Doorstop, Canberra

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: This Wednesday, July 1, there's going to be a lot of change coming for Australia and positive change at that. We've got another round of tax cuts for every Australian taxpayer, an extension of paid parental leave to six months, and, of course, increases to the minimum wage and award wages which will benefit millions of Australians.

So, real help for Australians' cost of living pressures coming this Wednesday and, of course, all of that is opposed by that coalition of One Nation, the Liberal Party and the National Party. The other thing that's going to be happening in my portfolio space this Wednesday is the opening of the doors to the new National Environmental Protection Agency. This will be the first time that Australia has ever had a National Environmental Protection Agency and that's a good thing for the environment and it's a good thing for business.

You might recall that when we passed the reforms to the EPBC Act at the end of last year, what we promised was stronger environmental protections and faster and simpler decisions for projects so that we can get the housing, the energy projects and the minerals projects that Australia needs. The new National EPA will be front and centre to delivering on that promise by making sure that we do have better protections for the environment and those faster and simpler decisions that we need.

So, I'm really excited that institution is going to be opening. It's another proud Labor legacy adding to the things that we've done to benefit the environment in past governments as well. Happy to take questions.

JOURNALIST: Is the bump in the polls for the Labor Party vindication of your Budget? MURRAY WATT: Well, I mean I think we've got to acknowledge that there's a couple of years before the next election and there will be increases and decreases in the polls over that time. But I think it is significant that straight after the tax cuts legislation has been passed that there has been a move towards Labor and at the same time there's been a very significant decrease in support for One Nation.

I think what we saw at the National Press Club and the speech that Pauline Hanson gave was that for a lot of Australians it provided a reality check about what One Nation actually stands for: lower wages, making it easier for your boss to sack you, cuts to health and all sorts of other cuts that would make life much harder for Australians. I was saying before that I think what's happened is it's a little bit like a shopper at the supermarket who reaches out for a product because they like what's on the label, but then they have a look at what's in that product and see that it's actually not very appetising.

And I think that's the problem for One Nation, is that they make a lot of promises about standing up for battlers, but people are now seeing through them and see that actually as tough as life is right now for many Australians, it would be a lot worse under a coalition between One Nation and the Liberal Party. JOURNALIST: How long have you been practising that?

That was uncannily similar to your ABC24 interview. MURRAY WATT: I had a think about it last night. JOURNALIST: Just on the Coalition, what do you think it says about them?

From a political perspective, you know, a broken promise by the government is a pretty easy hit, but they've gone backwards in these polls. What do you think that says about them? MURRAY WATT: Look, I think the Liberal Party and the National Party are in all sorts at the moment.

They don't know what they stand for. They don't know who their potential constituency is, they're already divided again just like they were a few months ago and we've seen more leadership speculation only a few months into Angus Taylor having knifed Sussan Ley to become the leader. We saw from Angus Taylor last week that episode where he couldn't say whether he supported multiculturalism and you could almost feel Angus Taylor thinking about Pauline Hanson walking by him during that press conference and wanting to appease her rather than saying what he actually believes.

Even this morning we've seen Jane Hume the Deputy Liberal Party Leader in the media describing the tax cuts we're providing to Australians as “egregious.” Now if you look up egregious in a dictionary, you'll see that it means “incredibly bad and shocking.” They are saying that it is incredibly bad and shocking to give Australian taxpayers a tax cut at a time when Australians are doing it tough.

They are completely out of touch, they don't know what they stand for and they don't know where to look because they're constantly thinking about One Nation being over their shoulder. JOURNALIST: Just on housing, some recent numbers from the Master Builders Association show that Labor is still not achieving the targets under the Housing Accord to get enough houses into the system.

Does it show that system is failing? MURRAY WATT: Look, we know that it's an ambitious target that we've set to build those 1.2 billion homes, but we need to get there and that's why we've made a lot of changes at a regulatory level, in terms of the National Construction Code, in my portfolio around those EPBC reforms, as well as, of course, funding a huge number of new homes to be built.

I think it was really pleasing to see some of the recent building approvals and commencement figures, which showed an increase of about 26% over the course of a year. So, it does show that things are starting to turn around for the better, but we know that that's still an ambitious target and we've got more work to do. JOURNALIST: And you don't think that your changes to housing investment taxes will have an impact on those approvals?

MURRAY WATT: No, I mean what we think is that the changes that we've made to housing taxes will make it easier for a lot more Australians to get into the housing market. JOURNALIST: Not if they're not being built? MURRAY WATT: Well, obviously the negative gearing changes that we've put forward apply to new builds, so the incentive remains place for Australians who want to invest and want to get those negative gearing concessions to get them, provided they add to the housing supply.

And as a number of ministers have made the point, that means that they can build their own wealth but also build the housing stock of the nation as a whole. All good? Thank you.

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