Radio interview - Nova Perth

HOST: Good morning, Albo.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning.

HOST: Morning Albo. A couple of us have just been knocking off a bit of breakfast. Have you been doing the same.

PRIME MINISTER: I have been doing the same. While I was waiting on, we rang in and thanks for having us on the program unannounced. And I just realised, of course, there's a great advantage in the great continent that is ours and the time zones. Because I realised, I've done interview after interview up to 9 o'clock. I was like, it's only 7 o'clock in Perth.

HOST: Yeah, that's right. Who am I going to talk to?

PRIME MINISTER: So I thought I'd ring Nova. The morning after the Budget.

HOST: Well, I know -

PRIME MINISTER: I know it's feeling like you missed out.

HOST: Yeah, well, I know it's Budget week and there's a fair bit going on, but it's also Eurovision week and Delta Goodrem competing for Australia. Are you across that?

PRIME MINISTER: I am all - I actually, believe it or not, spoke with Delta the other night because she texted me to say thank you. Because the Australian Government is supporting her representing our great nation and she, to her great credit - I mean, this is - she's a star. She doesn't need to do this. She's doing this to represent the country and it's amazing. I think she's such a superb artist and a great human being and I reckon everyone will be cheering her on and I reckon she'll go really well.

HOST: Do you have any of her albums? I don't remember when we were at the lodge, that you were showing us a Delta album.

HOST: More Swift than Goodrem.

PRIME MINISTER: I'm a bit more indie rock than Delta Goodrem, I've got to say. But I -

HOST: A bit of Cruel Sea.

PRIME MINISTER: And I was at an event, it was a fundraising event, recently, and if you search - I think it is online somewhere and if you want to see your ratings really tank, if you're really annoyed with your, you know, your management one day or something. Rather play the Delta Goodrem Anthony Albanese duet.

HOST: Wow, okay.

PRIME MINISTER: That we did. You know, the things you do for charity. Yeah. It was one brilliant singer and a shocker.

HOST: And Delta.

PRIME MINISTER: I did my best. She did that without notice as well. She just walked down into the audience with a microphone.

HOST: Now we have to talk budgets, of course. You've upset lots of people. I guess this is a Budget where you're aiming to satisfy the younger end of the demographic who maybe one day want to buy a house. That's the gist of it?

PRIME MINISTER: That's exactly right. This will help 75,000 young people get into their own home. And we're at risk of being a society where unless you inherited a home, you were going to be locked out. And more and more that was the case. We've quarantined things. So, Grandfathering - if you've got an existing investment property.

HOST: Yeah.

PRIME MINISTER: You won't be impacted by this. Keep your negative gearing. Keep your 50 per cent capital gains tax discount, all of that. But we needed to do something for the future. We can't be a society where we simply lock out a younger generation forever. And more and more. It wasn't just young people raising this with me as I went around the country, there's parents and grandparents as well, saying, I'm worried that, you know, young Jimmy or young Mary, my kids or grandkids, will never be able to own their own home. And that's part of the Australian dream. So, this is about levelling the playing field. And people can still invest in negative gearing, but by meaning that it just has to be a new build, rather existing property. What people will do is continue to be able to invest in their own wealth creation. Good on them. But at the same time, they'll be investing in the nation as well, because they'll be boosting supply and boosting the number of properties that are built to help the whole country. So, this is a tough decision that we have made, but it's the right decision. Protecting existing arrangements that have been in place, but making sure that in the future young people get a fair crack.

HOST: Yeah, I'm one of those people Albo where I've got older children now and I'm always thinking about how they were able to get into the market -

HOST: Are they ever going to leave home?

HOST: Yeah, well, they can't. They can't afford to. But the two things you're missing out on, which is the main drivers, mate, first of all is inflation. So, the cost of building a house is through the roof. So, everything keeps going up, as we know, the cost of the labour and the materials. So, that's the number one thing. Sorry, that's the number two thing. The number one thing which is easy for everyone to understand is supply and demand. And that's as simple as that. So, if you've got immigration - that our levels have hit nearly 500,000 in a year and Australia are under the system at the moment are only being able to build hundred - according to Australian Bureau of Statistics is 178,000 or roughly around that many houses. It's never going to be able to catch up. It doesn't matter if people are buying investments or not, it's just simple maths.

PRIME MINISTER: But we've cut immigration by 40 per cent after Covid.

HOST: Well, that's not - it's not in terms of long-term people coming in because there's people coming in on long-term visas which is still - if you're here on a long-term visa, it's still a number of people which is way higher than it's ever been and that's across the board. Everyone knows that.

PRIME MINISTER: Well, no, we're cutting - it's not as higher than it's ever been. That's just not right. We've reduced it by 40 per cent and the net overseas migration did peak post Covid. Guess what? Because people were locked out, including Australian citizens were locked out. We are working on getting those numbers down but we're also throwing everything at supply in this Budget. There's $2 billion for sewerage, electricity, the local government grants to make sure that more homes can be built. We are incentivising as well in terms of the workplace free TAFE. A $10,000 incentive for people to become construction apprentices or electrical apprentices as well, making a difference at that labour supply. We are also in today's - last night's Budget, there are changes as well for recognition of qualifications. It's absurd that someone here is a skilled worker, they're an electrician but they simply can't get those qualifications recognized, far more easily, is what we're doing as well. We're throwing everything at housing supply across the board and we're doing that in partnership with the WA government through measures like our Housing Australia Future Fund. We've got $47 billion into housing supply but we need to do -

HOST: That's not done any - it's literally not done anything. Last couple of years we've talked about. It hasn't done anything because the supply is not there.

PRIME MINISTER: Well, it has - with respect, it has.

HOST: In what way?

PRIME MINISTER: In that there is more supply coming on, more construction is occurring and what this will do is to - you know, you can't solve something that's about infrastructure building anything and say we'll make a decision today and next week the house will be there. What you can do though is put in place measures that deliver outcomes. And this will deliver increased supply. It will also change the balance so that, you know, people whose kids are still living at home because they can't get access to their own home ownership if they're going to an auction. So, many stories, you would have heard it. And, you know, people gone to auctions, they get outbid by investors. That takes away that and provides an opportunity for people, if it's existing homes, whilst at the same time allowing investors to invest in that new supply as well. They're helping not just themselves but helping the nation as well and helping boost that supply. That you quite rightly say is the number one issue.

HOST: What's the timeline? When will we start to see the effects of these policies that you're putting in place?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, you are seeing the effect of measures - I'll be in WA next week looking at one of the properties that we've made an enormous difference on. We have - since we introduced, right, the number of homes that have been built since we've been elected is 660,000. Now, the 5 per cent deposit that we said at the last election was a big measure. More than 240,000 Australians have invested in that, as a result.

HOST: Property prices have gone up.

PRIME MINISTER: We've completed - well, we've completed. We don't - as I said, you don't solve this issue immediately. We have built, though, more than 6,000 homes, basically social homes. Public housing has been completed since we were elected. The former government was in government for almost a decade. They built 373 over that decade. There are 23,000 homes in planning and construction going forward as well. And if you look at when it goes to migration, the number of people is down to 295,000. This is net overseas migration. So, this is people not leaving as well in the current year. That drops to 245,000 the next year and 225,000 -

HOST: Every year that you've put that in the Budget, you've overshot it by 20 to 40,000 people. It's written in there.

PRIME MINISTER: What we have had when it comes to migration is, as you said yourself, you said it peaked at 500,000 and it did. 295 is less. What you do over a period of time. You can't just click your fingers and turn the clock back immediately.

HOST: That's true.

PRIME MINISTER: What we are doing is driving that down through considered proper policies because, you know, we inherited a system that simply was allowing people to overstay and wasn't working. We're putting in place those mechanisms and it is working like it is - we have driven it down by 40 per cent from its peak.

HOST: All right. Well, thank you Albo.

HOST: It's a big day. We appreciate you calling through with no notice at all. You can call us anytime, Albo. Thank you.

PRIME MINISTER: No, I might see you next week.

HOST: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Pop in. We'd love to see you again.