Television interview - 10 News+

HOST: And the Prime Minister is with us from Canberra. Prime Minister, thank you for your time. Why should our viewers believe what you say to them right now if you're not a man of your word?

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good to be with you. What they'll know is that we're a government that looks after their interests. That's prepared to make the difficult decisions, so that a whole generation of people don't get locked out of home ownership. This is a Budget of which I'm really proud. It's a Budget that delivers on ambition, that delivers to support aspiration and that makes difficult decisions. But in the interest of making sure that the dream of home ownership for Australians isn't lost to this and future generations.

HOST: Yes, but PM, Aussies have known about this housing crisis for years. You're saying you change your mind, but why have you only just caught onto this right now? We've known we've had a housing crisis for a long time.

PRIME MINISTER: It's getting worse, and we have thrown everything at it. We did in our first term. We created the Housing Australia Future Fund for $10 billion for additional funding for public and affordable housing. We had the Build to Rent Scheme to encourage private rentals. We had shared equity scheme that encourages - essentially you can have a portion of a home owned for a short period of time by the Government and then you can buy them out down the track when you can afford to do so. And we have our 5 per cent home deposit scheme that's been accessed by over 200,000 Australians. What we need to do is to make sure we throw everything at supply and we're allowing - negative gearing will continue. Really important. No changes to existing arrangements for people who currently have negatively geared properties. But in future, if you want to invest in housing and you want to negatively gear those properties, you have to invest in new housing. Now, that will produce a return on that asset to the investor, but it also will produce a return to the nation. And that is the big difference that will be done here. Making sure that whilst giving people the opportunity to invest in housing and invest in their future, it's also investing in the nation's future.

HOST: Well, as you said, Prime Minister, this will affect future investments. By definition that means it will affect future investors. Younger people who now won't have the same opportunity to build wealth that their parents had?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, that's not right because they will have the opportunity.

HOST: Not the same opportunity.

PRIME MINISTER: Negative gearing will be available to them for new builds. Which is where we need the investment to go so that it helps with supply of housing. So that young people have access to more houses as we go forward. That is the change that we're introducing. And importantly as well, for those young people when they rock up to an auction - so many young people have said to me, 'I've turned up to an auction, I simply couldn't compete with an investor because they weren't just investing their own money, they were investing with the benefit from negative gearing that comes - previously has been made available.' So, they essentially were getting shut out of the market. And more and more young people, as well as their parents and grandparents, were saying to us, 'look, we're really worried that our son or daughter won't ever have the same opportunity that we had to get into the housing market.'

HOST: PM can I just ask you a short answer, if you can? Do you believe that you might have credibility issues going forward because of this drastic change of mind?

PRIME MINISTER: They'll know that we have a government that is prepared to make hard decisions in the interests of Australians. We're not doing this out of any self interest. This is a difficult issue and I expected there to be blowback. But we've got to do the right thing. You can't just occupy the space. And the counterfactual is how could we sit back and have that pressure just continue to build over and over again over a period of time? We've made this decision, we're arguing our case, we're explaining why we have changed our position. We're not saying it's the same position as before. Just like before the election, we didn't say that we'd halve the fuel taxes, but we've done so because governments have to be prepared to meet the moment. And in this, we are doing just that.

HOST: Prime Minister, I know you've been focused on the Budget, but quickly on another topic. The Hantavirus ship. Every other country with passengers on board has managed to get their people home. Ours is still stuck on the other side of the world. This is getting embarrassing, isn't it?

PRIME MINISTER: No, they're not. They're on their way home and when they are home, they'll be at the appropriate quarantine facilities in Western Australia.

HOST: We have known for a week that there were Australians on board, though? Has it taken too long to sort out that route home?

PRIME MINISTER: We're a long way away from the Canary Islands, with respect. Most people on that ship were a lot closer in terms of North America and Europe. One of the things that we deal with quite often in Australia is the tyranny of distance. We have made sure that we put in place appropriate measures. This is very unfortunate for those people. I feel so sorry for them to have to go through this health issue. But it is a difficult issue that we've had to deal with. We had to get a plane there, across the other side of the world, in order to look after these Australians.

HOST: Well, Prime Minister, we know it's been a busy day for you, and we thank you for your time coming on the program today.

PRIME MINISTER: It sure has. Have a fantastic evening.