Doorstop interview, Sydney

JULIE COLLINS:

It's great to be here in Sydney today with the Treasurer for the Treasurer's Investor Roundtable where we're talking to significant investors in terms of affordable housing. This is part of the Federal Government's housing strategy. We're talking about in the short‑term unlocking from the National Housing Infrastructure Facility $575 million so that we can get more social and affordable homes on the ground more quickly. And we're talking about the Housing Australian Future Fund - $10 billion that will be invested and the returns every year invested into more social and affordable homes. And, of course, the Housing Accord that the Treasurer and I have been working on in terms of our aspiration for a million homes across Australia from 2024 to 2029. This is about getting those institutional investors and having these types of partnerships like the one that I was pleased to announce this morning: the first public private partnership, whereby the Federal Government is investing with AXA and with St George Community Housing in terms of 350 to 400 affordable homes at Westmead this morning. Half of those homes will be rented at 25 per cent below the market rate, and the others will be in the medium affordable range. This was a significant announcement and it shows that this can be done and I look forward to our discussions today. I'll hand over to the Treasurer.

JIM CHALMERS:

Thanks very much, Julie, and thanks for the really incredible work that you're doing to make sure that we can deal with and address this housing affordability challenge we have in our economy. Today, we are bringing together trillions of dollars of funds under management to see how we can work together to address some of our big economic challenges. The Albanese Labor Government wants to work with investors to see where we can deliver win‑wins for investors and superfund members and for the national economy and the Australian people more broadly. I'm really excited about bringing together the Treasurer's Investor Roundtable - representatives from super, from institutional investors like BlackRock and Blackbird, from the Future Fund, from the big banks, the state governments and others - all working together to deal with some of the economic challenges that we've inherited after a wasted decade of missed opportunities. And the first order of business is housing as Julie has said. What we want to do here is we want to work out how we can deal with the fact that we've got very low vacancy rates, very high rents, and it's harder and harder for people to live near where the jobs and opportunities are being created. So we've convened this Investor Roundtable to deal with those big economic challenges. Today is all about the housing challenge in particular, but we want to establish a routine and a model for working with the investors and the trillions of dollars of capital to make sure that they are meeting their responsibilities to their investors and members at the same time as the Albanese Government is meeting its responsibilities to the national economy and to the Australian people more broadly.

One of the big opportunities in our economy is critical minerals. I've given a detailed speech this morning about the really quite terrific, tremendous opportunity that critical minerals present to Australia. This could be the opportunity of the century. This could be a generational opportunity to provide what the world needs when the world needs it. There's no net zero without mining, there's no electric vehicles without the kinds of resources that Australia is uniquely placed to provide. And that's why critical minerals are such an exciting opportunity for Australia. It's why we're putting so much work with Minister Madeleine King, Minister Ed Husic and others to make sure that we're meeting the moment, rising to this occasion, and making the most out of this really quite extraordinary opportunity that the energy transition and developments in the global economy are providing to Australia. This is an opportunity akin to iron ore and gas and coal in the past. It is in so many ways the future of Australian mining. It's a key part of the opportunities that we see in the Australian economy and that's why we're putting so much effort into it.

JOURNALIST:

Treasurer, you're here forging partnerships with the private sector, but the banks say they were kind of blindsided by this financial accountability regime bill in the last couple of days, does that undermine your ability to work with them on things like housing? How would you characterise your relationship with the big end of town?

CHALMERS:

Not for one second, and I work closely with businesses of all sizes in our economy as you would expect the Treasurer to. This was a recommendation of the Hayne Royal Commission. And we have said that we will take a bit more time to consult on the details of the legislation that was before the Senate. I think that's appropriate. We will continue to work with employers and investors and the private sector. They will play a key role in our economy, obviously, as we attempt to make it more resilient for the challenges of the future, and particularly for this global uncertainty. So we will continue to make the right decisions for the right reasons. And we will continue to consult and that's behind the decision that we took in the Senate.

JOURNALIST:

Treasurer, have you been briefed on the findings being handed down today on Scott Morrison's secret ministerial appointments, and if so, what can you tell us?

CHALMERS:

I haven't seen the outcomes of the Bell inquiry. But I think it is a really important opportunity to get to the bottom of what was dictatorial and authoritarian behaviour in the Liberal Party. And anybody who thinks that this kind of dictatorial behaviour began and ended with Scott Morrison has got rocks in their head. If anything, Peter Dutton has more of the same sorts of tendencies that we saw from Scott Morrison. Peter Dutton, is just Scott Morrison without the ukulele, and the same sort of dictatorial and authoritarian tendencies that we saw under Scott Morrison, we would see under Peter Dutton, if he was the Prime Minister. The Liberal Party has a problem here. And when it comes to Josh Frydenberg, I see that Josh Frydenberg is in the media today. When Australia needed Josh Frydenberg to stand up to Scott Morrison, he sucked up to him instead. And that's what we're seeing, so we need less of the excuse making and less of the complaining from Josh Frydenberg and take some responsibility for what's happened here. Josh Frydenberg was the chief sycophant and the chief enabler of this dictatorial behaviour. One of the reasons why Scott Morrison was convinced he could get away with this kind of behaviour is because Josh Frydenberg spent all of his time sucking up to him rather than standing up to him. And so he should take responsibility or some of the responsibility for what's happened here. With the change of government, the adults are in charge now. It's the end of that period of dictatorial authoritarian behaviour under the Liberals. But if Peter Dutton was elected, you'd see all of it come back. And that's one of the reasons why it's so important we get to the bottom of what's happened here.

JOURNALIST:

On housing, Treasurer, plenty of critics, including David Murray, say social community housing is not a serious investable asset class. How do you respond to that? And isn't there a risk that subsequent governments could pull support for something like the Housing Accord? Couldn't that leave our superannuation funds in stranded assets or in a difficult financial situation?

CHALMERS:

A couple of things about that. What we've seen in this sector is an extraordinary amount of enthusiasm from investors, for affordable housing. And we understand, unlike our predecessors, that there's a leadership role to be played by the Commonwealth when it comes to affordable housing. And so we are filling the void that has been there for some time now. There is going to be an extraordinary turnout at this Investor Roundtable, and a lot of excitement, for doing more to address affordable housing and some of our other big economic challenges as well. When it comes to certainty in the sector, like a lot of these kinds of government endeavours, there will be contracts involved. And even at its worst, the Parliament doesn't typically tear those up. But also we want to demonstrate success, and we want to bed it down. And we want to be a long term government that goes about addressing these sorts of problems in this way. And so if we are successful, and I think we will be, it will be harder for the Liberals and Nationals to mess with it. We've got a big chance in this country to work together to deal with housing affordability to deal with some of our other economic challenges. I am confident we will be successful. And I know that there's a lot of interest and a lot of excitement amongst investors of all kinds in playing a role here.

JOURNALIST:

On the secret ministerial appointments, what changes would you like to see to close the loopholes?

CHALMERS:

First of all, you need a balanced person as prime minister, and we've got that now, so that's an important part of it. But also, let's see what the Bell inquiry comes down with. It will be overwhelmingly a matter for the Prime Minister and to some extent, the Attorney‑General, how we respond to the issues raised in the inquiry. I think Australians are happy that they've seen the back of Scott Morrison, but they know that Peter Dutton would be just as bad if he was given the opportunity. So the only way to avoid this kind of behaviour that we're talking about here is to support a prime minister like Anthony Albanese in a Government like ours. We don't want to see this lack of transparency. We don't want to see the secrecy. We don't want to see this dictatorial behaviour. Peter Dutton would be just as likely to engage in it as Scott Morrison was. Thanks very much.