Doorstop, Press Gallery

16 September 2024

JANE HUME: Some extraordinary revelations this morning in The Australian that, in fact, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was informed over 10 years ago that there was deep seeded corruption and bullying and poor behavior on workplaces within the CFMEU. That there was, in fact, a whistleblower that came and spoke to him and his chief of staff in his office and revealed that he had already been to the police to make these allegations. Now, the Prime Minister has told the Parliament that the first time he heard about corruption within the CFMEU was in media reports just a few weeks ago. Clearly, that is nonsense. Now I don't know what Anthony Albanese has told the House but he may need to change his statements and walk away from some of those commitments to have not known about the CFMEU’s deep seeded corruption until very recently. I think that the Prime Minister has some questions to answer on this issue. Happy to take questions.

JOURNALIST: On the housing legislation around Help to Buy, a Shared Equity scheme coming before the Senate, maybe today or this week. Why aren’t you supporting that?

JANE HUME: It's extraordinary how the housing market in Australia has gone backward just in the last two years. Under the Coalition Government, we saw record numbers of new home buyers, new approvals and new construction, and yet, on each one of those metrics, the Labor Government has gone backwards. These policies, the two policies that are coming before the Senate this week, in fact, aren't dealing with the most important issue in housing, which is supply. Now there's wall to wall Labor governments in every single state on the mainland. The only territory government that isn't Labor anymore is the Northern Territory, and yet we know that supply can only be unlocked by the states. Why is it that Anthony Albanese is not dealing directly with the premiers to deal with the root cause of the housing crisis in Australia, which is supply. If he can't deal directly with the Premiers, I think it speaks volumes of this Prime Minister's authority with Labor Premiers right around the country. These two bills that are before the Senate today aren't going to make a lot of difference to the number of people that own their own home, it isn't going to make housing more affordable. All that it will do is simply allow large corporates and indeed the government to own your home. Most homeowners want to own it outright, and that's not what these Bills will do.

JOURNALIST: Will we have the Coalition's nuclear policy costings before the next election, or by the end of the year?

JANE HUME: The Coalition will announce its costings on its nuclear policy before the next election, whenever that election may be. The most important thing here, though, is to make sure that we compare apples with apples. It's not just about nuclear, it's about the entire energy mix, and we'll have more to say on renewables, on firming gas as the transition fuel, and then the inclusion of zero emissions, clean nuclear energy as part of that energy mix. The most important thing here is that the cost is focused on the consumer, getting prices down. Australians are paying up to 48 cents per kilowatt hour. For energy in countries where they have nuclear mix, per kilowatt hour cost comes right down. In Ontario, it's around 14 cents per kilowatt hour. In the state of Tennessee, in the US, it's around 16 cents per hour, sorry, 18 cents per hour. They have around 44 and 60% nuclear in their energy mix, respectively. So you can see why this is a really important policy for consumers.