TOM ELLIOT:
Good afternoon, Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good afternoon, Tom. Good to be with you.
TOM ELLIOT:
Have you looked at the Victorian Government’s policy announcements today on housing affordability?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, I have. I’ve had a look at them - there are some worthwhile measures there particularly on housing supply. They’re proposing to speed up development approvals in Melbourne and zone more growth corridor land for future development. That’s very, very important because the key to improving housing affordability is to build more dwellings.
TOM ELLIOT:
Is there anything in the Federal Budget which is coming up in the not too distant future, which might assist this process?
PRIME MINISTER:
Certainly in terms of our Government’s policies, our whole cities agenda is about improving the livability of cities and improving housing affordability is a big part of that. So what we’re doing as we set up our City Deals – and we look forward to doing one in Melbourne if the State government is minded to do so – what we’re looking to do is reach agreement so that as Commonwealth funding is made available for infrastructure, for a road or rail or whatever, that is then part of a deal and a commitment to deliver for example more dwellings, more dwelling approvals. Because what’s happened is – and I can see the State Government is acknowledging this in its announcement today – is that the planning process has been very slow. There haven’t been enough dwellings zoned, particularly near transport hubs. When you match that with growing demand, of course, you get increasing prices.
TOM ELLIOT:
What about negative gearing? Now I personally don’t think negative gearing is to blame for houses going up, but a lot of people think it is.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, you’re right Tom. Can I just tell you, give you some evidence when you’re having an argument with someone about it? There are markets, plenty of places in the world where negative gearing is not available. For example, in the UK, you can’t negative gear in the way you can in Australia. But they have housing in London which is probably, out of all the big world cities, probably the most unaffordable. So the problem there, talking to my counterparts in the UK, you know to British Ministers and so forth, is that they’re just not building enough dwellings. So there are all of these issues - tax, stamp duty, first homebuyers grants – they’re all relevant. They all have an impact. But fundamentally the reason why housing, house prices have got as high as they have, in say Melbourne, Sydney and some other cities, is because we’re not building enough dwellings. We’re not meeting demand.
TOM ELLIOT:
What about on the demand side? I mean I look at Melbourne and when I was 18, Melbourne had a about 2.75 million people. It’s now got 4.5 million, headed towards 5 million. In 30 odd years it’ll be bigger than Sydney again. Would we consider reducing immigration to try to reduce population pressure?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well our immigration program is in many ways the envy of the world. In fact, you heard Donald Trump hold it up in the State of the Union address the other day. Our immigration program was substantially reformed under John Howard’s government I might say, to be focused on skills. So it is responsive to what Australia’s economic needs are. So we have higher levels of migration when the economy is really firing and there is a labour shortage in certain areas. Then, it backs off when the economy slows. So you don’t get the same type of chain migration and family reunion migration for example that you got, you know, a generation ago. So it is a skills based migration program.
I think it’s clear that a number of the 457 visa categories were expanded excessively under the Labor Party, in fact, by Bill Shorten as it happens. He is the Olympic champion of 457 visas. Of course, it was during his time that, for example, McDonalds was able to get 457s to people to work flipping burgers. Well, that is not a skill that we need to import people to do. It’s pretty easy to train people to do that.
So Labor expanded the 457s dramatically. We are reviewing that at the moment.
TOM ELLIOT:
Well could we force more migrants to live in the regional parts of Australia? I mean the housing market boom is very much a Sydney and Melbourne phenomenon, it’s less evident in Hobart and it’s certainly not evident in Perth any more. Could we say to migrants: “Yes you can come here, but you must go and live in these areas, not Melbourne and Sydney?”
PRIME MINISTER:
There are incentives to do that, to move to regional areas. That’s certainly something that we can do more of. I’ll give you a good example of this. I was up in Queensland just over the weekend in central western Queensland and I was talking to a guy there in a bakery. He said he had a bakery in another town, which he said he’d had to close. I asked him: “Why’d you have to close?” He said: “Well I couldn’t get a baker.”
Now that’s an example of a skill where he struggled to get somebody to work in his bakery in central western Queensland. So again, you can see that we have to make sure constantly – and we’re reviewing this – to make that our migration program is very much focused on bringing in no more people than we need, with the skills we need. You’ve got to remember, migration is a recruitment exercise. We conduct it entirely in our national interest. What we’re seeking to do is get is to get the best and brightest to meet the skills, the needs we have here, to keep our economy firing. Obviously, of course, wherever possible, a position can be filled by an Australian, or an Australian can be skilled up and trained to do it, they should. That’s preferable, we’ve obviously got to look after our own first.
TOM ELLIOT:
Speaking of work, have you made a decision yet on penalty rates? Have you decided to back the Fair Work Commission’s decision to reduce Sunday penalty rates relative to Sundays?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we support small business just like the Fair Work Commission has done, Tom. The Fair Work Commission is the independent umpire which was asked to review this issue of penalty rates in the retail and hospitality areas by Bill Shorten back in 2012. Right? So it’s an independent umpire. He asked them to do it.
They took masses of evidence, including from a lot of Victorian hoteliers and restaurateurs and so forth. They listened to all of that evidence and they came to the conclusion, and I believe they came to the right conclusion that if they reduce Sunday penalty rates to be closer to Saturday rates – they are still above Saturday rates under their proposal – then you would get more employment on Sundays and more job opportunities. There would be more business, more cafes would be open.
I mean, I can give you an example of one of the companies that talked about it. For example, here it is in the report; Mr Williams who is the owner of the San Remo Hotel in Victoria. He said: “The rooms are not made up on Sundays unless they are booked the next day, which means the patrons who arrive without a booking can’t be accommodated’. They took all of this evidence. Another one, the owner of the Western Hotel in Ballarat: “Offers reduced services on Sundays and public holidays or closes”. So it goes through all of this evidence. So this was not a political decision. This was a very carefully considered decision by the Fair Work Commission, which took years to make and they heard all the evidence and they came to that conclusion.
TOM ELLIOT:
Okay so we’re absolutely clear, you will not oppose what Fair Work has decided?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, of course not. Tom can I just say to you, what Bill Shorten is doing is flying in the face of 125 years of Labor’s history. I mean the Labor Party has always said there should be an independent umpire to decide wages and conditions. So you’ve got your independent umpire. Every member of it was actually appointed either by Shorten or Gillard to do it - so it’s hardly a Liberal tribunal - they have made the decision based on the evidence, hundreds of witnesses, who said: “If Sunday rates were closer to Saturday rates, we’d be able to employ more people.”
The Retail Traders Association reckons it will create 40,000 more jobs. Of course the other thing is when you look at what the unions do Tom, in terms of the Enterprise Bargain Agreements they enter into with big business, they trade away those Sunday rates.
TOM ELLIOT:
That’s true.
PRIME MINISTER:
You know it’s 21 bucks an hour on Sunday at McDonald’s. If you’re doing the same job down the road at a takeaway, the award is $29 an hour. Where is the justice in that?
TOM ELLIOT:
Could I ask you very quickly about energy costs? I spoke to a businessman who has got a successful dairy processing business in Gippsland last week. He exports a lot of product, yogurt, cheese that sort of thing. He said that his electricity bill has gone up 100 per cent. His gas bill has gone up 90 per cent in the past 12 months. Can you offer him any solace? Is there anything that you or the Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg might do to soften the huge increase in energy costs?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we are working on it. Let me give you some more context of that. Also in the dairy industry as it happens. I was out at Peter’s Ice Cream today here in Melbourne. That’s a plant, a 110-year-old business, 300 employees. It’s a big business, a big manufacturing business in Melbourne. Their energy bill is set to double. Now that is a very big hit.
TOM ELLIOT:
So can you do something about that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes. The answer is what we are doing is we are in the process of reviewing the electricity market rules, the way in which the market is regulated. Our focus is to pay attention to economics and engineering. What Labor has done and you’ve seen it here in this state in Victoria in a very big way. They are obsessed with ideology, Tom - all they want to do is pursue renewable. I’ve got nothing against renewables, all in favour of them, as long as they are properly integrated into the grid and as long as there is a plan. As long as you’ve got storage for example to back them up. Labor has done nothing like that.
You see the catastrophe in Victoria, where they’ve got this huge renewable component, 40 per cent of the state’s total capacity and they didn’t plan it properly. All ideology, no engineering and the state’s got the most expensive and the least reliable electricity in Australia. That’s what could happen here if Dan Andrews has his way.
Look, he said he wants to reduce carbon emissions, he is pleased that Hazelwood is shutting down, the big brown coal fueled generator. And what about gas? Gas is a relatively clean fuel. Labor has got a ban on onshore exploration for gas, whether it’s conventional gas or unconventional gas. So how are we going to get the new clean fuel of the future under the socialist paradise of Daniel Andrews? This is the problem Tom, they are not practical people.
TOM ELLIOT:
That’s true. Final question, your Employment Minister Michaelia Cash appears to have waited four months before declaring an investment property and she also didn’t declare that she had a mortgage over it. Have you spoken to her about this?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I have spoken to Michaelia and she is mortified and obviously I am disappointed that she missed the deadline. She has apologised. But just to get the record straight, she was actually eight days late registering the acquisition of the property, not a month late.
TOM ELLIOT:
But she acknowledges she made a mistake?
PRIME MINISTER:
She absolutely does. She settled on the properly she told me on the 9th of December and she registered on the 21st of January and that was eight days later than she should’ve. Obviously she’d been away on holidays and so forth. Look the public hold us to very high standards and we have to comply with them. She is a very hard-working, punctilious Minister. She’s had an oversight here. She is very sorry about it and I’ve accepted her apology.
TOM ELLIOT:
We’ll leave it there. Malcolm Turnbull thank you very much for joining us.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks so much Tom.
TOM ELLIOT:
The Prime Minister.
[ENDS]