Topics: Labor’s cost of living crisis, Labor’s housing crisis, Supermarkets

E&OE

MICHAEL MCLAREN:

The Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor joins me. Angus, good afternoon.

ANGUS TAYLOR:

G'day, Michael, thanks for having me.

MICHAEL MCLAREN:

Plenty to get through, not a lot of time so let's do our best here. Look, cost of living, that's the big issue out there in listener land, cost of living. There are some things the government are doing. There's a lot more they could be doing. There's some things they're not doing that they should be doing. But let's just for a moment throw you back on the government bench and let's look, for example, at the rental market. I mean, this is where a lot of people are really feeling the pinch at the moment. It is being driven in large part, as we know, by these record immigration levels that we're seeing. 100,000 people for goodness sake, permanent arrivals in just February. I mean, this is record breaking stuff. It does have an immediate and obvious direct impact on the rental market. What will the Coalition do to ease immigration levels, if you got back to government?

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, you've got to get those levels back into line with housing supply. It's as simple as that. You can't have over a million adult Australians being added to the population, which is what we've seen since Labor came to power. And about half the number of houses you need to support that. We've seeing around 250,000 houses, we need close to double that, if you're going to support that kind of growth in population, but we haven't seen it. So you've got to get it back into line. We're going to have more to say about this in the coming weeks and months, Michael, but the starting point is to say we've got to get that back into line. The government has absolutely failed to do it, you do have to get more housing supply out. That's partly States, it's partly also making sure that you're keeping enough investment in infrastructure, because there's nothing that annoys people in my electorate more than seeing houses going up without the roads and other infrastructure.

MICHAEL MCLAREN:

I agree, I mean that is too often the story. Just to, you say there'll be more to say in the months ahead. And I appreciate that we're not in an election tomorrow. But I mean, I've spoken to Dan Tehan about this, I've spoken to a number Coalition people about this, everybody says we should have fewer migrants, yet no one can say even roughly what that number should look like. I mean, surely you're in a position to say if we're getting 600,000 a year it's too many. It should be 300 or 400, give or... I mean, what sort of number would you aim for?

ANGUS TAYLOR:

It's a great question. And I think the best way to answer that is to look at history, which is to say that when we were in government, it was closer to 200,000. So less than half of what we've actually been seeing is a sustainable number for this country. We know we can manage that. It's not easy by the way, you've got to make sure you're investing in the infrastructure to support that or else even that number doesn't work...

MICHAEL MCLAREN:

The business lobby, the universities they'll all be saying "no, no, no, keep it going, keep it going."

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Say that, again?

MICHAEL MCLAREN:

The universities, the business lobby, they'll be in your ear, "keep it going keep it" they want these numbers.

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Yeah. And we're seeing record levels of international students. We've never seen numbers like this before. That's been one of the really big numbers that's grown at a remarkable level. Of course, they make a lot of money out of it, but they're not the ones who have to house these people. And they haven't been. So you know, this is not a sustainable situation right now. As I said, historically, the number was less than half of what we've actually been seeing, Michael, and the pressures are everywhere. It's not just in the rental market, although it clearly is in the rental market. It's also in the housing market itself, more generally. Young Australians, I mean, I'm worried about my kids. I don't have grandkids yet but I've got four kids aged between 18 and 25, and the potential for them to own a home. It's a very different situation to when I was their age. And I think this is something that has to be solved. The immediate thing is to get immigration back into line with housing supply. And then we have to get, make sure that we've got the housing coming through. And we don't all want to live in industry union super funds that are building big apartments around railway stations. Sure, some people are happy to live there. But people want gardens and standalone houses as well.

MICHAEL MCLAREN:

They're under pressure. They're under pressure. Okay, so the answer to that, closer to the 200,000. Good. Now, one other issue here, of course, is the supermarkets. Now, there was a report, I think, March 30 in the Herald that suggested you and David Littleproud were in advanced talks within the Shadow Cabinet, on new divestiture laws, basically laws that threaten to break up the supermarkets if they misuse their market power. I mean, is that true? And assuming it is, what would it look like?

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Yeah, so we are working our way through how we can make sure that we've got more competition in our supermarket sector. One thing we've committed to and have been arguing for, for a long time, is to get the grocery code mandatory, proper penalties in place, that's really important not just for consumers, but for suppliers, farmers who need to get a fair deal from the supermarkets and we've heard lots of egregious examples of bad behavior on that front. More generally, we're concerned that supermarkets have been locking up land that their competitors might be able to access to get more competition into the market. That's been a long standing practice, there's been measures that have been taken under previous governments to try to reduce it. But we've just heard from Metcash in the last few days, about genuine concerns that that's still an issue. And so, you know if you've got a suburb or a town, where one of the supermarkets is locking up all the land so others can't get in, that's a major issue, they shouldn't be able to do that. And that is something, I have to say, we are looking at. We're not going to go with a ham fisted approach. We want to make sure that competition policy delivers a good outcome for consumers. That's the key. It's all about making sure consumers and suppliers get a fair deal. And so we're not rushing into this. But we are working our way through it.

MICHAEL MCLAREN:

See, the only reason I ask about the divestiture thing particularly, is because I think the previous Coalition government bunged that on in the energy space. Now, that was more like the nuclear bomb option. That was the threat never used, but the idea was having it there would influence behaviour. As I said, it was never used. I mean, is that the similar thinking here, you have this on the books, you'd never want to use it, it's just a threat?

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, I was Minister when we did that and we used it as a basis for driving prices down. And we're now seeing the exact opposite from this government, so it was was the right thing to do. We didn't have to use it. You prefer not to use it. These powers do exist in most advanced countries in the world. They're not used much. But the threat of them can play a real role. And I think it did in the energy market. I don't think this government's making any use of that. They were always against it, to be frank, and opposed to getting it through the parliament for a long, long time, but they can be useful. And as I say, we'll do anything that's going to put downward pressure on prices right now because we know what pain people are feeling when they go to the supermarket.

MICHAEL MCLAREN:

All right. Now I'm out of time. We'll speak again hopefully very shortly Angus, I'm getting texts from people worried about this push constantly for a cashless society. We'll deal with that as your role as Shadow Treasurer. We'll also look at petrol next time we speak. Have a good weekend in the meantime.

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Very happy to talk about both of those another time. Thanks Michael.

MICHAEL MCLAREN:

My Pleasure. Angus Taylor, the Shadow Treasurer.

ENDS.