Doorstop, Canberra

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT: Thanks for coming along early this morning. It's a pleasure to be back with my great colleague Clare O'Neil, who's been doing such a fantastic job to ensure that we build more homes and get more young Australians into their first home. Today we can announce the latest step in the Albanese Government’s effort to build more homes and get more young Australians into their homes.

Today we can announce that we have absolutely smashed out of the park a target that we set in August last year to clear the backlog of environmental approvals for housing around the country. In August last year at the Treasurer's Economic Roundtable, we made a commitment as a government that by July this year we would clear 26,000 environmental approvals for homes.

I'm very pleased to say that we have not only met that target, but smashed it out of the park. We have approved 35,500 homes to be constructed in various parts of the country. It's happening in metropolitan Australia in our big cities, and it's happening in our regions as well.

There's nearly 20,000 homes that have been approved for development through the EPBC Act in our big cities and over 15,000 approved for development in our regional areas as well. We recognise this is a nationwide challenge and that's why we're clearing those environmental approvals in both our big cities and our regions. Now, of course in gaining those environmental approvals we are also making sure that those developments meet the most stringent environmental protections, by requiring developers to either offset environmental impacts, minimise them or offset them, and that has occurred for every single one of these developments.

Now this is of course just the latest step in our Government's efforts to pull every possible lever to build those homes that Australians need and I'll hand over now to Clare O'Neil to take you through some more of those and to show what a broad and comprehensive effort our Government is taking. Over to you, Clare. CLARE O’NEIL, MINISTER FOR HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS: Thank you so much, Murray.

Australians face a housing system that's stacked against them. Our Government wants those Australians to get ahead, and we want them to do it in a home of their own. The Budget two weeks ago was about three really big and important things.

It was about levelling the playing field between first home buyers and investors. It was about making sure that we build more homes, and it was about building a fairer tax system for our country. As Murray said, those changes that were in the Budget are part of a much bigger and broader Homes for Australia plan.

And today we're talking about another aspect of the Government's critical work. We need to get home building back on track in our country. One of the main reasons we have such difficult housing challenges is that for 40 years our country has not been building enough homes.

Now, there are lots of reasons for this but one of the really important ones is the absolute thicket of red tape and regulation that is based by our home builders of this country, and our Government is fiercely committed to paring that back. One of the main ways that we engage with red tape for home building is through the environmental protection legislation that Murray is responsible for.

Now, we sat down at the Economic Reform Roundtable in August last year. We made a goal of trying to work through 26,000 approvals. Murray and his team have smashed that out of the park.

We are at 35,000 approvals and not yet a year away from the Economic Reform Roundtable. Ultimately, this is part of a big and comprehensive plan for housing across our country. For a long time, Australian government sat back and did very little while the housing aspirations of Australians grew thinner and thinner.

Our Government changed that when we got elected in 2022, and if you need an example or a refresher of how checked out the Commonwealth government was under the former Government remember that for most of their time in office they didn't even bother having a housing minister. We have placed housing at the centre of our activities. We understand the most important aspiration that most Australians will realise in their lives is that of owning their own home.

The work of the Budget is a part of that and so is the critical work that Murray and his team have been doing. Any questions? JOURNALIST: Minister, you might have seen some of the billboards around Canberra Airport flying in this morning, the campaign against the tax changes.

What sort of feedback are you hearing when you talk to people about these changes, the small businesses that are against it? Is that the sort of feedback you're hearing as well? CLARE O’NEIL: Look, the main issue that most Australians face in their lives is trying to realise the aspiration to own their own home.

I didn't see the billboards at Canberra Airport, I read about them in the newspaper today, and what I would just say is let's remember here that the Budget is about trying to reshape the housing opportunities for Australians and the people that we are thinking about are the millions of people around our country who are struggling right now. You know, the Prime Minister talked yesterday that the average Australian family is not sitting around the kitchen table deciding what they are going to structure their trust arrangements around.

They are sitting around the kitchen table with a pile of bills trying to think about how they're going to make ends meet and how they're going to save for a deposit for a home. Our Budget is for those Australians. Now, we've got 7 million renters in our country.

Our Budget is for those people, particularly young people who are saving more, they are trying to work hard, they're doing all the right things, but they're ending up in a position where housing feels further away than ever before. Our Budget is about those Australians and helping them realise their dream of home ownership. JOURNALIST: There are reports the government’s considering exemptions on CGT for tech start-ups.

Is that true and why shouldn't it apply to other start-ups and other opportunities? CLARE O’NEIL: The Government's been really clear about this. We've been engaging in conversations with start-ups even before the Budget.

There's recognition of course that CGT arrangements need to take account of the specifics that are quite different for start-ups in terms of the economics of how they begin their businesses. So we'll continue those conversations when they're occurring in good faith. JOURNALIST: Has the Government lost the message by going too broad, taxing all asset classes, changing the CGT treatment for things like shares, and even the small business debate seems quite complex on whether people will be better off or worse off when they sell their business?

CLARE O’NEIL: Look, I'm really respectful of the media reporting of this, I’d just say that for most Australians, the main aspiration that they're going to have in their lives, the main financial decision that they will ever make in their lives as Australians is trying to get into a home of their own. And our Budget was about those Australians, and trying to do what we can to fix a broken housing market in this country.

Our housing market in Australia is cooked. The fact that we live in a country where young people can do all the right things, they can save all they like, and they're ending up in a position that they're working harder than ever, they're studying for longer, they're paying a higher HECS debt, and they're getting to a position where they're in their 30s and 40s – someone in their position in a previous generation would absolutely have owned their own home, yet they are locked out of that opportunity.

And that is the problem that that trying to solve. Now, again, very respectful of the media commentary and people who want to have their say against the initiatives in the Budget. This is a budget that involves hard choices, trying to correct a mistake that was made in 1999, and we are not going to shy away from that.

JOURNALIST: So are you frustrated that the debate has fallen to those other areas - the non-housing parts of the Budget? You’re the Housing Minister [indistinct] you want to spruik the housing changes? Are you frustrated that the debate has gone into other areas?

CLARE O’NEIL: Look, I've been involved in politics since I was 16, so I don't get frustrated about where the media sees the debate. What I do care about is the change that we can make to people's lives. I stood up with rental advocates at the end of last week - people who advocate for the 7 million renters around our country, most of whom will do anything to get into a home of their own - and they are fiercely supportive of what we're doing.

The Australian Council of Social Services, Better Renting, National Shelter, they're here in Canberra this week, and I encourage the press gallery to take a minute to come and talk to them. They're here to advocate for the millions of people who are looking for something better for housing in our country, and that is what our Government is fighting to deliver for them.

JOURNALIST: If you describe the changes in ‘99 as a mistake, is there any concern you hold about the speed at which the Government might try and make these changes, that it might be rushing into a mistake now that could be avoided with a bit more time to consider the feedback? CLARE O’NEIL: Look the 1999 changes were absolutely a mistake, and let me explain why.

When Peter Costello and John Howard put these reforms in place, they told us that this was all about getting Australians to invest in the share market. Well look at what happened 25 years later – what they had accidentally done is create a very lucrative investment structure for existing residential property, and instead people flooded out of shares and into property.

I mean, anyone who looks at the evidence here can see that the attempt that they were trying to undertake there was a complete failure. Now we are here 25 years later doing something that's really, really hard. Tax reform in this country is notoriously difficult.

But I can tell you one thing - we are fighting for the majority of Australians who are concerned about the housing situation faced by the younger generation today and the one that come after them. And we're going to make changes that will make getting into housing easy for Australians, and I'm very happy any day of the week to stand up and fight for that. JOURNALIST: Were the Budget’s forecasts on the effect of the changes on property prices a bit too lenient?

The Budget said it will be slow growth by 2 percent, but we're now seeing in Sydney on the weekend auction clearance rates cut by 50 percent. A lot of economists are now saying we're going to see big 5-10 percent cuts in property prices. If that does happen, is that actually a good thing - we're resetting the property market?

CLARE O’NEIL: Look, I don't, as Housing Minister, get into a running commentary on house prices, and I'm sure you can understand why every three months we are having a pretty wildly different discussion about this. So what I would say is the Treasury modelling is really clear. Of course the tax changes have an impact on property prices, but the main thing that changes property prices in this country is actually what's going on with interest rates.

You referred to economists, and I'd encourage you to speak to a broad range of economists about this, because there are plenty of people who are out there backing in the Treasury modelling. So that modelling tells us there'll be a moderate impact on affordability, and that's about a 2 percent slower growth rate than we would otherwise see. JOURNALIST: A growing number of backbenchers, Michelle Ananda-Rajah, Jerome Laxale, Andrew Charlton, have expressed concerns around the treatment of small businesses and start-ups.

Are they wrong? CLARE O’NEIL: Well, what I would say is the Government has been consulting with start-ups before the tax legislation changes were put before the Australian people in the Budget. This has been a discussion that's been ongoing because, of course, when you look at the new model for CGT discount that's being proposed here, there are some differences in the way that start-ups are structured that would mean that we need to take special account of those differences.

That's a conversation that's been happening in really good faith, and we are big believers in the tech start-up sector in this country. These are gun businesses – people who are taking on really extreme amounts of risk, often putting their own house on the line to ultimately create jobs and wealth for our country. So we really want to continue to support them to do that.

That's why we've been engaging in those close consultations for a number of weeks now. Okay? Great, thanks guys.

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