Radio interview - ABC Perth

OLY PETERSON, HOST: Joining me in the studios this afternoon is the Prime Minister. Welcome back to Drive.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Great to be back in Perth.

PETERSON: It's been a harder budget sell than you probably anticipated, Anthony Albanese.

PRIME MINISTER: We always thought it would be difficult because when you're putting forward big reform, and this is tax reform that's been called for for a long period of time. Treating income gained from working, which is what most people do, much more equally with income earned from assets, is something that's been called for for a long time in terms of tax reform. That's what we've put forward, but at the same time it's a really responsible budget, $64 billion of savings, including some tough decisions there that we've had to make to make the NDIS sustainable going forward, the reforms that have also created the space for what we want to do in housing, in education, in health. I'll be at, tomorrow morning, another Urgent Care Clinic that's opened here in WA. We'll have all 137 operating and making them permanent, that's a cost of $1.8 billion.

PETERSON: All right. Well, today's opinion poll though has Angus Taylor ahead as the preferred Prime Minister. The Essential Poll does that indicate that it's been a bit harder than you thought it might have been, the budget sell?

PRIME MINISTER: No. Well, what we're concerned about is getting the right policies in place, and we're convinced that we've done that. We know, and you would know people too, and I'm sure you've had listeners call in over the years and have told you that they really want to get into home ownership, and that dream of home ownership was getting beyond their means. Now, the difference between having negative gearing, of course, is still available with capital gains tax discount, and then moving towards indexation, that's still available for people who have current negatively geared properties, and that's fair enough, they're building their assets and their wealth for the future. But the difference between that and what we're doing, of moving to it being available for new homes, is that people investing there aren't just building assets and wealth for themselves, they're building it for the country as well, by adding to supply, and that supply is what we've been throwing everything at.

PETERSON: Okay, the Shadow Housing Minister, Andrew Bragg, today says the Government's changes to Capital Gains Tax is a tax on millennials. It's a new tax on everything, it's a new tax on startups, small businesses, ETFs, shares, crypto, everything, according to Andrew Bragg. So that idea about the Australian dream that you and I might have had, Prime Minister, it might be different for millennials to what we thought it was.

PRIME MINISTER: Well, Andrew Bragg's talking nonsense, of course, and this is a guy who himself has said that the Coalition didn't know what it stood for, they just opposed everything and never decided what they were for, and that's the sort of nonsense, which is put forward. Now, the truth is that this -

PETERSON: But in terms of housing, some look at it in terms of liquidity and capital, hence why they're investing early, looking to start their own businesses.

PRIME MINISTER: Sure, but people's investments can still be there, they maintain that, that is continuing into the future if you have a negatively geared property. This does not impact on your negative gearing. What it does do, though, is for people who want to invest in the future, they have to invest in new housing rather than existing.

PETERSON: But in terms of business, Prime Minister, because you would have seen all the memes that have popped up over the weekend as well, you're the new partner in 47 per cent of people's businesses and startups, have you gone too far? Should it just be limited to property?

PRIME MINISTER: No, we haven't. What we wanted to do is to make sure, as well, when it comes to Capital Gains Tax, if you look at, there's a fantastic editorial or op-ed today in the Fin Review from David Morgan, who was the Secretary of the Treasury during the Keating and Hawke Governments, and what it speaks about is why those changes were wrong that were made in 1999. What we want to do as well is to not have any preference so that Capital Gains Tax will be treated universally across the board, but with indexation, what that means is that people are only paying any tax on their real gain, not based upon this artificial -

PETERSON: Okay? Who's the architect of the plan?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, the Government is.

PETERSON: Is it the Treasurer?

PRIME MINISTER: The Government is. I'm the Prime Minister. The Treasurer plays a role. The Finance Minister plays a role, and the whole Expenditure Review Committee. And one of the things about my Government, unlike the chaotic rabble that sit opposite us now, the three right-wing parties, cheered on by their allies in various quarters. We're a united mob. We come to collective decision making, and then we go forward, and you'll see every member of our caucus out there passionately supporting this, because -

PETERSON: So you're sticking with it? There's not going to be any step back on this, not going to look to reform -

PRIME MINISTER: This is reform, that's the point.

PETERSON: Part of the announcement last week, because the opposition says your tax on discretionary trust amounts to a glorified death tax.

PRIME MINISTER: See, that's the sort of complete nonsense that they know is nonsense. They know that that just isn't true whatsoever, and they know -

PETERSON: Is that part of the sell? Is that part of the problem at the moment, Prime Minister?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, that's part of, what we've got to do, and on ABC we get an equal go, but you'll have the other side of politics, and a whole range of people having voices heard here. But for a whole lot of the media, of course, there they see themselves as partisan and a cheer squad for the right wing of politics, and that's okay, we just factor that in. But we've got to combat that misinformation that we expected to occur. But I tell you what, this tells me, Oly, if they're talking about things that aren't happening, it's because they can't find any legitimate complaint about what we are doing.

PETERSON: The indexation of tax brackets was one of Angus Taylor's ideas, forming a key part of their pitch. It's been called for -

PRIME MINISTER: He just forgot to do it while he was in government for 10 years. They forgot to do it, apparently. The truth is that there's a huge budget black hole, they said they'd put out the costings before his speech on Thursday night. Then on Thursday night, he couldn't on the 7:30 program, couldn't answer any questions about how much it would cost. Then they said it was $22 billion. We know it's at least $35 billion. And it's extraordinary that they didn't get their costings done formally by the Parliamentary Budget Office. But very helpfully, there's a tool on the Parliamentary Budget Office website where you can just punch in the different things you want to do and get an outcome, and that pops out at least $35 billion. So that's a $13 billion black hole. That's before they take measures such as overturning the tax measures that we have put forward, which are all going back - every dollar over the forwards is going for the Working Australians' Tax Offset, so that people will get those dollars back in their pocket. Together now, all of our tax cuts add up to about $2800 for average workers.

PETERSON: Just on the NDIS, the WA Premier and Treasurer, they're not happy with the lack of information on your plans to transition 160,000 people off the NDIS. Are they going to be left holding the can here, and when can we expect more detail?

PRIME MINISTER: No. One of the things that we've said is that we want to work through all of those issues, not just with state and territory governments, but importantly with the disability sector themselves. We don't want people to be left behind, we want to make sure that people get the care that they need when they need it, that's appropriate. But quite clearly, the NDIS when we came to government, was growing at 22 per cent annual growth. No program is sustainable with 22 per cent annual growth, it simply would collapse in on itself. Now, the NDIS is too important to leave in that situation, which is why we're making it sustainable, it will still grow into the future, but will just grow more slowly and more sustainably.

PETERSON: All right. Just finally, there's news today that the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has ordered six Chinese-backed investors to sell their shares in Northern Minerals, the company that has a rare earths mine here in WA. How worried is your government, Prime Minister, about Chinese investment in critical minerals?

PRIME MINISTER: Chinese investment in Australia is, of course, legitimate, but it's the job of the Foreign Investment Review Board and the Treasurer, of course, to get those reports to make sure that Australia's national interest is looked after. And one of the things that we have said is that when it comes to critical minerals, rare earths, some of these essentials, we want Australian ownership of it, because it's so important for our sovereignty going forward.

PETERSON: Prime Minister, thanks for popping into the studio today. Enjoy your trip here to Perth.

PRIME MINISTER: Thanks so much, Oly. Always great to be back in the West.