Topics: Budget and Budget in Reply, Immigration, Housing, Energy

E&OE

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

Time to catch up with Angus Taylor the Shadow Treasurer. Angus, good morning.

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Good to be with you Stephen.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

Now yesterday you were at the, seems like it was a little bit heated at the Press Club yesterday?

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, you know, it's the nature of nature of the beast there, Stephen. But look, the important thing was to be talking about the budget and budget in reply, which I did. And Labor's third budget failure, and failing all the tests that we set for the budget which I've spoken about on your program before. Fighting and beating inflation, restoring prosperity, re-establishing budget discipline. It did none of those things. We've laid out a pathway forward. And we'll have more to say about that in the lead up to the next election. But recognising that we've got to re-establish the great Australian dream of home ownership, recognising that we've got to have an energy system that can support not just households, obviously, with reliable, affordable power, but also industry. And so I was laying out those things. Some agree, some don't. But that's all part of the debate. What's important is that Australians are getting a very different picture from us than what they got from Labor.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

Well, let's talk about those two issues, housing and energy for a moment. Part of the housing policy effectively outlined in the budget reply speech by Peter Dutton was a two year, I'm gonna say a moratorium, but effectively a two year ban on foreign ownership of existing residential property. Why only two years? I mean, I don't understand why there is any rationale whatsoever for foreign ownership and residential property in Australia at all. I understand that we need foreign investment in industrial property and in commercial property, and even when it comes to greenfield subdivisions, and those kinds of things, but existing or even new residential homes, why are we selling them overseas?

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, can I just say, by way of context for your listeners, there's a couple of parts to our policy, that is one and that's enormously important. The other is to get immigration levels back into line with the growth in housing supply. With regard, and both of them matter, and there's other levers we need to pull as well. But they're the key levers we've been talking about to make sure that we have a housing supply that is in line with our population. And we clearly haven't had that in recent years. With respect to foreign ownership, yep, I hear your point. I mean, we've said, let's get this in place for two years, we'll obviously review it towards the end of the two years and decide where we have to go from there. I think that the important step is to say, hey, if Australians can't get into a home right now, because we haven't got a balance between supply and demand, then it's not appropriate that others should be buying homes from outside of Australia. That's a pretty simple principle. And your point, I understand. The real question is, can we get back into more of a balance within two years. It'll be, that's what we've got to see over time. And it's why it'll be reviewed, leading up to the end of the two years.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

Because the issue here isn't just housing supply with this. And you know, there's been a lot of commentary in the last couple of days about the fact that there's only this many foreign owners who've bought properties in the last couple of years or whatever. But every single one of those purchases, regardless of how many there are, forces the price of the market up and that's the other issue. It affects housing affordability.

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, that's right. I mean, part of this is about getting the supply and demand balance right. But in doing that, you're making housing more affordable. If you've got way more demand than supply, it's pretty simple. the price goes up. What we've said is a big part of what's driving the additional demand in recent years has been a huge inflow of immigration. 530,000 in a year. I mean, these are record numbers, Stephen, way above what we've had when we were in government. But we also know part of it is that we've had many foreign purchases of homes, and that's putting extra pressure on the market as well. So taking those pressures off, and at the same time, then freeing up the construction industry, the housing industry to build more homes as quickly as they possibly can. Labor has been wrapping those industries in red tape and I talked yesterday about how important it is to free up our housing industry to build more homes.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

One of the platforms of your policy is to allow first home buyers and older women specifically to access the super before retirement to help them afford a house deposit. Look, I'm all in favor of this but I understand what critics say when they say well what does this actually do to our retirement savings and what kind of pressure does this put on the welfare system down the track if we're using our super to buy a house?

ANGUS TAYLOR:

That is a question people ask. But can I make a couple of points about it. The first one is that we know the single best indicator of someone having a good retirement is they go into retirement owning their home. If you go into retirement without owning your home, then you're going to have a much tougher time in retirement. We know that, it's very clear, we had a retirement review in recent times that made that point very clear. So this is why we do think home ownership is enormously important, Stephen. And the second point is, we have found over the years, and I think you'll have many listeners who agree with this, that owning your home is a very good investment. We're not saying you don't have to invest the money from your superannuation. You do have to invest it, you're not going out and spending it on a holiday, you're spending it on a home that has capital gains. And we know those returns have been good, you can't take that money out, spend it another way, it's got to remain in the home until you sell a home at which point it's got to go back into your super.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

So you're relying on people to effectively downsize at retirement.

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, I mean, what we're saying is, if you take a step back, in the superannuation system right now, you can own anybody's home except your own. That is the situation. You can own anybody's home except your own. We're saying that's bizarre. You should be able to own your own home, too. It will deliver capital gains, you have to keep it as well, you can't go and spend it as consumption before retirement. And so it's just another asset in your portfolio that you might have as you're building up your superannuation nest egg. And I think your own home should be part of that.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

Sure. But if you own somebody else's home, you're getting a rental return along the way, you don't get that from owning your own home.

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, the question is whether you get a good return out of owning a home. And the truth is, we've found over the years, it's very clear, and I'm sure lots of people will corroborate this, that owning a home and owning housing has been a very good investment over a long period of time.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

Oh well, we wouldn't have a housing housing affordability crisis if it wasn't. That's the reality of it. I want to talk about the tax system before I get to energy though. Both yourself and Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume have been spruiking a simpler income tax system, does this go further than what the coalition's version of the stage three tax cuts were?

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, at this point, what we've announced, the starting point is to say the principle is we want lower simpler, fairer taxes. We've always believed in that as a Coalition and the stage one, two and three tax cuts, they ignore stages one and two many people when they talk about this, were implemented by us. Labor reluctantly supported them along the way, and many, many stages along the way. They rejected them. They said before the last election, they would accept the stage three tax cuts, they voted for it. And then of course, changed their minds after the election. That's all history now. But what we have said is the down payment we're making in our budget in reply on lower, simpler, fairer taxes is the focus on small business taxation. Accelerated depreciation, which is very, very, I think, very effective for small businesses to make investments in bits of kits that are going to make them more productive, more competitive. And we've said, not only will we reinstate that back to the pre COVID levels, the thresholds, but we will extend it ongoing so that you know every year from when we get into government, you're going to have access to accelerated depreciation as a small business. So what that does is give them the confidence to know they don't have to worry about the depreciation schedules and all the red tape associated with that, they can make an investment, it's immediately tax deductible. And that's a big incentive to make investments, get more productive and employ more people in the process.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

You've said in the coming months, you're going to release potential sites for nuclear power plants to be built. The CSIRO have come out and basically said too expensive and it'll take too long. The take too long thing I just think is an absolute red herring and a furphy anyway, but the cost is significant here, they're talking about $8.5 billion for a one megawatt power station. How do you justify that?

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, a couple of points I'd make here. The first is that, basically every other advanced country in the world, either has nuclear or has plans to move in that direction. And so, I still don't understand why the Labor Party and others think that those countries are all wrong and they're right. I mean, this is just, it's an extraordinary claim that they're making that they know better than countries that have been building these things, running them, operating them for years and years and years. In terms of the costs. I'm confident that that can be economic. The truth is that if you're investing in electricity generation, it's got to deliver a return, I think it can. I think that's absolutely feasible and that's why this is happening in other countries. The point I would make that is really important to remember is we're focusing here on pre existing coal sites. They're the sites that I think are the obvious candidates. We've made that point all the way along. Why is that important? Because it means you don't have to build all the extra transmission lines. There's many other costs you can avoid. And that is crucial to making sure that the economics of these generators can work. If on the other hand, you go down Labor's renewables only plan, up to 28,000 kilometers of transmission lines have to be built, Stephen, this is going to be criss crossing our countryside, including where I live in a way we can't even imagine. And I think that is completely unnecessary expenditure, which is which is required under Labor's plans.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

Angus, good to talk to you. We'll catch up again in a couple of weeks.

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Thanks Stephen.

ENDS.