Interview on Sky News Politics Now

Senator Andrew Bragg

Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership

Liberal Senator for New South Wales

TRANSCRIPT

27 March 2025

TRANSCRIPT

Interview on Sky News Politics Now

Subjects: Labor’s ‘Help to Buy’ tinkering, fuel excise, super for housing, small business, working from home

E&OE………

Tom Connell

The panel now is Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership and Pivotonian supporter, Andrew Bragg.

Senator Bragg

Tom

Tom Connell

The Geelong Cats, for the other people on the panel. You've spoken a lot around that the scheme is not generous enough. So you're giving this a tick in terms of Labor, the eligibility for Help to Buy?

Senator Bragg

No, we don't think that nationalising houses is the way to go. We think that having more effective supply policies and tilting the scales for first home buyers is a much better approach. No one wants to co-own their house with the government.

Tom Connell

Some people might. I looked at your housing policy thing today. It talks about a reduction in immigration, freeing up 40,000 homes. Now, these are not 40,000 homes that are suddenly empty. That's just 40,000 fewer additional homes needed, right? There's not suddenly people moving out because of your policy, are there?

Senator Bragg

It will be over a few years. As you know, we've announced a lot of housing policies.

Tom Connell

That was in the first year, 40,000.

Senator Bragg

It will be over a period of time. But as you know, there's a number of significant housing policies. There's the supply fund, there's the policy to cut the cost of housing through the freezing of the National Construction Code, there's the migration changes, plus there's some demand side.

Tom Connell

But is freeing up a bit cheeky? People aren't just moving out of these houses because of your immigration policy, are they? You're reducing the extra strain, basically.

Senator Bragg

We think reducing foreign demand for Australian housing is an entirely reasonable idea.

Andrew Clennell

Wouldn't you like to go into this campaign with a big sway of tax cuts to sell?

Senator Bragg

We're trying to solve people's problems today, and that's what the fuel excise change will do. We're living in a period where Australians have a housing recession, and they have a day-to-day cost-of-living crunch. So these are solutions for today, not 18 months away.

Andrew Clennell

That's it. I mean, why not go with your own tax cuts package? You've always been about lower taxes.

Senator Bragg

Well, because right now, Australians have had a terrible couple of years, and we're trying to solve problems that are in the immediate future. I think that's entirely reasonable. It's been a shocking few years for many people who are running small businesses or trying to get their family from A to B, and that's what we're trying to do.

Andrew Clennell

What can we expect from this speech tonight? Or are you like Luke Howarth yesterday and don't know?

Senator Bragg

I think quite clearly, the Leader has flagged that there'll be this policy on excise. There'll be more to say about gas.

Tom Connell

Tonight? There'll be gas tonight, will there?

Senator Bragg

I think he said quite clearly that there will be more to say about energy because we understand that cutting the cost of energy is actually going to help households and small businesses. Labor's given a Budget where they don't care about small business. Many Australians work in small businesses or rely on those. We think that's really important part of our focus.

Angira Bharadwaj

Just back on housing. One of the Coalition's key policies is super for housing. There was some PBO analysis that found that would add $1.4 billion annually to the aged pension. What do you make of that criticism?

Senator Bragg

I don't see how it would add to the aged pension.

Angira Bharadwaj

Their reasoning and assumptions was that people would take money out of their super, and they wouldn't re-top it over that money back in, and that would mean that more people would have to rely on the pension.

Senator Bragg

Over the long term, most Australians are on the pension. That's the long term impact of super. It doesn't get many people off the pension. If you have more people living in their own house, you save a lot of money on Commonwealth Rent Assistance, in fact, over a billion dollars. I would say that over the long term, the best approach for most people and for the budget is to get people in houses. We're very confident that that policy will do that, particularly for older millennials. The sweet spot for the policy is around people who are in their mid to late 30s, where they've got a decent balance and they can buy their first house.

Kieran Gilbert

Is there a bit of feedback that you're receiving? We had just in that seat, just 10 minutes ago, Josh Burns saying he's getting a lot of feedback against the Coalition on your position when it comes to working from home. I know it was a public service focus policy, but I have heard feedback from some of your Liberal counterparts saying they've had a bit of blowback on that more broadly. Have you picked that up?

Senator Bragg

I think there may be confusion from time to time about how policies will affect people. We've been very clear that that's about the public service. It's not about the private economy, and it's important that people do have flexibility to work from home if they need to. People can be productive at home.

Tom Connell

Should employers be able to order workers back from work from home?

Senator Bragg

As you know, we're not like the Labor Party. We don't want to get involved and tell businesses how to do every last little point.

Tom Connell

Well, there's a thing called employment law, though. This might start coming up.

Senator Bragg

It's very rigorous, as you know. One of the problems we have in Australia is that you have so many laws which are oppressive for small businesses, that a small business person spends half their time dealing with compliance.

Tom Connell

Would you want to make sure businesses do have the right to say this is a job?

Senator Bragg

It's up to the business.

Tom Connell

And they should be able to say this is a job where you have to be here. There's no work from home, full stop.

Senator Bragg

We're not involved. We're not keen on…

Tom Connell

But I'm asking about whether they should have that power. So should they have that power in your view? Businesses should always have the power to say, this is a job where you're working from here, no negotiation.

Senator Bragg

It's up to the business to work out with the workers. We're not going to insert government in every last transaction and every last debate inside a business. We just don't think it's healthy for the economy.

Andrew Clennell

Tom reckons you've got some massive housing policy to come through in the campaign. Is that right?

Senator Bragg

Well, we've announced a lot of policies already. We've announced-

Andrew Clennell

So you don't have another big one to come?

Senator Bragg

We've announced a supply fund. We've announced changes to the construction code. We've announced super. There's more to say about lending. I've already flagged there'll be more to say about lending. We think it's important to find practical ways to tilt the scales for first home buyers.

Kieran Gilbert

Will you bump up the super accessible? So the figure is $50 grand at the moment, isn't it?

Senator Bragg

Look, we've announced our policy. It's $50,000.

Andrew Clennell

Oh, there you go.

Senator Bragg

That was announced sometime…

Andrew Clennell

Have you said on the show what you were considering?

Tom Connell

Have you seen all the future housing policies that are to be released?

Senator Bragg

Of course. The main point is that…

Tom Connell

Should we be excited? Is it a big headline?

Senator Bragg

We've already announced more effective policies than the government, which has presided over a massive collapse in housing, construction, and has seen first home ownership die, where millennials and Gen Zs feel like they'll never own a house. I think we've already announced more policies than every other party combined on housing.

Tom Connell

Andrew Bragg, we'll talk about the next one soon. Thank you.

Senator Bragg

Thank you.

[Ends]

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