Rafael Epstein:
He’s part of the federal government. I’ll dub him the Minister for Living Standards. He is giving a speech today at the Chifley Research Centre here in Melbourne. Andrew Leigh, good morning.
Andrew Leigh:
G’day, Raf how are you?
Epstein:
I’ll get to your speech in a moment. But Dorinda Cox switching parties, does it erode people’s faith in politicians?
Leigh:
We’re really pleased that Dorinda has made the decision to join the Labor Party. You know, I think back to the decision I made when I was at university as to whether I wanted to be part of a party of protest or a party of government. And in my case, I chose the party of government. I’m really pleased Dorinda has made the same choice yesterday.
Epstein:
But would you acknowledge it makes voters angry?
Leigh:
Oh look, I’m sure there’s there’d be some who would be frustrated by it. But I think it does reflect the fact that the Greens have to take a serious look at themselves and how they’ve positioned themselves in the last few years: holding up affordable housing, the role they’ve played in sowing community discontent.
Epstein:
You don’t like it when it happens the other way I presume, if a member of the party left, and Labor didn’t like that?
Leigh:
Every party wants more members Raf. I don’t think anyone would be surprised by that. But if you look at the results in the last election with the Greens losing most of their House seats. I think that does reflect the fact that people want a party like the Greens to support getting things done.
Epstein:
Andrew Leigh, you’re giving this speech today. I mentioned that housing example from your speech. It’s not only about housing, but why did you mention that example? What are you trying to get at?
Leigh:
I think we’ve got a thicket of regulation affecting areas like housing and infrastructure. All of it well‑meaning Raf, but collectively it can have the impact of stymieing progress. And what we’ve seen – and it’s been highlighted by organisations like YIMBY Melbourne, led by Jonathan O’Brien – is that there’s been too many opportunities for third party objections, not enough opportunities for getting things built. We’ve seen in Victoria some $90 billion of infrastructure projects, being held up. And that’s led to work by the Victorian Government in order to try and get that moving again. So, we do need to be a country that builds. It’s really vital as we deal with challenges around housing affordability, around renewable energy, and around infrastructure.
Epstein:
How do you pick the right rules to stick with and the right rules to junk?
Leigh:
Some of it’s about having a single front door. So, we’ve done that to major investors now and I know various states are looking at how they can expedite the planning process by having a single point of which developers lodge their approvals rather than having to go through a whole host of different agencies. Part of it also is about providing accountability and focusing on those lag times. We now have lag times which are in some cases longer than the time that it would have taken to build the structure back in the 1960s. And that’s reflected in housing prices. Houses used to cost 4 times income in the 1980s. Now they cost about 11 times the average income. And that means that housing affordability has become a central challenge for the nation.
Epstein:
Is it a philosophical problem or a practical problem? You’ve spoken about you just need one front door for the developer of a renewable energy project or a block of flats, but we also need local communities to be consulted. Is it just a simple mechanics of government problem or is it something bigger?
Leigh:
I think it’s both Raf. And you and I have read Ezra Klein’s and Derek Thompson’s book ‘Abundance’ which talks about this problem in the United States and paints a broader, philosophical picture. But on the ground, it’s often really practical. That’s what I referred to YIMBY Melbourne and the YIMBY movements across Australia which are looking to try and put more of a focus on development. We know 94 per cent of Australians support more development around transport hubs and the practical challenges that are getting in the way of that are often just duplicate regulations and a challenge of timelines blowing out.
Epstein:
But everything from the power line over my land through to if I’ve suddenly got a three‑storey apartment block next door instead of a single‑storey home, consultation – community consultation— takes time. We need that, don’t we?
Leigh:
We certainly do, but we also need to get stuff built, and the processes in Australia sometimes aren’t matching what’s happening in other countries. The Grattan Institute for example, says that tunnelling rail in Australia costs about twice as much as it does in Sweden. And that’s clearly not about labour cost, Swedish workers are well‑paid. It’s about the way in which the construction projects are sequenced, how risks are shared, and how delivery is managed. So, we can do better across a whole host of these different areas, and if we do then we get an Australia that builds more homes, that builds cheaper rail networks, that has more of that clean energy infrastructure. That’s a terrific vision to be striving towards and we don’t want to let every little bit of process and administrative procedure get in the way of that grand vision.
Epstein:
Do we have too much consultation?
Leigh:
Consultation needs to happen within an appropriate timeline and needs to be the case that you can have you say, but not everyone gets to block development. Because if everyone gets to get in the way of development then we don’t get the housing in the places where we need it. We get stretched greenfield developments in outer suburbs where people have massive commuting times, rather than Paris‑style walk‑ups around transport nodes which allow people to be able to enjoy that local community that we know is so important to a good life.
Epstein:
We’ve got local governments, state government, federal government. Can a federal government fix much of this?
Leigh:
It’s got to involve work in all fields. I’m really pleased that in New South Wales local councils last year for example, of the 60 candidates that signed the YIMBY pledge, almost half of them were elected. So, there’s that movement starting at the local councils. At the state government level, you’ve got the Victorian work to unblock renewable energy. At the federal level, I know there’s a huge commitment by Ministers Clare O’Neil, Catherine King and others looking to try and unblock this process and get more built.
Epstein:
Thank you for your time and enjoy giving your speech.
Leigh:
Thanks so much.