Laura Jayes, Host: Five Australians have been found alive in Nepal. This is nearly a week after the flood disaster. The Department of Foreign Affairs says one person was found in Tibet, another in Nepal, I should say, and three others outside the crisis location. 38 Australians are still missing. I want to go now to the Minister, Matt Thistlethwaite. He joins me now. Matt, thanks so much for your time. Do you have any further update on those current numbers from this morning?
Matt Thistlethwaite, Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade: G’day Laura, the numbers that you've just read out are the most up to date. A glimmer of good news for us that five Australians were located overnight, one in Tibet, one in Nepal and three outside the region. That reduces the number of Australians unaccounted for to 38. And I think that that fact that they've been located does indicate how difficult it's been to contact people in the disaster area, because that telecommunications infrastructure was down. So, that's a glimmer of hope. And our Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade staff on the ground in the region, in Kathmandu, are working around the clock. We've increased the numbers there to 18 who've gone in to assist and try and locate those Australians. But by the same token, I think we need to be realistic that the longer this goes on, the more difficult it becomes to find those unaccounted for Australians.
Jayes: Yeah, so, to find five Australians alive is wonderful news. Do you think that can happen for this, more than 38 still missing, or do you think that would be very optimistic?
Assistant Minister: It is wonderful news and obviously very, very relieving for their loved ones. And we'll continue to work around the clock. They're working 24 hours to try and do everything that they can to locate those 38 missing Australians. It's very difficult to get into the region. All the roads are blocked off, the telecommunications infrastructure is down, even the power is down. So, searching at night has become very, very difficult. But our staff are working around the clock to try and do all they can. Some Australians who have loved ones that are missing in the region have travelled to Kathmandu. Our ambassador’s meeting with them regularly, as are our High Commission, our ambassadorial staff, to make sure that they're well informed and we're doing everything we can to support them.
Jayes: Matt, how did you find these five Aussies and did they even know that they were missing?
Assistant Minister: Well, I understand that three of them weren't in the actual zone that was impacted by the flooding and the landslide, so they may have been surprised that people were searching for them. But I think it indicates that the difficulty has been that mobile networks and telecommunication infrastructure has been wiped out, and that makes it very, very difficult to search for someone. Thankfully, Telstra and TPG have provided to the Australian Federal Police data regarding the mobile phone data of those that were on the lists of Australians that are unaccounted for in respect to where they were last located when the telecommunications system was still working. So, the AFP will use that data to work with the Nepalese authorities to hopefully try and find their last location and use that as a basis for searching.
Jayes: How many staff do you have on the ground? How long do you expect them to remain there?
Assistant Minister: We've sent over 18 additional staff. That's a rapid response team, critical response team. We've got AFP officers, consular officials who are on the ground working with the Nepalese authorities. We also offered to the Nepalese government additional search and rescue capacity. They thanked us for that offer, but said that they were okay with the search personnel they had. There's 20,000 people from the Nepalese authorities that are working on the ground there. What they requested from Australia was sanitation kits, shelter, emergency food and water, and solar lights. And that's the material that's on its way there on the RAAF C-17 that will arrive in Kathmandu at 2pm today.
Jayes: At 2pm today. And is there any prospect of more money being donated to the effort? How are you assessing this?
Assistant Minister: Yeah, so far, the humanitarian efforts, around $8 million. That's based on the request of the Nepalese government. Our Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, spoke to the Nepalese Foreign Minister on Friday. We're responding to their requests. When the devastating earthquake hit Nepal in 2015, we provided over $20 million worth of response aid. So, that could grow in the future. It just depends on what the Nepalese government and authorities request from us.
Jayes: Do you think this is a climate change event?
Assistant Minister: I think it's too early to tell the cause of this incident. No doubt once the rescue and recovery operation has concluded, there'll be an assessment by the Nepalese and Chinese authorities of the cause. This is a region that has had landslides and flooding in the past, and we'll wait and see what those authorities and the engineers do when they assess the situation and make a determination.
Jayes: If I could go to a completely different topic, just quickly, I want to talk about housing. Of course, in your local electorate, you see the falls perhaps more acutely than anywhere in around the rest of the country. How much is this is due to policy change from your government?
Assistant Minister: Well, I think it's a combination of factors, Laura. I think predominantly it's, it's interest rates. We've had a number of interest rate increases that have put pressure on people's house of, cost of living and their household budgets and the uncertainty about where the RBA is going to move next. There's still a lot of uncertainty about whether it'll be a rate hike or it'll be a decrease. And I think that that's the major factor. There's other factors like cost of living, pressure associated with the war and our policy. So, there's no doubt that our policies are part of a suite of reasons. But we're confident that we've got the balance right because the housing market was out of control and we needed to make housing more affordable. We've put in place policies to ensure that first home buyers can get into the market. But we're still confident that over the longer term there's going to be growth and that Australians will maintain confidence in their most important asset.
Jayes: So, it's a deliberate strategy in part to bring the cost of housing down. Do you acknowledge this morning that the price drops are well below what Treasury predicted? How did you get it so wrong?
Assistant Minister: Well, it's only a couple of months since the policy has been put in place, so I think it's very, very early and it's too early to say that the policies have been the major determinant in what's going on in the market. The Treasury estimates…
Jayes: [interjecting] Would you really stick by rents only going up by $2 though?
Assistant Minister: Look, we stick by the figures because they're longer term basis and the Treasury forecast, the bank's forecast as well, are forecasting over the longer term and that's the forward estimates period that there will be growth in the Australian housing market and we've still got every confidence that that will be realised.
Jayes: Matt Thistlethwaite, thanks so much for your time. We are standing by for GDP figures to drop, so we'll see you soon, Matt.