00:00Our government's not going to give up on home ownership for working and middle class Australians,
00:07even if the Greens and the Liberals try to stand in our path.
00:10And you're seeing us make great progress on housing despite the intense obstruction that
00:15we face from the Greens and the Liberals in the Senate.
00:18You've seen our government do that really important work with the states, trying to
00:21unlock land and unlock skills so we can build construction numbers.
00:25You've seen it in the assistance that we're giving renters through National Cabinet.
00:29And you've seen it, of course, Greg, in the 120,000 Australians that we've helped into
00:33home ownership through the Home Guarantee Scheme.
00:36So I understand the Liberals and the Greens are going to focus on politics.
00:39In a sense, I'm beyond expecting anything better from either of them.
00:43I can tell you what our focus, and I'd say we're the only party doing it, is actually
00:47trying to solve the problems of housing that Australians are facing in their lives.
00:51What I truly and deeply wish is that we had the opportunity to see other people set politics
00:56aside and just let us get on with doing what we said we'd do, which is help more people
01:00into home ownership.
01:01All right.
01:02Let's move beyond the bills in question today to the broader, multifaceted work that you're
01:07undertaking in housing.
01:09On immigration, you've said very recently the migration system isn't working for the
01:14housing sector at the moment, and I'm curious about what you've got in mind to fix that.
01:21As the draft construction skills list left brickies and the like out in favour of yoga
01:28instructors, are you open to doing something the industry's calling for, which is a construction-specific
01:36pathway for tradies?
01:38Greg, just before I get to the migration system, could I just make the point to those at home?
01:43We've got a really urgent need for us to lift the capacity of the construction sector in
01:48our country.
01:49If we go back to the beginning, the reason we have so many problems in our housing market
01:53in Australia is that, for decades, Australian governments and Australian industry haven't
01:58been building enough homes.
02:00We need to address that by building more homes, and that is what our government is doing.
02:03Indeed, I'm on a building site right now that is going to provide a home for more than 100
02:08Australians, and it's doing that through federal government assistance.
02:13We have a big problem with construction skills in our country.
02:15That's one of the reasons we are not building more homes, and we are seeing the government
02:19tackle that from every angle.
02:21We've got these massive investments that we've made in the skills and training sector, and
02:25that's always going to be our first priority, training Australians for the jobs of the future.
02:29But we are going to need the migration system to support construction industry workers to
02:34come to the country, and that's what we're doing.
02:36In the last year, we saw more than 10,000 construction workers come to Australia.
02:42We do need to see that lifted a bit.
02:44Some of the conversations I'm having with the sector at the moment are really around
02:47trying to understand why most companies that work in construction don't feel the migration
02:52system is a viable option for them.
02:54So we'll have a little bit more to say about that down the track.
02:56Okay, lifted by how much, roughly speaking, because I see industry estimates say that
03:01to get to 1.2 million homes, you're going to need, in the entire national system, an
03:08extra half a million trades working.
03:12Really, vocational education in this country is not going to provide all of that.
03:17So what do you reckon the split might be with migration?
03:20Look, some of the experts that advise government talk about numbers in the order of around
03:2490,000 additional construction workers, and so, you know, there'll be debates about exactly
03:30how many.
03:31I think we can all agree that we definitely need more tradies in our country.
03:35So as I mentioned, there's been, you know, a half a million fee-free TAFE places provided
03:40by our government since we've been in office.
03:42We've invested very heavily in apprenticeships, which is a really big issue.
03:46We see a lot of young people start apprenticeships that don't go on to finish them.
03:50So there's those investments happening there, but as I said, migration is going to be a
03:53part of the mix here, and that's something we're working with the sector on.
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