Peter Stefanovic, Host: Joining us live now is the Assistant Foreign Minister, Matt Thistlethwaite, for this and more this morning. Matt, good to have you with us. So, are you ready to admit that the forecast was wrong?
Matt Thistlethwaite, Assistant Minister for Immigration: Good morning, Pete. No, we're confident in the forecasts. Our policies are all aimed at ensuring that we're making housing more affordable for Australians by boosting supply and ensuring that first home buyers, in particular, can get into the market. And the best way to ensure that we have sustainable rents is to boost supply, and that's exactly what our policies are doing. The Housing Australia Future Fund is building more new homes. I've got some of those developments happening in my electorate. And our changes to negative gearing are all aimed at ensuring that negative gearing in the future will be for new home builds, so that we're increasing that supply of housing that's important for the rental market.
Stefanovic: Aren't those forecasts already wrong?
Assistant Minister: No, we've got every confidence in them because we think that there will be a very little effect on rents moving forward. I think there's two factors there. Firstly, most people that have an investment property that are renting it out are not affected by these changes because they were grandfathered on Budget night. So, they're continuing to negatively gear their properties and have them available --
Stefanovic: But they can still boost the rents. But they can still boost the rents in a tight rental market. They can boost the rents knowing that they'll get that return.
Assistant Minister: Yeah, they surely can. We know that --
Stefanovic: So, the forecast will be wrong. The $2 a week forecast.
Assistant Minister: The thing about our policy is that we're now encouraging more supply by ensuring that negative gearing is available in the future for new property builds, and that ensures that you're encouraging more supply to come on and people get a taxation advantage because of that. So, that's the philosophy behind that, but that's obviously going to take time to work through the system. So, you've got that and you've got the Housing Australia Future Fund starting to build more affordable and social housing to increase supply as well. So, everything that we're doing is aimed at ensuring that there's more supply in the system and that rents and house prices become more sustainable.
Stefanovic: So, you're still guaranteeing that rents will only rise by a modest $2 a week?
Assistant Minister: We've still got every confidence in that Treasury modelling. I think that the policy's only been in place since the Budget, so it's very early days yet and we've grandfathered people who are already in the system, so they're continuing to benefit from negative gearing and we're encouraging new housing bills by ensuring negative gearing is available on those new properties in the future.
Stefanovic: Alright, let's look to some of your opponents this morning, Matt. One Nation trying to patch up its migration plan. It was blown up by David Farley yesterday, Pauline Hanson, she says today and yesterday the net, the NOM is 130,000. Are you convinced?
Assistant Minister: Well, it doesn't appear that way. David Farley certainly contradicted Pauline Hanson on those numbers yesterday. Our government knows that we need to get net overseas migration down and we're putting in place the policies to achieve that. We've already had some success. It's been reduced by about 45 per cent --
Stefanovic: When's Minister Tony Burke going to confirm all this, by the way?
Assistant Minister: Well, we're working through the policy details to ensure that we get them right. We know that migration affects a number of policy areas and that can have a dramatic effect on the economy, and we're consulting with people who are affected to make sure we get those decisions right. It's working its way through Cabinet at the moment and once it's ready to be announced, it will be announced.
Stefanovic: So, still plenty of disagreement in Cabinet?
Assistant Minister: We're still working through the details. We've got a migration strategy, Pete, that's been in place since our first term in government that's publicly available. That ensures that we focus on skill migration to meet the needs of the states and territories, to ensure that we have enough nurses in our health care system, enough aged care workers to look after our elderly, enough teachers to teach our kids, and importantly, enough skilled workers in the construction sector. And much of the focus of migration is on skilled migration.
Stefanovic: What about backpackers, you know, in agricultural regions? Would there be any focus on trimming that at all? There certainly has been when it comes to either One Nation or the Coalition.
Assistant Minister: Yeah, we know that rural industries in particular rely on working holiday makers and the PALM scheme, and we've put in place measures to ensure that that system is sustainable --
Stefanovic: And you don't want to change that. You don't want to change that?
Assistant Minister: And we've increased the integrity around that system to stop people on those visas being manipulated and not getting their correct wages and conditions.
Stefanovic: So, you're not going to change those numbers?
Assistant Minister: We're working through the details of how this policy will work in the future, but we think that the levels that they're at the moment are sustainable and we're working through changes, any changes to policy in that area will be announced once it's approved by budget.
Stefanovic: Let's get into your wheelhouse of Foreign Affairs, Scott Bessent, he's expected to come in hot tomorrow with what he claims is the biggest sanctions ever for Tehran. What are thoughts, ahead of his announcement?
Assistant Minister: Well, obviously, we want to see this conflict in the Middle East end. I think Australians well and truly sick and tired of it, because they've been paying for it at the petrol bowser, they've been paying it through their grocery prices. It's gone on for too long and we want to see a lasting peace developed. So --
Stefanovic: Are you for sanctions? Are you for extra sanctions if the current approach is not working?
Assistant Minister: Well, that's a matter for the United States. You know, Australia acts in our national interest. We've taken some pretty tough decisions against the Iranian regime, including expelling the ambassador because they were involved in unacceptable activities here in Australia. And we certainly believe that, that regime has breached human rights and has done many, many things that have undermined democracy and ensured that the people of Iran have continued to suffer. And we want to see an end to that. We want to see an end to this conflict and peace brought back to the Middle East.
Stefanovic: So, this might cause an increase to already expensive petrol and diesel out there at the moment, would it not?
Assistant Minister: Well, we've acted pretty quickly to ensure that we've got actually more supplies of fuel than we had prior to the conflict. We managed to --
Stefanovic: The question's over the price, though, because it is so expensive at the moment at the bowser. Would you expect after tomorrow that they bump up even more? Prices I mean.
Assistant Minister: And that's why we want this conflict to end as quickly as possible, because the longer it goes on, Pete, unfortunately, the more dramatic effect it's going to have on petrol prices. And that's why all of our work internationally has been aimed at trying to resolve this conflict and bring it to an end. That's the best way to get petrol prices down.
Stefanovic: Ok, Matt, good to see you this morning, we’ll chat to you next week.