Television Interview, ABC Afternoon Briefing

SUBJECTS: Housing; Iron ore exports

MELISSA CLARKE [HOST]: I want to return to some of the political stories we've been talking about today. And for that, let's bring in our political panel. I have Peter Khalil, who's the Assistant Defence Minister. Thanks very much for being with us.

PETER KHALIL [ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR DEFENCE]: How are you?

CLARKE: And of course, Jane Hume, Liberal Senator for Victoria. Thank you for being in the studio.

JANE HUME [SENATOR FOR VICTORIA]: Great to be here.

CLARKE: So, I want to start by talking about housing, which the government has been talking about today. The start of the scheme that will mean first home buyers only need 5 per cent of a deposit to be able to get a loan for their first home. Peter, there's been a lot of concern about how this may add to pressure on home prices. We know property prices are already such a big hurdle for home buyers. The Prime Minister's pointed to the Treasury modelling that says it'll only be a small amount. But I think there's a lot of scepticism amongst home buyers that they're now just facing more competition when they're at an auction.

KHALIL: Well, yes, Melissa, look, I think Treasury modelling has been done that shows that it's about a half a percent over six years. So, that's very, very modest. Importantly, it's going. Lifting the cap actually means so many more young Australians will be able to access the first home buyers 5 per cent deposit scheme. Already 180,000 have accessed it. That's fantastic for young Australians. You know, on an average median house price, they're saving about 34,000 in mortgage insurance, eight years off the time they'd need to save for a deposit. So, that's eight years where they would be putting up to about a quarter of a million into their own mortgage repayments rather than paying rent. I mean, that is huge for so many young Australians wanting to get into the housing market. And, you know, look, I don't know, maybe Senator Hume will tell us why, but I don't understand the resistance to this. They've opposed the Bill to Rent scheme, they've opposed the Housing Australia Future Fund with their friends in The Greens did that together. Greens and Liberals opposed that for over 12 months. They're opposing the lifting of this capacity. I don't understand why there is a housing crisis. The Labor government has spent $43 billion invested in building more homes. With all of these different schemes to get people into the market, we've got to take action. That is the most important thing to address these issues.

CLARKE: Well, let's see. I'm sure Jane will happily articulate the case.

KHALIL: Should’ve asked Jane the question.

CLARKE: You don't even need me. I can just, I can just head out of the studio. But look, Peter makes a point that there are a lot of households that are like the savings barrier to get that deposit. It's the biggest impediment and this helps them with that. So-

HUME. We agree, this has been a very successful program. It was a program that was introduced by the Coalition originally for a 5 per cent deposit, then we extended it to a 2 per cent deposit and we also extended it to young, to women who were leaving a relationship and buying potentially their second home rather than their first home. This is why it's been so successful. But let's be clear, this is a demand side policy, not a supply side policy. And Treasury have estimated that around 70,000 people will take up this offer. Terrific. Except for the fact that only 170,000 homes were built in the last 12 months.

CLARKE: So, the policy is fine. It's just all the other policies that you're not, you're not satisfied of doing enough. 

HUME: Well, this is going to put more pressure on the demand side of housing rather than dealing with the supply side of the economy. And that's where the troubles lie. And the RBA has said that over and over again. Now, the Housing Australia Future Fund was supposed to build thousands and thousands of homes and so far in two years it's bought 370-

KHALIL: I'm sorry, I have to laugh. I have to laugh at this, Melissa, because it gets curiouser and curiouser to quote Alice there, the Liberals actually opposed this with The Greens, they opposed the Housing Australia Future fund for over 12 months. If they are so concerned about supply side, why did they block this going forward?

HUME: Hang on, you've had two years.

KHALIL: Hold on, Jane, you've had your go. Let me make my point. We have, we have, since it actually passed, we have built and had under construction 25,000 social affordable homes. We've built 5,000. It would have been a hell of a lot more if you and The Greens didn't...

CLARKE: Can I just jump in here? You have set an ambitious target to build 1.2 million homes at the moment, at the current rate of we're seeing construction approvals, we're not going to get near that. You'd be lucky to get near 800,000. How are you going to accelerate so much over the next, you know, two years in advance? Because we've already got housing approvals up to now that haven't been built yet. How in those last three years are you going to reach that?

KHALIL: It's supply, supply, supply. And we’d have more of that if the Liberals and The Greens stop blocking and opposing every housing policy that we have put forward.

HUME: But you're just putting forward a demand side policy. That's exactly what we're talking about.

KHALIL: Let me make a point. You have opposed the Housing Australia Future fund for over 12 months-

HUME: And it hasn't worked. Two years and it hasn’t worked.

KHALIL: Jane, let me speak. You've blocked it for 12 months. You oppose the Bill to Rent scheme, you oppose the 5 per cent deposit and lifting the cap on it. You've opposed everything. But you might want to go back to your, you might want to go back to your party room and have a chat to your colleagues about if you're really concerned about supply, maybe stop blocking the government from actually putting people on the-

CLARKE: I'm going to give Jane a brief rebuttal and then I'm going to go on to the next topic.

HUME: Here is a terrific idea. How about you remove the CFMEU from these building projects, particularly ones to do with the Housing Australia Future Fund. If you blocked the CFMEU, which is one of the greatest cost increases of construction in this country, if you block the CFMEU from participating in any of your housing projects, maybe we'd see more houses.

KHALIL: The sad fact is, Jane, you had 10 years in government, you did pretty much almost nothing.

HUME: We built 200,000 a year, and you’re doing 170,000.

CLARKE: I think we've definitely tilled the ground of the housing policy. 

KHALIL: Excuse the pun.

CLARKE: Indeed, I do want to ask about the news today that it seems that BHP's exports of iron ore to China are facing a pause. Obviously, iron ore exports are our biggest earner for the Federal Government budget and BHP is one of the biggest exporters and China is the biggest buyer. Is this a commercial concern that BHP needs to sort out or do you think the government has a role to play in this contract negotiations?

HUME: Theoretically, Mel, the government's already played a role. I mean, it was only two months ago that we saw the Prime Minister in China specifically talking about iron ore and trade deals with Premier Li. He brought over BHP, Rio Tinto, Fortescue, Hancock specifically to talk to Chinese steelmakers. Well, what was all that about it? I mean, if he couldn't succeed and only two months later, we're now finding potentially what is economic coercion, coercive behaviour from China?

CLARKE: Do you think it is economically Coercive.

HUME: I don't.

CLARKE: Do you think it's more than contract gamesmanship?

HUME: Even if it's contract gamesmanship what happened here with the Prime Minister's fantastic work that he did on trade negotiations with China on that trip just I mean it sounds like a giant fail. If this is the case well then all he did was go over and hug a couple of pandas.

CLARKE: Peter, is this a responsibility for government or is this a responsibility for BHP?

KHALIL: Melissa, this is a commercial matter and it is a negotiation around contract pricing a matter between companies. They are undertaking those negotiations right now. I hope that they resolve it because it's actually in everyone's interest that they do. What I will say is that the Treasurer is speaking to the CEO of BHB because the Australian Government is always going to back in Australian businesses when it comes to this. But I think it's really rich for Jane to talk about in the context of negotiations with China because under her government billions of dollars were lost because of tariffs that were put on. We did the actual adults in the room work of diplomacy to remove those tariffs whether it was on crayfish or crabs or whether it was on wine or whether it was on any other agricultural product. That is a fact that you can never ever change. We had those tariffs removed from good diplomacy.

CLAKE: I will have to let Jane have a rebuttal to that.

HUME: You cannot purse your lips and clutch your pearls over Trump tariffs. On one hand – 

KHALIL: I'm not doing that. 

HUME: And then shrug your shoulders and say not our problem about iron ore, problem about iron ore on the other with China.

KHALIL: I don't have a purse and I don't have pearls unfortunately. But I will say this. The diplomatic work that the Albanese Government has undertaken over the last three or four years has led to big, big benefits for our exporters which unfortunately were under the pump under your government.

CLARKE: Alright, I think, I think this is one that we're going to have to see how it plays out over the next couple of days before we get a sense of truly what might be the intentions from China here. So, let's perhaps revisit this down the track. Jane Hume, thank you very much. Peter Khalil, thank you very much.

KHALIL: Thanks Mel. Thanks Jane.

ENDS