‘Perfect storm’: Treasurer mocked for celebrating housing market slump

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Let's go there to uh CRA. Sky News political editor Andrew Clell joins me.

[00:00:05]Let's look at this research out there today that there could be Andrew a $1 trillion hit to home values as a result of Labour's tax changes. We saw obviously on the weekend that six-year low in auction clearance rates for the treasurer. He says, well, that's a good thing.

[00:00:22]>> Uh but if we are making it easier for first home buyers to get a fair crack at auctions, then that's a good thing.

[00:00:29]There are other factors like interest rates and that's why we had already seen some movement in auction clearance rates before the budget.

[00:00:36]>> All right, mate. For everyone who's trying to buy a home is someone who is selling it and getting a worse deal because of these tax policies, but a lot of people like me and you, I presume we're not selling our homes, but we don't want them to drop in value either.

[00:00:49]I think the politics here are very problematic for the treasurer.

[00:00:54]>> Oh, they are. But how else could he spin it, right? Like what what else could he say? And that's what he's done. That's the only direction you'd go. But I mean, political strategist, professionals have told me for many years that it is a vexed question politically. Uh the fact that um you got a lot of parents out there who think my my children might be able to afford to live in the city that I live in, uh but they don't want their house prices to drop. So, uh when you introduce changes like this, uh you're sort of hitting both sides of the argument. But these changes don't seem to have convinced people because young people can't rent vest and that kind of thing. This is a perfect storm. It's a situation where you've got the rate hikes on the one hand driving down prices, driving down confidence. Uh the Iran war and the cost of living crisis the same and then on the other hand uh therefore it's not a great idea to introduce these sort of tax changes which hurt the housing market. So, I think it's, you know, next year or so, it's a good time to buy. If you're looking to buy, it's it's good news. Uh, if you're looking to sell, it's terrible news. And that generally is is a political problem for a government.

[00:02:06]>> Well, if the treasurer was right that it's helping more young people get into a home, the clearances on the weekend would have been higher. We wouldn't be at a six-year low. That's part of the problem. But also when you've got rising interest rates and they say there's two or maybe three rate rises still to go this year. Um you're requiring people to have more and more of a deposit and more and more on that assessment that the banks do in terms of their financial wherewithal to meet the projections of of where rates could go. So it's not the win that the treasur is trying to spin it as.

[00:02:44]Well, the thing is in our major capital cities, the prices are too high for first home buyers any anyway. So, it's kind of like the horses bolted and there was nothing in that budget from the Treasury modeling and God knows how they come up with that modeling which suggested there'd be a significant change in house prices because of their measures because if you grandfather the negative gearing for example, it just doesn't have a big enough effect over time. It might just grow less. I mean, they said $19,000 off the median price of a home. So Jim Chararma is there. He has to say that that's that that that's a true thing. If prices go down, it's better for first home buyers, but it's still pretty pretty damn hard for them.

[00:03:23]And uh it shows a a bad situation politically for the government, as I said, because house prices going down is never good for a government. And I've said before with you, I think Peter, I was in New South Wales when the car government uh Michael Lee and Bob Carr introduced a vendor tax on investors, investment properties at the same time as a property slump. And they had to reverse it because, uh, that was very bad news for them politically, house prices going down and a tax being put on investors.

[00:03:54]>> Of course, they could fix they could fix part of the supply problem by not putting so many people into the market by shutting the door. before we get to 28 million today. We saw that and and most of that 2 to1's coming from migration, not live births in Australia.

[00:04:09]But before we get to that, we'll get to that in a moment. David Farley sworn in today. Of course, One Nation riding high in those polls yesterday, eclipsing Labor on primary vote. You asked Pauline Hansen about her aspiration to be prime minister. We'll get to that in a moment, but this is an assessment from Paul Kelly today.

[00:04:29]She could be a lot worse than elbow. She could be a lot worse than elbow. And at some point, at some point, Australian common sense and resilience and capacity to assess politics has got to come into play with some sensible assessments of the limitations of Pauline Hansen.

[00:04:49]>> Well, Andrew, do you think that's going to happen?

[00:04:53]>> Well, I saw Paul Kelly around the corner just before he said good interview, so I was pretty stoked with that, Peter. But um I think um I don't think there's any asurances in this life. I mean when you look at Donald Trump winning with the same sort of platform, the same sort of anti-establishment platform, when you look at Brexit getting up, when you look at Nigel Farage being in the lead in Britain and a chance of being UK prime minister, anything is possible. And the government vote is declining. It is declining. So you know this happened with them around the voice. They came back. They came up with some policies that worked in the election. and they compete at the right time again and the preference situation here makes it different from Britain and the compulsory voting makes it different from Britain. So Labor has a bit more of an advantage there. But if you were complacent against the One Nation threat at the moment in the Labor Party, that would be a big mistake. And if you're the Liberal Party, you have to be very, very concerned indeed. But it's just hard slog chipping away, chipping away, chipping away, hoping One Nation gets a bit more scrutiny uh that they stuff up and hoping your messages get out there.

[00:05:57]But by gee, it's a it's a long road at the moment and it doesn't show signs of shifting for months at least.

[00:06:05]Well, I argue it's taken, you know, a decade for the Liberal Party to get in this position for there to be a vacuum that so clearly she has walked into.

[00:06:15]It's been turbocharged since last year's May election. Uh, you know, along comes Susan Lee and and was 6% at that election under Dutton. It went from six to now in in the 30s. Uh, and this is the challenge for the Liberals. I mean, I think it's really significant. You saw, as I mentioned before, 28 million today. Uh we were never to get to 28 million for a long long time. We've hit 28 will soon be 30 by 2030. That was meant to happen at the end of next decade. And and it's 2 to one. It's arrivals, you know, a new person coming into this country every 59 seconds and a new birth every 2 minutes. And this is what Red Bridge in that poll yesterday says is a huge issue. And the only one they really trust is One Nation.

[00:07:03]>> Well, the One Nation vote doubled after Bondi, the Bondi massacre. And that speaks for itself in my view.

[00:07:09]>> That that's people saying that they have a view that there are people with the wrong ideology being allowed into this country. Whether that's, you know, it's a generalization, whether that's right or wrong, whatever, >> not wrong, >> but that there are instances of that occurring. And um that's that's what turbocharged the vote. I mean, you just have to look at the timeline >> and and and when they have a look and even if you looked at the way that Pauline conducted herself on Sunday morning with me, she was um you know, straight. She spoke honestly. She spoke like Australians. She didn't do the talking points. These guys need to recalibrate this talking point rubbish because I see it every day and I could answer the questions with them, Peter.

[00:07:52]So I could interview myself. I could say you know what do you think of uh Orcus?

[00:07:56]Well Orcus Andrew is a very you know great program for Australia and alliance is important. I mean they're just reading. It's like learning year 12 exams. They're reading it. They're memorizing it and they're regurgitating it.

[00:08:10]>> Well, you know, I reckon I could get my 16-year-old daughter to do that. I mean, these guys need to just be a bit more nimble uh and a bit more intelligent and take a few more risks. They might get the plauditance at the PMO or the opposition leaders office for spouting the talking points and by all means chuck a couple of messages in don't get me wrong but the difference between them and Hansen and people aren't mugs they see it and Barnaby too especially Barnaby I mean he is an amazing retail politician is these people just talk plainly they still get the messages out but they talk plainly they're not like robots >> and I think you know that Labor and Liberal politicians really need something of a re-education on this front and would do a lot better if they if they did this, if they took a few more risks, calculated risks.

[00:08:56]>> Yes, I remember working for a bloke the media used to mock that he spoke simply and uh repeated his messages, but proofs in the pudding. It was for him, for Tony Abbott, of course, and it certainly is for Pauline Hansen. Andrew, thank you.