Panel with Natalie Barr and Clare O'Neil, Sunrise
16 August 2023
NATALIE BARR: The Prime Minister will call on state leaders to come up with a better deal for renters and a solution to the nation's housing crisis when National Cabinet meets today. State Premiers and Chief Ministers will consider new rent controls including limiting increases to once a year and banning no fault evictions. But Anthony Albanese has already ruled out endorsing the Greens demands for a national rent freeze. Joining me now is Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil and Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume Good morning to both of you. Clare, are you confident these new rent controls will be agreed on by National Cabinet today?
CLARE O’NEIL: Look, we've got to see what the discussion with premiers looks like. Nat, but I want your viewers to understand that this is an urgent housing crisis that we're in as a country, and the federal government is tackling this from every possible angle. So you would have seen in the budget we implemented the biggest increase to rent assistance in 30 years. We've got that discussion today at National Cabinet. We've got the $2 billion that's gone to the states for social housing. What can't get dropped off the agenda here is the Housing Australia Future Fund. So this is this $10 billion fund the federal government wants to use to build more houses, which is at the end of the day, what we need to do. Jane and her friends in the Liberal Party and the Greens are holding us up from doing that at the moment. So we're trying to do everything we can, but we need some of the other political parties and political actors to come with us here. What I know is that we're all here at the end of the day for one reason, and that is that we care about Australians and they're struggling really deeply with this problem.
NATALIE BARR: Yeah, Jane, you guys have said you're already not going to support that. There's no change, is there, besides not supporting that. How do we get more land released, less red tape from the council level, from the state government level?
JANE HUME: That's exactly right. You know, we've been talking about this for a really long time now. The only way to sustainable lower housing prices and to make housing more affordable is to increase supply. It's amazing that it's taken this long to call a national cabinet, particularly when you've got wall to wall Labor premiers. The prime Minister could have just picked up the phone unless he walks out of this national Cabinet today with a realistic plan to open up housing supply, he will have failed.
NATALIE BARR: We've had a housing crisis for a while.
JANE HUME: He has to get these Labor premiers to agree to opening up more supply rezoning. And if you can't do that, he will have failed in his mission. If he just throws more money at the States to do business as usual. And that seems to be what we're hearing about in the media today. Well, that's not a plan. That's just a hope and a prayer.
NATALIE BARR: Yeah. Clare, just briefly-
CLARE O’NEIL: Jane I just have to jump there. I don't want to play the politics on this. But these people were in government for ten years. This housing crisis didn't start yesterday. We are trying to clean up a decade of absolute inaction.
JANE HUME: Clare we've been talking about this for six months on this show-
CLARE O’NEIL: And as I say we have to be doing this from every angle.
JANE HUME: On this show.
CLARE O’NEIL: It's housing supply. What do you mean, six months? Jane, my constituents have been struggling with housing now for more than a decade-
JANE HUME: We’ve been talking about this-
CLARE O’NEIL: More than a decade.
JANE HUME: And what have you done about it Clare?
CLARE O’NEIL: And what you've got now in Canberra is a Government that's trying to do something about this problem. And what we need is for you and your friends in the Greens to get out of the way. Our government wants to build more housing. You are stopping us from doing it.
JANE HUME: It’s a bad policy, we’ve already been through that, you can do better.
CLARE O’NEIL: Please get out of the way so we can get on with the job of trying to fix this problem for Australia.
JANE HUME: You can do better.
NATALIE BARR: Yep, we have had this housing crisis for a while and nothing much has happened. But Clare, you're the government now and you've been in for 18 months and we do need something to happen and we need less red tape. Ask any developer. They can't build more houses if we have this current blockage at council and state level. So, so, you know, besides what's tinkering around the edges now? What are you going to do about it?
CLARE O’NEIL: Okay, well, I don't think anyone's tinkering around the edges actually. What you've got is a federal government that has already done a lot about this problem and has a plan for doing a great deal more. We've had a decade of the federal government absolutely tapping out of the housing conversation. That's not our approach. We've had the increase to rent assistance. We've had the $2 billion that went to the states. We've got the $10 billion Housing Australia Futures Fund. We've got the discussion about trying to give a fair deal for renters. That will happen at National Cabinet today at the end of the day. Nat, the Federal Government is in this debate. We are trying to do everything we can. We need those premiers and again local government to come with us on this. But we've been in government for 18 months almost. I'm proud of what we've done so far. But there is a long way to go on this and this is a really big problem for my constituents and that's why we're working so hard to try to fix it.
NATALIE BARR: Yep, you're right. It is one of the biggest issues affecting people in this country because there is such a flow on. We thank you very much. Go the Matildas tonight. I know you'll both be barracking for them. We'll see you next week.