Labor govt must do something ‘radically different’ to boost housing supply for next generation

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]Joining us now is former Labour Senator and Sky News contributor Steven Conroy.

[00:00:04]Steven Conroy, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it.

[00:00:08]Speaking to a range of different people today, the lie is just so brazen. I mean, I I'm not the only one who thinks that this is probably one of the worst lies that we've ever been told. Should the government be apologizing today?

[00:00:25]Well, and I've been in politics in and around politics for over 30 years and all governments and oppositions of all political parties ultimately uh have uh changed their position as facts change.

[00:00:40]If you don't change your position, you look like a dope. Uh and what's become clear is that the existing policies for the last 25 years to try and boost housing supply have failed. And what that's meant is that so many people under the age of 30, probably even higher, don't believe they're ever going to be own owning their own home. And that is part of the Australian dream, the ability to buy a home. So the status quo, the existing policies, you know, all these changes, you discounts on capital gains tax, all of this sort of uh policy agenda has failed. The status quo is no longer acceptable. The amount of kids who are unable to afford a home now and into the future is the basis on which the government has changed its position uh and decided it's got to do something radically different if it wants to give kids a chance to get a home.

[00:01:38]>> Look, I get that things not working. I'm a millennial. I I mean, I I understand it very very well, but I see this as a tax grab. I don't see how this is going to help younger Australians at all. I mean, let's just listen to Anthony Albanes on Sky News today, admitting that he has taken advantage of negative gearing benefits himself. Yet, his government has stripped away the tax concession uh from future Australians.

[00:02:03]So, that's not really helping future Australians that that dare to dream of building wealth. Listen to this.

[00:02:10]>> Um, you don't negatively gear properties, right? Am I am I right in that?

[00:02:16]>> Oh, look, I have in the in the past.

[00:02:18]Absolutely, >> Stephen. I think it's very hard to hear.

[00:02:28]>> Look, uh the fact that anybody elbow or and many other Australians have taken advantage of this, uh they're all going to be untouched by this reform. This is a going forward. But again, let's be clear. this negative gearing 50% capital gains tax they have not delivered the outcome that people under the age of 30 I said probably 40 as well do not believe that the policy that has been used all of the sweeteners all of the discounts all of these they have failed >> key to that is by definition more supply you've got to be building and the government committed in the last couple of budgets to boost supply. It's just it's a long tail to get that new supply coming into the marketplace. No one can build a house in 6 months. So, it's taking, as you would expect, the construction sector's been under a boom.

[00:03:24]Uh it's hard to get trades. All of those sorts of issues as the government are forcing and increasing the housing supply and at the same time changing the tax. You can still get if you're building a new home, you can still apply. You can use these concessions. So this is a nobody who's done it going looking backwards is getting punished.

[00:03:43]>> This is not going to do much for supply though. I mean we're also increasing migration by another million. And you spoke about sweeteners. The government's also injecting an extra $18 billion of spending into the economy during the peak of this inflation challenge making the RBA's job even uh hard I suppose of trying to tame some price pressures.

[00:04:04]>> Yeah.

[00:04:06]Now so look just a couple of points. the the million dollars migration figure.

[00:04:09]That's just nonsense. That is an absolute nonsense. The net migration figure is coming down to 225,000. The people who've pedled this a million uh people literally apparently I migrated twice I I sorry Stephen is migration in this country.

[00:04:26]>> Stephen is migration in Australia under control. It's being the government have been bringing it down and don't forget why the numbers >> then why are so many young people struggling to get into the housing market?

[00:04:42]>> Well, we are cutting back on migration.

[00:04:44]We're building more houses and we're making these changes so that people have a chance because right now it's failing. You got to understand the status quo has failed. Has failed. So the government are pumping more supplies through. It will take a little bit of time. This is a failure of both political parties over 25 years. They haven't built enough supply. Both parties guilty as charged. This government has actually grabbed the bull by the horns and is trying to force more supply into the marketplace. But the all these policies to try and help kids and others get into the market. They have failed. So this government has decided we've got to at the expense of our credibility. We will lose paint. We will be attacked for breaking promises. But the government has decided the objective of trying to give kids a better chance of getting the Australian dream their own home is worth the political pain, which I'm sure they're going to. But I mean, the opposition kind of it both ways. They can't complain about the lack of housing availability, the the lack of rental availability, and then say, "Well, no, we're just going to stick with the same policies." They're the ones that have created the lack of supply, prices going up, and people not being able to rent a place. And now they're trying to pretend that these changes are going to suddenly cause mayhem and there's no houses going to be built. They're just ignoring all the other things this government's doing.

[00:06:01]>> Look, I will take your point that both parties have failed here and I suspect that that has something to do with this big rise we're seeing in support for One Nation. Liberal Senator Alex Antic has suggested that the Liberal Party should not rule out a possible coalition with One Nation. Of course, this comes after the historic victory for Pauline Hansen's party in Farah over the weekend. What do you make of One Nation's performance? It seems like they are going from strength to strength.

[00:06:29]>> Look, unquestionably a disastrous uh you know bi-election in Farah for the Liberal Party and the National Party.

[00:06:39]Unquestionably disastrous. This is a referendum on them. uh labor should not though think that this is not going to have some impact on the Labor party in some key seats. So the sort of calculations that people are doing at the moment on a national basis not a bi-election basis is that for Labor about one since the last election about one in 10 of its voters are now saying we'll vote one nation for the Liberals it's four in 10. 40% of the Liberal Party vote nationally has switched to One Nation. So, it's an enormous problem. I I if I was a National Party member like I think uh Boyce, I'm not surprised they're talking about jumping ship because they are going to it's going to be carnage in regional rural seats between the National Party and One Nation. Carnage in the Senate. Labor cannot be complacent. We there are threats to labor seats caused by one nation. Uh and the government needs to be very alive and needs to be selling not an anti-enation >> agenda. It's got to have a suite of policies of saying we're addressing cost of living problems. We've brought petrol prices down. We're putting more housing into the market. We've made these tax changes that will ease price of houses going up. not not trying to pretend that the house prices are suddenly going to fall, but that the increase uh will be less and therefore more affordable.

[00:08:05]They've given out some budget measures uh in this budget. We had tax cuts last year. So, the government needs to sell its positive agenda at the next election and what it's going to do going forward.

[00:08:16]>> How can we trust this government going forward? I mean, if they lied to us during the last election campaign, who's to say they're not going to lie again?

[00:08:25]>> Well, look, that's that's the challenge.

[00:08:27]and and it's as I said the government will lose paint uh and there will be criticism of them in exactly the words that you've just used. How can we believe a promise you're making today?

[00:08:36]That was the challenge for you know Elbow and Jim to explain why they've changed their position from a year ago and that will be a test. This is a complex set of reforms that they've put in place and they will be out there every day. I' I've been to a couple of uh functions with Jim already. He's out there explaining his way through. He did all the interviews. He's doing them again uh today. But that is a challenge when you go for a reform like this.

[00:09:04]You've got to go out hard to explain not just the reform, but why you changed your view.

[00:09:11]>> Yeah. Once you lose trust, it's really hard to earn that back. I want to ask you about Kharmama. He seems to be holding on. you know, he's told colleagues that he would not resign from his role despite more than 70 Labour MPs publicly calling for him to stand down.

[00:09:26]And of course, this follows the the devastating election losses over the weekend with four ministers now quitting their posts. Uh here's what Donald Trump had to say to Karma.

[00:09:36]>> To Karma, sir, he seems to be on the brink. Well, my advice to him has always been open up open up your oil in the North Sea. You got one of the great oil finds anywhere in the world and you're not using it. They're not allowed to use it and it's one of the best in the world, among the best oils in the world.

[00:09:55]Open up your oil in the North Sea and get tough on immigration.

[00:10:00]>> Did he stay or go?

[00:10:01]>> Europe is being very, very hurt by immigration all over Europe.

[00:10:05]>> Did he stay or go?

[00:10:06]>> Uh, that's up to him. But I've told him from day one, you're getting killed on energy. You're windmilling your country to death. Open up the North Sea. You have one of the greatest sources of energy in the world. OPEN UP THE NORTH.

[00:10:20]>> THE PRESSURE IS FROM NIGEL FAR.

[00:10:22]>> LOOK, he's not wrong about energy or immigration. What do you make of Kama?

[00:10:28]Really, how long does he have left?

[00:10:31]>> Well, look, I don't think Karma needs to take advice from Donald Trump. I mean, there aren't many people with a net disapproval rating worse than Karma.

[00:10:42]Donald Trump is Donald Trump is tanking in every state that matters, every swing state and even not swing states that the Democrats need to turn a Senate uh seat over. Donald Trump is underwater by significant margins. So Donald Trump giving political advice to anyone is pretty comical. He should just apparently in all the redecorations at the White House, he's had all mirrors removed. But K does absolutely have a challenge. Farage is running a mock the you know we as a Labor party in Australia had to take harsh medicine to ensure that we got our migration and our borders under control and Farage will continue to cause mayhem uh across the political landscape in the UK until you know he's got some really hardline policies. No, yeah, has the momentum.

[00:11:41]>> Absolutely. So, all that Star has to his advantage at the moment is time, fiveyear terms, but he needs to make some hard decisions around how he's going to deal with the migration, the the the refugee uh coming across the channel, finding other ways to to get across through the tunnels uh on the hidden in trucks, all of those sorts of things. He has got to he has got to get control of that to restore faith in that vast voter base that he's lost. He needs to address this. He needs to fight the hard battle inside the Labour party. You know, Bill Shorton, Richard Miles, uh, and others fought to set down the benchmarks of a tough border policy that was very unpopular in the party, very unpopular with a range of MPs in the party. But he needs to address this issue. That would restore some faith for him and regain him some support particularly from the Farage camp. If he waits too long, if he waits too long, it will become an absolute mindset. He needs to listen to the wakeup call of all those seats. Just that election, surprisingly, people were actually predicting to lose 1,800 up to 2,000.

[00:12:53]And apparently, he only lost about 1,400 as00.

[00:12:58]>> Yeah. Exa Exactly. No, no, but there were predictions of up to 2,000 before.

[00:13:03]So, I think he's taking some comfort it wasn't as bad as a total wipeout, which I think is missing the point.

[00:13:09]>> Oh, I think it was pretty bad. There's any sugar coating that at all, but I I suspect he's also running out of time to make those changes. Former Labour Senator, Sky News contributor, Steven Conroy, thank you so much for joining us on Power Hour. Brilliant to speak with you. Yeah, great to talk to Dan.