STEPHEN JONES:
Well, I think I can speak on behalf of the majority of Australians when I say that was a pretty disappointing performance by Peter Dutton this evening. This was an opportunity for Peter Dutton to paint an image of himself and a vision for the future. And all we got was an image of a man who's stuck in the past and scared of the future. And if that's not bad enough, instead of presenting a vision for the future of the country, what he's trying to do is scare Australians. Scare Australians of the future and scare them off a plan that's going to get them to where we need to be. This was an opportunity for the opposition to admit that their economic policies have left us with $1 trillion worth of debt, a budget with structural deficits, Labor market shortages and a decade of flat wages and a failed energy policy, which is seeing power bills go through the roof. Instead, we got a picture of a bloke who is stuck in the past, fighting the last election and trying to make Australians afraid of the future. This is all fear and no policy and no vision. In fact, the only vision you got from Peter Dutton tonight was him endorsing Labor's policies on child care. Labor's policies on medicines. Labor's policies on veterans housing. And Labor's policies on the NDIS. Australians can be expecting much more from the leader of the opposition. They can be very disappointed from what they got out there tonight. This was Peter Dutton's opportunity to explain himself and introduce himself to the Australian people. What they got was Scott Morrison 2.0. What they got was a bloke fighting the last election and stuck in the past, a wasted opportunity. Well, Labor’s not going to be distracted by this. We set out our plan for the future. We’ve set out our program in the budget on Tuesday night and we intend to prosecute it. Happy to take your questions.
REPORTER:
Obviously Peter Dutton there had some nice things to say about you guys. Did you have anything nice to say about him return? Any that stood out as being nice?
JONES:
We welcome the fact that the leader of the opposition shares the concern that Labor has around the scourge of child sex abuse. It was a Labor government that established the Royal Commission Into Institutional Child Sex Abuse. And I think Peter Dutton is genuine when he showed his emotion and his concern about the scourge of child sex abuse and we welcome that. But we actually need more in an alternative leader of this country. We need somebody with a vision of the future. What we got tonight with somebody who is stuck in the past. Still fighting the last election and in denial about the consequences of their disastrous economic policies, which have left us with $1 trillion worth of debt, a structural deficit, no plan for energy. In fact, all of the chaos in energy policy over the last nine years, 22 energy policies, have left us with the disaster we've got in energy policy and electricity bills going up and up and up.
REPORTER:
Mr Dutton criticised the lack of detail in the Housing Accord that Labor unveiled in its budget. He also flagged his intention to support women who separate later in life and are more likely to become homeless, allowing them to access their super to buy a home. What is in the plan that Labor has that would support that cohort in terms of the Housing Accord? And when will we get more detail on when and how and where those homes will be built?
JONES:
The problem we’ve got in the housing market is we need more houses to be built. And what Mr. Dutton didn’t outline tonight is a plan for how he's going to get more houses built. What Labor has announced in our budget on Tuesday night is a plan to build more houses, 30,000 over the next four years and a million new homes by 2029. And we're going to do it by working in partnership with industry and ensuring that of those million new homes that are built, and in particular of the 30,000 new homes that are going to be built over the next four years, 10,000 are set aside for social housing and a proportion of those are set aside for women and children fleeing domestic violence circumstances and ensuring that we can deal with those immediate crisis situations that are result of a family breakdown and domestic violence.
REPORTER:
But it’s not a million new houses though. It’s lifting the total creation of houses in Australia to a million over five years. Is that going to be sufficient to deal with the housing shortage crisis?
JONES:
We know that the answer to housing is actually building more houses. At every end in the market the problem we have is we haven't got enough houses to house the number of people. Whether it's in rental accommodation, private home ownership, we need to be building more houses. Our plan, our immediate contribution is 30,000 new homes over the next four years. Working with the states and territories and the private sector from 2024 to 2029 to build a new million new homes, which will ensure that we are not only housing Australians, we are going to be boosting the housing industry at a time when it is at risk and ensuring that we're giving apprentices a start in the workforce and re-skilling Australians in those areas where we've got skill shortages as well.
REPORTER:
What do you make of the decision by the opposition to continue without the plan to allow people to use their super to get into the housing market?
JONES:
We criticised that policy in the election campaign and Australians voted against it. The purpose of superannuation is to ensure that we can put money aside, a little bit every week, to ensure that we've got money preserved for our retirement. If we start raiding superannuation for every idea - and let's face it, this is not a new idea, it's a recycled Scott Morrison policy - every time the Coalition comes up with a policy failure, they look to superannuation to attempt to fix it. If superannuation is going to be the answer to everything, it comes the answer to nothing.
REPORTER:
But he does say that the policy would see people put money back into their superannuation if they were to, you know, sell the property.
JONES:
We think the answer to housing lies outside of superannuation. And the plan that we've announced, which is around building more homes and ensuring that we can at every end of the market, whether it's social housing or whether it's affordable housing, get more houses built and help Australians into it. And I think that is the most productive way that we can be assisting Australians into housing. If we keep raiding superannuation to fix every policy failure, nobody will have anything for retirement and we’ll continue to have an enormous burden on taxpayers in paying pensions and we’ll have poverty in retirement. The best thing that we can do to fix the housing situation is to be building more homes.
REPORTER:
Mr Dutton said that the Prime Minister had broken faith of Australians over rising cost of living, specifically highlighting no assistance for lower-income households struggling to pay their energy bills right now. What can those families expect from Labor to deal with the rises over the next two years?
JONES:
The most important thing that we have to do in this budget is ensure that we don't add to the inflationary pressures in the economy. What Mr. Dutton offered in his budget in reply speech was an answer to nothing. He made vague comments about wanting to assist people. He made absolutely no commitments about what he would do, or how he would pay for it. He spent the last three days criticising Labor’s budget and saying we're spending too much and there's not enough in savings. We've got not one cent in new savings in his budget speech in reply. In fact, he endorsed every single one of Labor's new spending initiatives, criticised the offsets that we've made and the savings that we've made. Whether they’re savings in the infrastructure portfolio, or additional revenue that we've been able to gather through stronger compliance with our existing tax laws, particularly through multinational taxation, but also ensuring better compliance with our existing tax laws. Did Peter Dutton endorse those proposals? No, he did not. He criticised them. What we saw from Peter Dutton tonight was not the image of a man who is strong economic manager, but an image of a man who would turn a $1 trillion debt into a $2 trillion debt because he can't pay for the things that he's promising. Any mug can get up there in Parliament tonight and promise all sorts of things. But what you never heard a word Peter Dutton from is how he would pay for his promises. Criticises Labor for the $22 billion worth of savings that we've found to offset our new spending and our promises. Offered nothing of his own. And said, oh yes if he was in government he’d all of the things that Labor was doing, but do none of the revenue-saving mechanisms as well. I mean this is Peter Dutton, who can't do the sums and can't add up. No wonder we've inherited a $1 trillion worth of debt and a budget in structural deficit.
REPORTER:
Peter Dutton criticising the budget on Tuesday night, but also criticised Labor policies under Gillard and Rudd and praised the last Morrison government. What do say about that?
JONES:
What we saw tonight was an image of a bloke who's stuck in the past. He’s fighting the last election and not focused on the future. This is Scott Morrison 2.0. Because everything we heard from Scott, from Peter Dutton, tonight was a criticism of what happened a decade ago, a defence of what happened over the last nine years, but no vision for the future. This is a bloke is stuck in the past and scared of the future and wants every Australian to be scared of the future as well.
REPORTER:
How about in terms of $1 trillion debt? He’s saying that that's been exaggerated, and he quoted ABC fact-check saying that it's been exaggerated. And he’s also been critical of the energy policy and the IR policy, citing that Paul Keating has been critical of the IR policy that's have been introduced into Parliament today.
JONES:
Well, Peter Dutton complains about the fact that wages aren't going up fast enough, but then criticises the mechanisms that are going to drive wage increases for the low-paid Australians. Don't forget, this is the guy whose team said that the stagnant wages of the last decade was a deliberate design feature. One of our first acts when we came into government was to ensure that we got $40 week for Australia's lowest-paid Australians, and then designed a new IR system which everybody acknowledges is broken. Everybody. Employers, unions, everybody who's looking at this is acknowledging that our existing IR system is broken and it is not delivering wage increases for the people who need and deserve it. We've introduced reforms that will affect and benefit low-paid Australians and particularly women. Peter Dutton's answer is to criticise that and use magical thinking to imagine that we're going to get wage increases by a continuation of the policies of the last nine years. Well, if they didn't work for the last nine years, how are they going to work in the future?
REPORTER:
Is the government open to a conversation on new nuclear technologies? And within the Labor party has there been any chats about that and whether it's viable?
JONES:
Labor’s focused on policies that are going to drive electricity prices and gas prices down over the near term and not about exploring the most expensive form of energy. Even if we made a decision today, and used magical thinking like Peter Dutton is, and went for nuclear energy, you would not get one new watt of energy for another ten years. So, how is that going to fix electricity prices over the next two years? We're focused on policies that we know will work. Rewiring the Nation. The transition to renewables. Firming up our existing systems. Investing in hydrogen technology. Investing in batteries. And what you saw from Peter Dutton on display tonight was a bloke who wanted to reignite the climate wars. A bloke who wanted to defend the failed energy policies of the last decade. He almost delivered a 23rd energy policy, which will have been as useless as the last 22 that they couldn't land. Thanks very much.