working. They weren't working for the environment and they weren't working to help us build the homes that we need. Well, Murray got it done through the Parliament, and today he's coming forward with a set of funding opportunities that will make sure that we take that new legislative regime and convert it into faster outcomes and decisions for home builders across the country.

This of course comes in lockstep with the announcement that I made yesterday with Jim Chalmers – $2 billion to build 65,000 desperately needed homes for Australians right across the country. Our government is fiercely and shamelessly pro-supply. We are building more homes, we're getting renters a better deal, and we're getting more Australians into home ownership, and today's announcement will be a pivotal part of that.

JOURNALIST: Minister O'Neil, how confident are you that this budget that comes out tomorrow will address the housing shortfall and will ensure your government meets its targets? CLARE O’NEIL: Housing is a really big and difficult problem that's been confronting our country really for a 40-year period. We are, without question, the boldest and most ambitious housing government our country has seen for 70 years, and we will build on that in the Budget released tomorrow.

Now, housing is not one problem confronting the country, it is many problems that are inextricably wound up together. What you've seen our government do is get elected in 2022 with a clear platform to address the housing challenges confronting the country, and every budget and every election and every MYEFO we take the next set of problems, crack them off and solve them for the country.

Now. we are making a stack of progress. Remember, the 5 per cent deposit program has already got almost a quarter of a million Australians into their own home. We're building 55,000 social and affordable homes and on the pathway to getting the country building the homes it needs.

But we recognise there is a lot further to go, and that's where the next budget will come in. JOURNALIST: Are there a few more surprises that we might see in tomorrow's Budget? I know you can't tell us too much.

CLARE O’NEIL: Well, I can't foreshadow of course what's in the Budget tomorrow, but we've just got one more sleep to go. And I know everyone's waiting to get the detail. JOURNALIST: I had a question for Minister Watt, actually.

Not related to the Budget, but the hantavirus happening obviously. Can you walk us through what's happening with the Australians, I guess, where they're from and what happens now? MURRAY WATT: Yeah, so the latest information that I have is that we are repatriating four Australians, one resident of Tenerife and one resident of New Zealand as part of this exercise.

This is being done via an Australian Government-supported flight, and we expect those people to return to Australia soon. Of course, quarantine arrangements need to be put in place both to protect those individuals and also to protect the wider population. Those quarantine arrangements are being finalised as we speak with the states and territories.

This has obviously been a fast-moving exercise, but those negotiations are being finalised now. I can say though that from the government's point of view, the safety of these individuals is our top priority when it comes to managing this incident. We of course always step up when Australians get into trouble of some kind overseas.

This is nothing that these people have done wrong. They deserve our support and they'll get our support. JOURNALIST: Will they be quarantined locally?

I know they're flying into Perth. Will then those residents go to their home states? MURRAY WATT: Yeah, so this is exactly what is being finalised at the moment with the different states and territories.

My understanding is that the Australians do come from different parts of the country, and that of course requires negotiations with individual states and territories. So as soon as that is finalised, we'll be able to outline exactly what's going on, but that's been a top priority for people over the last couple of days. JOURNALIST: Minister Watt, with obviously this announcement today, there's the balance between environmental and also, I guess, delivery.

How much, I suppose, projects, especially energy projects where the bush is being hit the most, are going to still be prioritised and the community is still prioritised? MURRAY WATT: One of the core principles that underlay our reforms to the EPBC Act was achieving balance, was achieving stronger environmental protections and faster and simpler assessments and approvals for projects.

And we think you can do both. There are some people in the Parliament who say that you can only deliver projects and you've got to sacrifice the environment at all costs. There are other people in the Parliament who say that it's all about protecting the environment and holding up projects that the country desperately needs.

Where Labor is coming from is that we can do both, that we can protect our precious environment while also powering productivity by getting those assessment and approval processes through more quickly and have the homes and have the energy projects that we need as a country. So we are very confident that through this balanced set of reforms that we put in place and that we're now funding today with over $500 million to deliver those approval processes faster, we can get the homes the country needs, the energy projects the country needs, the minerals projects the country needs, while also protecting precious environment.

JOURNALIST: There's been criticism about, I suppose, when it comes to what communities are calling for and when it gets bypassed, different levels of government, those communities are not being seen or heard. MURRAY WATT: JOURNALIST: Is this - this announcement, does that eliminate some of that community on the ground feeling? MURRAY WATT: No, not at all.

I mean, there will always be requirements under federal processes for communities to be consulted about the impacts of projects on their lifestyle. That is the case now, that will remain the case going forward. What's changing though is removing some of the duplication of processes that we have had under the current system and have seen housing developments and energy project developments held up for years in unnecessary red tape without producing any benefit for the environment at the same time.

So for example, the funding that we're announcing today will allow us to enter into bilateral agreements with individual states and territories that will empower them to not only assess and approve a project against state law, but assess and over time approve projects against federal law and to do that once rather than having to do it twice at different levels of government.

There will remain in place community consultation processes, there will remain in place strong environmental safeguards, but we can do this quickly and we need do it quickly, and that's why we're committing over $500 million to do so. JOURNALIST: Are there particular projects, I suppose, or regions that you're specifically helping to get through in the next year?

MURRAY WATT: Well, we are actively in negotiation with a number of states and territories right now to enter into those bilateral agreements which would eliminate that level of duplication that already exists in the system. You may have seen that over the parliamentary break, in the last couple of weeks I've been in Perth, entering an MOU with the Western Australian Premier committing us to sign a bilateral assessments agreement this calendar year.

So what that means is that by the end of this year we'll have an agreement place that allows the Western Australian Government to assess and approve a housing project, an energy project, whatever it might be if it's triggering the EPBC laws, without that project also having to come to us for a separate process which can add years to the approval of that particular project.

We've had positive discussions with other states and territories as well, and we want to enter those agreements with each state and territory so we can get things moving. Clare and our other colleagues have done a power of work to get the funding that we need to deliver social and affordable housing. My job is to speed up the system in getting those projects through the red tape so we can actually have people living in homes rather than have applications sitting on bureaucrats' desks.

JOURNALIST: Minister, just on the Nuyina ice-breaking vessel, documents obtained by the ABC show most options to resolve the refuelling issues affecting that icebreaker could take up to three years to implement. How confident are you that the Tasmanian Government will find a solution within the next few months that will allow the ship to refuel in Hobart? MURRAY WATT: Yeah, this is a really important issue that we've been working on with the Tasmanian Government.

So the RSV Nuyina is a real jewel in the crown of Australia's scientific research. It's a vessel funded by the Australian Government that leads our Antarctic research missions each and every year. One of the problems it's had is lack of access to a viable refuelling solution when it comes back to Hobart to dock.

Now, we made, as a condition of our agreement with the Tasmanian Government, when we agreed to fund the upgrade of Macquarie Wharf, that it was their responsibility to find a refuelling solution rather than the current one, which involves the Nuyina then having to travel all the way around to Burnie to get refuelled. Now that is obviously nonsensical to not have a local refuelling solution in Hobart.

We expect the Tasmanian Government to deliver on their commitment to find that refuelling solution. I've now met with the Premier of Tasmania about it as well as other ministers. We want to get this done as quickly as possible, not take years.

JOURNALIST: And just one for the Minister O’Neil. The bush, obviously housing. I guess there's been criticism about the amount of jobs that are ready for these houses or vice versa enough resources.

How much will the bush be prioritised in this announcement compared to the metropolitan cities? CLARE O’NEIL: Yeah, sure. So this is absolutely a win for housing in our regions, and our Government has a really clear focus on making sure that the experience of regional Australians is brought into this discussion.

For a long time, when people have thought about their housing problem, their mind has really been on our big capital cities. But in fact, a lot of our regional towns and country towns are struggling with exactly the same housing challenges as those who live in our cities. So we are very careful in the work that we do to make sure that we're investing the appropriate amounts and putting the same amount of energy into those issues in regional Australia.

If I can point you to yesterday's announcement of $2 billion in new funding for housing infrastructure, this is the boring but important part that has to happen before anyone can lay a brick on site. It's the water, the sewerage, the electricity, the communications that needs to be fed into new lots so that they can be built for housing. About $500 million of that $2 billion is actually being cordoned off especially for the regions.

It reflects the experience I have as Housing Minister, where one of the most common visitors through my door are local governments who are saying they are desperate to help our country address the national housing challenge, but they just don't have the money to do that important preliminary work. So that's just one example of where we're making sure that we're investing, we're changing the rules in the right ways and making sure that the regions are coming along with the rest of the country.

If I can say something specific about the announcement that Minister Watt is making today, this is particularly helpful for our regional areas where we're more likely to see that greenfields type of development. What Murray said is absolutely right. One example of how bad this has gotten is that for a new housing development, they're often having to get environmental approvals at the state level, which can take months and years.

Then they've got to do it again at the federal level. It makes absolutely no sense. So thank God we've got Murray Watt, who's reformed that legislation and now has bought through $500 million to help us actually fix this problem so we can get builders on-site building homes instead of out the back in the office filling in forms.

JOURNALIST: Murray, I've just got one quick question on Farrer. MURRAY WATT: JOURNALIST: Barnaby Joyce has been out and about this morning, obviously quite happy with how things have gone. What do you- he says that he wants to go for Western Sydney seats next, I mean what do you make of that?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah. Look, I think there's a couple of really important messages of the Farrer by-election. The first is that it is simply not mathematically possible for the Liberal and National parties to form government without One Nation being part of a coalition with them.

That would be a very dramatic change to Australian politics to see an extreme, divisive, chaotic party like One Nation form part of the Government. But that is the reality that we now face as a country following the collapse of the Liberal and National Party votes. Now I've seen, even in the last 24 hours, we've seen different shadow frontbenchers take different positions on whether they'll enter coalition with One Nation.

Tim Wilson yesterday said that he was open to forming coalition with One Nation. This morning, we've seen Ted O'Brien, another shadow frontbencher, say that that's not on the table. I think it's important for Angus Taylor, as the leader of the Liberal Party, to come clean and tell Australians whether he is prepared to enter government with One Nation as part of his coalition.

In terms of Western Sydney and other parts of the country, from a Labor perspective, we don't take anything for granted. We know that we have to earn every single vote, whether it's in Western Sydney or any other part of the country. And that's why we are so focused on issues like assisting Australians with cost of living, with building the housing that Australians need, with providing cheaper and cleaner energy for the future.

That is our focus, and what we will do is that if One Nation want to take seats in Western Sydney or anywhere else, we will be there to remind people that it's One Nation that have voted with the Liberal Party to block cost of living relief, to oppose penalty rates being enshrined in law, to oppose energy relief, to oppose cheaper medicines and to oppose other investments that we've made in healthcare.

So One Nation like to get around and say that they care about battlers. It's important that people know what they do when they come to Canberra and that is that they vote with the Liberal Party every single time to block the cost of living relief, the housing support, the wage increases that Australians desperately need. We will be there to remind them every step of the way.

JOURNALIST: And one more, just in regard to energy projects. I've got to ask, you know, obviously capital region, Upper Lachlan, Goulburn, all this area around here have got proposed energy projects on the line. Would you expect these projects to be- community wants to know, would they be seeing these projects, because of this announcement, delivered faster?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah. What we will see as a result of this announcement is faster yeses and faster noes. What we want to make sure of is that we get a decision made about these projects much more quickly than what we have in the current time over past years.

There is no doubt that the country needs more energy projects, including more renewable projects, and there are many people in regional Australia who are benefiting from those renewable projects, whether it be farmers hosting wind towers or local businesses who are part of the supply chain for those projects as well. So it's not about saying that every single project will get a tick, but it is about saying that every single project will get a faster yes or a faster no than what it's had to deal with under the previous laws.

We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.