The government's 'help to buy' scheme has been defeated in the senate. Both the Coalition and Greens are opposed to the bill saying the government is unwilling to negotiate. The model would see the government take a share of up to 40 per cent in the cost of a home for low-income households.
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00:00Our government's not going to give up on home ownership for working and middle class Australians,
00:07even if the Greens and the Liberals try to stand in our path.
00:10And you're seeing us make great progress on housing despite the intense obstruction that
00:15we face from the Greens and the Liberals in the Senate.
00:18You've seen our government do that really important work with the states, trying to
00:21unlock land and unlock skills so we can build construction numbers.
00:25You've seen it in the assistance that we're giving renters through National Cabinet.
00:29And you've seen it, of course, Greg, in the 120,000 Australians that we've helped into
00:33home ownership through the Home Guarantee Scheme.
00:36So I understand the Liberals and the Greens are going to focus on politics.
00:39In a sense, I'm beyond expecting anything better from either of them.
00:43I can tell you what our focus, and I'd say we're the only party doing it, is actually
00:47trying to solve the problems of housing that Australians are facing in their lives.
00:51What I truly and deeply wish is that we had the opportunity to see other people set politics
00:56aside and just let us get on with doing what we said we'd do, which is help more people
01:00into home ownership.
01:01All right.
01:02Let's move beyond the bills in question today to the broader, multifaceted work that you're
01:07undertaking in housing.
01:09On immigration, you've said very recently the migration system isn't working for the
01:14housing sector at the moment, and I'm curious about what you've got in mind to fix that.
01:21As the draft construction skills list left brickies and the like out in favour of yoga
01:28instructors, are you open to doing something the industry's calling for, which is a construction-specific
01:36pathway for tradies?
01:38Greg, just before I get to the migration system, could I just make the point to those at home?
01:43We've got a really urgent need for us to lift the capacity of the construction sector in
01:48our country.
01:49If we go back to the beginning, the reason we have so many problems in our housing market
01:53in Australia is that, for decades, Australian governments and Australian industry haven't
01:58been building enough homes.
02:00We need to address that by building more homes, and that is what our government is doing.
02:03Indeed, I'm on a building site right now that is going to provide a home for more than 100
02:08Australians, and it's doing that through federal government assistance.
02:13We have a big problem with construction skills in our country.
02:15That's one of the reasons we are not building more homes, and we are seeing the government
02:19tackle that from every angle.
02:21We've got these massive investments that we've made in the skills and training sector, and
02:25that's always going to be our first priority, training Australians for the jobs of the future.
02:29But we are going to need the migration system to support construction industry workers to
02:34come to the country, and that's what we're doing.
02:36In the last year, we saw more than 10,000 construction workers come to Australia.
02:42We do need to see that lifted a bit.
02:44Some of the conversations I'm having with the sector at the moment are really around
02:47trying to understand why most companies that work in construction don't feel the migration
02:52system is a viable option for them.
02:54So we'll have a little bit more to say about that down the track.
02:56Okay, lifted by how much, roughly speaking, because I see industry estimates say that
03:01to get to 1.2 million homes, you're going to need, in the entire national system, an
03:08extra half a million trades working.
03:12Really, vocational education in this country is not going to provide all of that.
03:17So what do you reckon the split might be with migration?
03:20Look, some of the experts that advise government talk about numbers in the order of around
03:2490,000 additional construction workers, and so, you know, there'll be debates about exactly
03:30how many.
03:31I think we can all agree that we definitely need more tradies in our country.
03:35So as I mentioned, there's been, you know, a half a million fee-free TAFE places provided
03:40by our government since we've been in office.
03:42We've invested very heavily in apprenticeships, which is a really big issue.
03:46We see a lot of young people start apprenticeships that don't go on to finish them.
03:50So there's those investments happening there, but as I said, migration is going to be a
03:53part of the mix here, and that's something we're working with the sector on.