THE HON TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
SUNRISE
MONDAY, 25 AUGUST 2025
Topics: 5% DEPOSITS FOR ALL FIRST HOME BUYERS; HOUSING.
NATALIE BARR: Housing is set to be a main theme of the government's agenda in Parliament this week with Labor bringing forward its election pledge to lower deposits for first home buyers to 5 per cent. This was supposed to kick in next year. It'll now begin in October. It comes as the government also agrees to freeze the National Construction Code, with the ministers saying they want to get builders on site instead of filling in forms for their take. Let's bring in Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek and Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce. Morning to both of you.
BARNABY JOYCE: Morning, Tanya. Morning, Nat.
BARR: Tanya, so younger Aussies in part voted for you because of this 5 per cent down, the 5 per cent deposit policy. It's not going to actually get people to build more homes, is it?
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES: Well, we're also building 1.2 million extra homes with 100,000 of those set aside for first home buyers. And as you said yourself just a minute ago, Nat, we're freezing the construction code so that we can get more homes up faster. But this 5 per cent deposit policy is a fantastic one. It means that someone who wants to buy a million-dollar home, say a couple that wants to buy a million-dollar first home in one of our capital cities, needs to save a $50,000 deposit much faster than saving a $100,000 deposit. On top of that, they'll be saving about $42,000 of Mortgage Lenders Insurance. So, they'll get into a home of their own much faster. We've already helped about 180,000 people into a home of their own with our 5 per cent deposit scheme. This is expanding it so more people will be eligible, and what that's meant is that on average there are 6,000 extra first home buyers entering the market every year under Labor compared to the previous government.
BARR: Yeah, look, the 1.2 million homes, I think you're at least a quarter of a million behind as it stands. So, I think we need a lot more work to do here.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: And that work is happening. Nat. One of the main things that was discussed at the economic roundtable last week is how we can make sure we get more homes out of the ground faster. When I was the Environment Minister, we doubled the rate of on-time approvals. We saw extra land released for housing. We've got to make sure that we've got three levels of government working together to deliver that. You would have seen in NSW, the state government's talking about thousands of extra homes in the Eastern suburbs when they-
BARR: 21 stories in Woollahra, that shook things up yesterday, yep.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -re-open the old Woollahra Station. Yeah, it's all happening. It's all happening.
BARR: What do you reckon about that as a Sydneysider? As an, as a Sydneysider from the Inner West, Tanya, what do you think about 21 storeys in Woollahra?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I haven't seen, I haven't seen the plans, but you know, you have to make sure that every part of our capital cities is actually contributing to those housing targets. There's no free pass for some, you know, particular suburbs like Woollahra.
BARR: Oh, well, that's a yes from you. Barnaby, what do you think about the 5 per cent? 5 per cent down? Are you going to support it when it goes through Parliament?
JOYCE: Well, I'm glad that Tanya's supporting 21-story apartments in the Inner West. I'm sure her constituents would be happy to hear about the new shade they're about to get.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, look, not actually the Inner West - Woollahra.
BARR: Well, hang on Tanya. Did you just support the 21 stories in Woollahra, but not the Inner West?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Do you know what, Nat? I live next to Green Square, which is one of the most densely populated parts of Sydney and I love it. I love the fact that we've got the heavy rail station there. People can hop on the train-
JOYCE: Here comes the 21 stories.
BARR: 21 is a lot though.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -get into the city, they can walk up the road to Waterloo. Have you seen Green Square? There’s high rise all over the place.
JOYCE: Here comes the 21 stories. Big building.
BARR: So, bring it on, you say.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Barnaby, have you seen Green Square?
JOYCE: Make it happen. Make it happen.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: There's high-rise all over the place.
BARR: Okay.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: You can't, I can't walk down the street without tripping over a high rise.
JOYCE: Well, you're going to get more.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: We've got plenty of, we've got plenty of Meritons, we’ve got plenty of Mirvac. I can tell you all over Green Square.
JOYCE: More cars. More cars. More crowding. All coming your way.
BARR: Put you down for 20.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: All over Green Square. And I love it.
BARR: We need to house people. You're right.
JOYCE: She loves it.
BARR: Barnaby, let's go back. Are you going, the Coalition-
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: You can come and visit Barnaby. You'll love it too.
JOYCE: I will, I will.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It's a great part of the world.
BARR: Barnaby, you're supporting the 5 per cent down?
JOYCE: Look, there's basically three things that can affect the price of house. Number one that annoys people is people who are born in Australia or been in Australia for a long while be knocked out of the market by recent arrivals. Immigration, bringing people in, hundreds of thousands of people. When they, when that. When the house is not built here, just pushed up the price. How? Immigration number one. Then you got componentry, you got materials, and you got land. Now land is, unless you've got some edict to make land cheaper in Sydney, you're going to have to do everything you can to encourage people to go into regional cities where the land is cheaper. With materials, you keep on closing up your state forests so people can't get access to timber. So, how's the price of materials going to come down when you have to import them once more from overseas? And of course, componentry, if you're going to have the highest power prices in the world, you're not going to have cheap componentry. What this will do though, of course, with a static, basically static national supplier houses because the Housing Australia Future Fund has been, I mean, huge promises, disastrous delivery is of course, just push up the price of houses. People are going to be able to borrow more money. So, they're going to go to the auction and say, hey, guess what, we can, we can bid for more because we've got access to more money. The price of houses just go up. You've got to deal with the other issues, and the Labor Party are not.
BARR: Okay, okay, we'll leave it there. Thank you very much. We'll see you next week.
ENDS
