Television Interview, News24 First Edition

SUBJECT/S: Immigration; Housing; Submarine Rotational Force-West; Delivering Joint Advanced Tactical Missiles for the Australia’s Air Force; Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

PETE STEFANOVIC, HOST: Joining us live for this and more is the Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister, Richard Marles, who's in Darwin this morning for the final stretch of Exercise Pitch Black. So, was Tony Burke rolled by Cabinet over his migration changes, Richard?

RICHARD MARLES, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: No, he wasn't. And obviously I'm not going to go into Cabinet discussions, but look, I mean, I've seen the reports this morning. That's not right. Tony's going to speak at the National Press Club shortly. It's not unusual for the dates to be changed. I think what's important here, Pete, is, you know, we've been working on this issue from the moment that we've come to government. And what we inherited in the aftermath of the pandemic was a very significant migration rate. We brought the net migration rate down by 45%. Since that moment, we continue to work on it, work on it in a way which makes sure that it's serving what we need as a country, but as an economy. So, focusing on skilled migration and, you know, we continue to do that work. And you'll hear from Tony shortly.

STEFANOVIC: Ok, so if he wasn't rolled, who's unhappy about it?

MARLES: I don't think anyone's unhappy. Where we're working through what is a complex policy, but a policy where we're making significant progress. I mean, the migration program is really important for Australia. It always has been. It's important for our economy, but it needs to be sustainable. And in the aftermath of the pandemic, what we inherited was a very high migration rate. That's why we've reduced the net migration rate by 45%.

STEFANOVIC: But then you still get higher?

MARLES: Well, we've taken the net migration rate down from its peak by 45%. And we need to make sure that, that it is sustainable, obviously, but also that in terms of its composition, it meets the country's needs.

STEFANOVIC: So these changes now, do you concede that you took the migration rate too high post-COVID?

MARLES: Well, I mean, we inherited coming out of the pandemic a high migration rate. And I think we can understand that in the sense that there was a period during the pandemic where there was no migrant, net migration, because there was no movement. And so the net migration rate is a combination of people in versus people out. But what we've done is brought it down and that's the important point. We need to have it at a sustainable level and that's what we're seeking to do. And there's more work to do here and it is a really important lever in our economy and we need to make sure the composition of it's right. So, we are continuing to do more work on this and we've announced a whole lot of that in respect of the budget where we've announced the numbers that we will be seeking to attain over the financial year that we're in, the next financial year after that. And we're continuing to put in place the policies to achieve that. But all of that is about bringing the migration rate down.

STEFANOVIC: And so much of the problems around housing comes from migration too. But when you've got Tanya Plibersek out this week saying it's never been a better time to be a first home buyer, or Jerome Laxale making jokes about how tax changes are tanking the market, why play down this housing collapse so much?

MARLES: Well, because that's simply not what's happening. I mean, over the medium term and over the longer term, there's no doubt that we are going to see an increase in housing prices. We'll just see a sustainable increase. There's no economist out there suggesting that that's not going to be the case. And when people buy housing, they buy it over the medium and long term. What we are seeking to achieve as a policy objective is firstly, making sure that the increasing prices of housing increase at a sustainable rate. Over the last two decades, that's just not been the case. We've seen housing prices go up at a much faster rate than wages. And what that has to do with done is really put housing out of the reach of a younger generation. We're seeking to restore that because the Australian dream of owning a house should not just be my dream, it should be the dream of my kids as well. And that's what we're doing with both the 5% deposit scheme but also the changes that we've made to the tax system.

STEFANOVIC: A few questions on defence this morning, Minister. So, according to The Australian, the US has established the administrative framework for a base in WA at HMAS Stirling. Is the US setting up a permanent base on Australian soil?

MARLES: We are establishing the Submarine Rotation Force West. We actually announced this back in 2023. What The Australian is reporting today is what in fact we announced a couple of months ago at the AUKUS Defence Ministers meeting in Singapore.

STEFANOVIC: Is it a permanent base on our soil?

MARLES: No, it is a rotation. So, in the sense that we have both equipment and personnel rotating through, we have US rotations present in Australia right now. In fact we have one here in Darwin, the Marine rotation Darwin. And it's really important in terms of the American force posture on the continent but it's really important in terms of being able to contribute to Australian capability. And we announced the fact that we would have a Submarine Rotation Force – West in 2023. This is a really significant step in terms of our being able to acquire a nuclear powered submarine capability. This is not easy. It is the biggest leap in our military capability in more than a century. And being able to work on nuclear powered submarines, on American submarines, being able to work in them, we've got submariners working in them right now, is critical in terms of building our skills and our capabilities so that we can operate our own submarines. And one of the earliest critical milestones of AUKUS is the establishment of the Submarine Rotation Force – West at HMAS Stirling in the end of next year. We are on track to achieve that. As The Australian reports, the administrative arrangements from the United States have now been put in place. And what this actually is a demonstration that AUKUS is happening.

STEFANOVIC: All right, you've got an announcement today on new advanced missiles for our Defence Force. How will that help us?

MARLES: So, the Joint Advanced Tactical Missile really extends the air to air range of our fighter planes and they'll be put on all of our fighter planes, Growlers, Super Hornets and the F-35s. So, if you think about air to air combat which is what's being exercised here at Exercise Pitch Black, a lot of the ability to win in that environment is the range of the air to air missiles that you have and what the JATMs is going to do and we're going to purchase up to 450 of them will greatly extend the air to air range of our fighter planes. And it's actually going to be a game changer. We're really excited about what this will mean. They'll be on those planes shortly. And this is a more than $700 million purchase, and it's very significant in terms of our air capability.

STEFANOVIC: Okay, and just a final one here. The ABC has finally apologised over that segment which encouraged violence against Gina Rinehart. It's taken down the video and apologised, as I mentioned, but it took long enough. Should it have happened sooner?

MARLES: Well, I think it's a very good thing that the ABC has apologised. I also think it's a very good thing that they've taken that part of the video down. As I think I've said to you previously, and I know you've been focused on this, I've not seen the video or that part of the video, or do not I intend to see it –

STEFANOVIC: Focus for good reason –

MARLES: Yeah, there's no criticism at all in that. I mean, the point I would want to make is the. I've not seen this video or that part of it, but it's been described to me and we have consistently been saying that it's utterly inappropriate. And it is, I think, right that the ABC has apologised. It was right that they referred it to the Ombudsman, to be fair, early on, but it's right that they've apologised and it's right that the part of the video has been taken down.

STEFANOVIC: That's the Defence Minister, Richard Marles, joining us live from Darwin. Richard, appreciate it. 

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