‘My house goes under, my future goes under’: Australians sound the alarm on housing

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Joining us now is a senator and a future senator. I believe in you, Joe Hillbr.

[00:00:04]Ross Scadellen.

[00:00:05]Yeah, he joins us from Kings Cliff in beautiful Northern New South Wales. What a magical part of the world you are there. Make sure you go to the bowling club, too. They've got some uh great live music on the weekends, mate. How's King's Cliff tonight?

[00:00:19]>> Okay.

[00:00:20]Oh, mate, it's uh it was nice. We're outside. We were all ready to do this cross from the border getting ready for state of origin, but uh the weather's come in a bit, so we had to come indoors, but we were at the sports club last night. It was good night.

[00:00:30]>> Yeah, good stuff. Good club, too. Good club, too. All right, now let's get to uh Morgan Stanley has turned around and suggested that there is about to be a major drop in house prices. Again, fantastic if you are one of the people trying to get in, but 2/3 of the market is already in. This is the issue where Joe again um the the the the half full version is well okay if an $800,000 house becomes a $750,000 house then great the amount of the deposit is a little bit less. But the reality is that the reason we buy homes right >> is because we expect them to increase in value so when we play financial kaplunk we can pay for our age care.

[00:01:10]>> Yep. That's right. And this is the exact argument that came around the last time there was a big debate about negative gearing and Malcolm Turnbull famously advised young people to go to the bank of M and Dad and there was there was immediately and I think this is what happens when you have such leadership churn and churn in politics generally.

[00:01:25]You lose all this corporate memory and and and people were saying hang on a minute do we really want to drive house prices down because my house price is my biggest insurance policy. this is my big this this is the biggest asset that I own. If it goes under, my whole financial future goes under. Now, again, that's not necessarily my position. If I was labor, I'd be saying, see, it's working already. That's what they said they were going to do. But that's what it looks like. And you have to be prepared for the fallout from that.

[00:01:54]Where people where those homeowners live, who they are going to vote for next time, and of course, you know, what else are they being hit with in the the budget? Well, and and and this is why the politics of housing is so vexed because I understand if you only take it from the renters's point of view, there's a whole series of choices that you make. If you only want to take it from the first home buyers position, there's a whole series of but that's not where twothirds of the market is. And they might want to pretend that it's all the evil boomers or the tech bros with their seven and a half, you know, billion houses. It's rubbish. Ross, again, if people start to notice that the value of their home starts going down now, okay, if you're not planning to sell in the next five or 10, fair enough. But there will be somebody who is planning to do so in the next two because that's their plan cuz that's how old they are.

[00:02:45]>> Well, not just that. Just say I've saved for the last 10 years. I'm in my high 20s. Just pretend I'm that. I put my 10% down. I've bought a house in the last 6 months. And now I lose all of it. I lost all of my deposit. I am my debt is equal to the current value of my house and cost of living. I can't keep my payments up anymore. You've lost everything because of this change if it does come true. You know, I feel sorry for Elbow.

[00:03:06]He's probably got $10 million worth of houses. So, it's cost him a million bucks if it happens. Poor bastards. But it's it's um we got to retain our value of our our homes. This this is the thing. I don't we don't need them to go up. We, you know, I get that it can go up more slowly to let people in, but and this 5% deposit scheme, people who've taken part of that will be underwater.

[00:03:25]Yes. Imagine if you you've gone in a 5% deposit, you lose 10% of your value of house. You are now people going to hand back the keys and walk away like they did in America. This is a nightmare scenario. And all the time with less investment into rental housing, rents are going to go up. I we I I hope for better for our country. I don't wish ill upon our country. We need to have some good outcomes, but this could go south in a big way. I would prefer if again if the turnaround was okay look there's we've made these decisions here which theoretically save us x billion dollars and we'll match you dollar for dollar for the first $20,000 of your house to at least there would be something that would actually tell the narrative that they are trying to sort of put the lacquer on all of this and again Joe as as you know man who understands why the prime minister's been in a political position of dominance for a while all right everyone knows that but we've seen this flailing around where if you if you're part of anyone resistance to this? You're evil rightwinger, you know, too much news corp in your life. Um, you're a tech bro, you know, like all of this crap.

[00:04:28]>> I think that they and if if they are planning to shove it in no changes, then they will take people who have been friendly under 50 and will flip them against them for life.

[00:04:38]>> Yeah, I think it would be insane not to bend uh at least a little bit on this.

[00:04:43]Um the government has flagged, you know, Jim Charas has said, "Look, I'll listen to the tech sector, for example, if this is a disincentive for startups. I'm happy to talk to them about that. I don't know why you wouldn't listen to other sectors that are going to be equally hit. Small business, for example." Um, you know, again, we talk about the house prices falling according to Morgan Stanley. That is in stark contrast to the Treasury's own prediction. So that would suggest that if if you know, they can't both be right. But if there is actually going to be house prices going backwards which would be a one-off because of this shock and then you know the asset would accumulate still the best thing you can do but um but it would suggest that Treasury has underpredicted um how what an impact these changes would have and the government has therefore done it. So I think they should compromise and hopefully you know Alba has shown that he's prepared to you know float things and then come to the table. He did it on the Royal Commission. Um he did it on um the superanuation. Um he did it on, you know, the last push for uh negative gearing and capital gains tax. So I'm hoping that he will come over the top.

[00:05:45]>> You may hope against hope, but we'll see what happens here. Um uh all right, Ross. Uh let's uh let's get to here uh the One Nation and One Nation have come forward with their policy when it comes to gas. Here is Pauline Hansen with that announcement today.

[00:05:58]One Nation's policy will drive more exploration, more development, and more production without pushing out smaller Australian producers.

[00:06:12]One Nation is proposing a genuine partnership with the gas industry from exploration through to production and decommissioning.

[00:06:24]We will provide a 30% rebate on genuine oil and gas exploration in Commonwealth waters.

[00:06:31]>> What do you think of it, Ross?

[00:06:35]>> Mate, I'm going to be honest with you.

[00:06:36]Always have been don't hate it. Um, we need to produce more Australian energy.

[00:06:41]We need to do that. We're having similar discussions with the energies and stuff like that. We have to separate the uh perspective going forward new versus what we've got. It's very much a Norwegian model and you know it's not a bad idea. Australians think we need to get more out of the energy we produce in our gas and in our regions on land. The states largely get that but offshore sure if we can find a way to share the risk and there share the reward aka uh the Norwegian model. We should do it.

[00:07:07]It's um it's a process. We'll go through it. We think we can fine-tune it. But she's not on the wrong track. And more to the point, she's she and most of the conservative side of politics are completely right as opposed to the Labor model. And uh I'm not going to get here and bag bad ideas just because we don't come up with them.

[00:07:23]>> Good. Good. I like that. Being the bigger man in all of this, I'd like to see more people do that in politics.

[00:07:27]Joe, what do you think about what's happened here? And obviously we know that there is this movement particularly online and ironically that the the same people who are kind of being bagged on one level by the government are the people who were very much behind the hey you know these people should pay more when it comes to tax. Um what do you think about where she's landed?

[00:07:44]>> Well I think firstly the political thing is as you outlined it very very interesting where you again have this horseshoe effect where the sort of hard right and the hard left I mean this sounds like the sort of policy that get up with you know or the the Australia Institute and it's being you know a champion. Well, that it's not effective if get up there. Exactly. This is the thing like if as as the coalition's official policy is, you know, if you want more of something, don't tax it. Um and and yet this is exactly what's being proposed. It's kind of like I think people have just suddenly seen this sort of pot of gold that the end of the rainbow they didn't know existed. Then, oh wow, we should just take a whole bunch of this. Not realizing, of course, that all the risk is taken by these exploration companies. They have to pay all the money to get the gas out of there in very inhospitable locations for the government to either a risk taxpayer money. Now, it's all very well if you find the gas, but if you don't and someone says, "Hey, why did you piss this 100 million?"

[00:08:35]>> I've watched Land Man, I know what you're talking about, >> up against a wall, like is that the best is that a responsible use of taxpayer money, gas, offshore gas speculation.

[00:08:44]Um, but look, good on One Nation for actually developing some policies and now they're in the the majors and they're going to find out that they'll be subjected to the same scrutiny that everyone else's is. But I would say the Coalition and Labor both on a unity ticket, which is don't tax something that you are trying to get more of.

[00:08:59]>> Uh, Ross, have you had many people come up and get up in your face about the coalition position when it comes to non-citizens and welfare? I showed before Clare O'Neal and a litany of lies this week trying to pretend that anyone who is currently in the country and a permanent resident. Here's the big scare. Uh you know, Angus Taylor, you know, is going to yank all of these things from you. Reality is none of that happens grandfathered as it is with the negative gearing stuff. But there are plenty of people uh who are out and about that are trying to say that this is some sort of a dog whistle to an Australia that is either so old school or never really existed. I point out an article in the Herald about it.

[00:09:40]>> I've had two people come and say they don't like it and how can we do it? It's racist. I've had probably uh 20 or 30 say they love it. I've had probably 50 say they didn't know that uh non-citizens could qualify. No one knew that this you come here today today and get NDIS. So they they most people are stunned that you can arrive in the country tomorrow and access these 17 benefits the day after. And um I got to say I didn't know you could get all I hate to say it, you know, but always fess up. I didn't know you could get all of them. I didn't know you get the NDIS.

[00:10:10]So most people are shocked. The people who talk to me are generally supportive.

[00:10:14]I've had two people say it's a racist policy, but it's not. You want people that come here and make an investment.

[00:10:19]If you look at this, you're coming here because you want to be part of Australia. You want to make a go. Why don't you take the risk of making an investment and backing yourself here?

[00:10:26]And the everyone says, "Oh, these people come here, they work, they pay taxes, they do all of that." Those people aren't the ones that go jump on the uh uh the social security thing straight away. They're the people that build this nation. They're the people we want. We don't want people coming here just for our social uh services.

[00:10:40]>> Well, this is it. I mean, Joe, I thought again very clever of Angus Taylor to make it nice and clear what the big asterisk was in all of this policy.

[00:10:47]Clare O'Neal's trying to pretend that there isn't one here. What's your thought on this? Do you think that this is something that sounds good today and becomes a problem tomorrow?

[00:10:56]>> I think it is a good headline grabber.

[00:10:58]Um uh I think there are probably some unforeseen consequences that we can go into uh very soon. But um but yeah, I think I mean I don't really have a problem with it. I think people should become citizens. I think people should be invested in the country uh that they live in. But that is a a political um right that is conferred on you, not an economic one. So in terms of economic ones, if you pay your taxes, I think you should be entitled to those. But we could just see a situation where the people who haven't been bothered to be citizens before suddenly all sign up on mass, become Australian citizens on mass, and suddenly are eligible to vote as well as receive welfare. And I'm not sure if they're going to be voting for Angus Taylor after he's called him a bunch of immigrant blood.

[00:11:37]>> And Labour love it because they can keep all the libs away during the citizenship ceremonies. Oh no, that was completely not what happened before the last election. All right, Ross, let's talk about gel blasters because people who know paintballing and paintball skirmish, well, there are people who get around and fire the gel blasters. In fact, I think we have some footage of you doing it.

[00:11:54]>> Okay, let's go.

[00:11:57]Okay, where are you?

[00:12:07]>> Awesome. Looks like fun. Uh, why is there a chance that that is not going to be happening anymore?

[00:12:14]Well, on these uh you know, part of the perverse act and Joe was talking about unintended consequences earlier of the gun laws we rushed through after Bondi after the Islamic terrorist attack was we b we actually ban gel blaster imports that are already come here. So, it's a hundred million dollar industry. There are 10,000 people who play the game.

[00:12:31]There was a 10-year-old that shot me about five times a day in the back of the head. Um but um we're seeing families, we're seeing veterans, I spoke to veterans today who use it really good. We're seeing uh uh NDIS kids who are doing the getting people out of playing Fortnite on games doing something real and because you can't bring in the components anymore because they're treated all as firearms.

[00:12:54]The whole thing there's containers that were shipped prior to this coming in.

[00:12:57]It's just it's like labor. You react so you look good, but you don't actually look at the consequences of stuff. It's like the home stuff. And it's just more of the same. It's good to be up here supporting them. I will be putting some leads up and I hope we can reverse that.

[00:13:08]>> Good stuff. All right. Well, tell me where that where that joint is and I look forward to doing it on holiday sometime soon. Thank you.

[00:13:14]>> Was done for Ross' own protection.

[00:13:15]>> Do appreciate it. Uh-huh.