BRIDGET BRENNAN, HOST: Time now to speak to the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who joins us from Tasmania. Good morning to you, Prime Minister.
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, Bridget. It is a beautiful morning here in Hobart, if somewhat chilly.
 
BRIDGET BRENNAN: Likewise, here in Perth, I think it's a little bit warmer than where you are.
 
PRIME MINISTER: I’m sure it is.
 
BRENNAN: Prime Minister, polling this morning showing better than expected results for you and perhaps another term in The Lodge. Are you feeling increasingly confident?
 
PRIME MINISTER: We're not getting ahead of ourselves, Bridget. We've got a mountain to climb and we're just nowhere near halfway yet. I think it's about halfway in the campaign today. It's tough to win elections. That's why no Prime Minister has been re-elected after serving a full term since 2004. It's been more than 20 years. So, what we're focused on each and every day is putting out our positive plans of building Australia's future. Strengthening Medicare, supporting Free TAFE, which we know is now under threat if Peter Dutton is elected, along with the other cuts that will have to come from his $600 billion nuclear plan.
 
BRENNAN: There are many eminent economists across Australia deeply concerned by your announcements over the weekend on housing. That's a pretty unequivocal red flag, isn't it, that economists are saying this is going to push up prices?
 
PRIME MINISTER: It won't, Bridget. Because what we're doing is dealing with supply as well as demand. The Coalition's plan will push up prices. Our plan will ensure that more homes are built. And what we've seen under my Government is 28,000 of those social housing, through the Housing Australia Future Fund, are either under construction or under planning. What we've seen now is housing approvals up, they were going down when we were elected. There were 26,000 in the latest monthly figures compared with what was occurring before. And we're also seeing housing construction costs fall to just over one percent. They were above 20 per cent, the increases when we were elected. So, we're seeing a transformation. We're determined to make sure there's more social housing built, more private rentals through our Build to Rent scheme and more homes built specifically for first home buyers, which will make a difference as well. And by stopping the competition between a first home buyer and an investor, what that will do is ensure that housing is more affordable for those young Australians who want to get into home ownership.
 
BRENNAN: But, Prime Minister, why is there almost universal condemnation from economists? And it's actually quite interesting to see the response from some of our ABC viewers, as well. On our Your Say project, we've got a lot of people saying they feel more disheartened after hearing these promises, not only, to be fair, from your party, but also from the Coalition.
 
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we're going to make a difference. And the difference between our Government and the Coalition is that we support increased supply of housing. The Former Government didn't even bother to have a Housing Minister half the time they were in office. They didn't support investment in public housing. They still don't. They're going to abolish the Housing Australia Future Fund. Now, that is a $10 billion fund providing increased social and affordable housing, but it's also making a positive difference when it comes to emergency housing.
 
BRENNAN: I'll just come back to the question, though. Economists say this is going to push up prices. Your plan to allow more Australians to have a 5 per cent deposit. There's also concerns about whether or not that's a prudent decision to allow Australians to buy quite an expensive house with only 5 per cent of a deposit. What if the economic conditions change in Australia? Prime Minister, into the future, does this risk people getting into quite a bit of trouble?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Bridget, it's really important to know this fact. There are 150,000 Australians that have got into home ownership through this scheme already. There have been three defaults. Why? Because all of the conditions of banks lending remain exactly the same. The only difference here is that instead of people waiting and struggling to get that 20 per cent deposit, all they need is five. The Commonwealth Government provides a guarantee, we become a guarantor for that 15 per cent figure, which just enables them, instead of paying off someone else's mortgage, they're paying off their own. And we know that this has been a success. That's why we expanded the program. That's why more Australians have benefited and that's why expanding it even further will be positive. All the normal rules that are there through APRA, through the banks, still apply. So, they will go through and make sure that people are able to pay those loans back. But the only difference is they won't have to wait. And so many Australians have told me, that I've spoken to, that they get up to 10 per cent, they're still struggling, they're putting their savings away, but prices continue to rise, so the amount they have to save continues to rise as well, and they just can't get there. And in the meantime, they're paying rent to pay off someone else's mortgage. Now, that's why this is such an important program, that's why this is positive and that's why it won't push up prices.

That's why the combination of what we're doing with social housing, with private rentals through our Build to Rent scheme, that the Property Council and the Master Builders and other experts in the housing industry all say will make a difference, with more than 100,000 private rentals built. That's why now this specific program for first homeowners not competing with investors will make a difference, as well. We have a comprehensive plan for housing, our $43 billion homes for Australia plan, and I'm convinced that it will make such a positive difference. We've already had more than 400,000 dwellings completed since we were elected across the different forms of housing which are there. And we want to make a difference. We're working with state and territory governments to get better planning laws to make sure that we can fast track some of these developments. We had $2 billion for our Social Housing Accelerator, and what that did was a whole lot of homes simply weren't occupied because they weren't fit for purpose. Now, we provided that $2 billion injection to state and territory governments to make sure that the renovations were completed, and the housing now has people living in them. I'll be visiting some in Victoria later today. So, what we're doing is making sure that we're delivering across the board, whether you're a homeowner, whether you're a private renter or whether you're in social or public housing.
 
BRENNAN: Alright, Prime Minister, we’ll have to leave it there. We'll let you get on with your day. Thanks for your time this morning.
 
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks so much, Bridget. Pleasure to talk with you.

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