Good morning everyone, and welcome to Rosanna where we are building 45 social and affordable homes. You can see here what a great location this is, just near the train station, shops, near our health precinct in Heidelberg. This is going to be fantastic for women and children leaving family violence, for older women at risk of homelessness. Our government understands that people have better lives when they have a safe and secure roof over their head - and that's what we're delivering here. It's what we're delivering right around the country. We're delivering that because this Prime Minister and this Minister know how important that is. And it's certainly, I didn't see this level of investment in housing in this electorate under the previous government. So it's wonderful to have them both here today to see this. Prime Minister, welcome.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Thanks so much Kate, and it's great to be back in Jagajaga and here with the Minister for Housing, Clare O'Neil. This is what good public policy looks like. The Housing Australia Future Fund was a policy that we went to the 2022 election on. It was held up by the noalition of the Liberals and the Greens for far too long. This structure here could have been built and opened by now had that legislation been carried. A $10 billion fund to provide more social and affordable housing right around the country here being delivered by the private sector. Meaning jobs in construction, but importantly as well, the security and stability that comes with a roof over your head is essential for families to get better education for their kids, to get better access to health care, to have a quality of life that the 45 families who will live in these dwellings will have for many years to come. Well located right next to the train station near amenities including retail, health, education facilities as well. This is such a great development here and it's being replicated right around the country through the Housing Australia Future Fund and other policies that we have as part of our $43 billion Homes for Australia Plan. There's nothing more important than housing, and our Minister, Clare O'Neil, is working hard to make sure that the money that we've allocated gets rolled out. In addition to that, we understand that we need to deal with issues of planning and make sure that approvals can happen quicker, that we deal with some of the impediments that have been holding back the delivery of our target, which is 1.2 million homes by the end of the decade. Next week's forum and roundtable in Parliament House in the Cabinet Room, will no doubt raise these issues of making sure that we get that planning done, that we get the jobs created in construction, and most importantly, we get the homes built. Whether it be private homes, whether it be increased rentals or whether it be social housing. My government has a comprehensive housing plan going forward, including of course, the 5 per cent deposits that we committed to during the election campaign that will make it far easier for people to get into home ownership. So whether it's increasing home ownership, increased number of private rentals or increased quality and stock of social housing, my government's comprehensive plan will deal with one of the real challenges which we inherited after a decade of neglect by our predecessors. And I'm really pleased that I'm here with the Minister who's doing such a fantastic job here, Clare O'Neil. We'll ask her to comment and then happy to take some questions.
CLARE O'NEIL, MINISTER FOR HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS: Thank you so much, PM. Well, there's two absolute favourite things I have about my job, the first is meeting tenants who move into social and affordable housing that our government has built. Every single home that we build in social and affordable housing changes the life of an Australian and their family. And the second favourite thing is doing things like today, where we get to inspect the massive building program that our government is engaging with across the country. We are delivering more homes for Australians and building Australia's future. We've got some really significant housing challenges facing our country that really have been building over decades. There are a lot of complexities to housing, but the causes of our housing crisis are pretty simple at the end of the day - for 40 years, we have not been building enough homes, and the main answer to our nation's housing challenges is to build, build, build. Now, our government has amassed a $43 billion agenda to address the housing challenges facing the country. We've taken the Commonwealth from being a negligent bystander on housing, remember that under the former government for most of their period in office, they didn't even have a Housing Minister. And we've gone from that, to being the boldest and most ambitious Australian government on housing since the Second World War. Now, the main focus of that $43 billion is building, building, building. We are building 55,000 social and affordable homes around the country, and we're here on site inspecting progress on 45 of those homes. We're building 100,000 homes with the state governments that will be just reserved for first home buyers, with no competition from investors or others. And of course, we have set that big national aspiration for the country to build 1.2 million homes over a five year period. Now, I want to speak a little bit about generally what's going on in the housing market. We have our Home Building Program, and the evidence of that is right before us here today, but we also want to see the private sector get back up and running properly on building the homes that our country needs. And in doing that, we are making real progress. If we look at the approval numbers from about a year ago in our country to today, we're up 30 per cent. Now, these are really meaningful shifts and we're seeing some really good green shoots, but our government wants to go further and we want to go faster. The Treasurer's Economic Reform Roundtable, which will be held next week, are a really good opportunity for us to do that. It is too hard to build a house in our country today and that is something that our government is working fiercely to change. Now, how are we doing that? Well, we've got three big problems. We've got too much red tape and regulation, we are not seeing enough innovation in housing, and we've got some issues getting the skills that we need to build the housing that Australians most need. We had a good chat with one of the builders here before and he said to me, you know, a decade ago, the hard part about building a house in this country was the actual building. The problem now sits in the approvals and the delays. And that's something that I hope to see some real progress on at the roundtable. I'll leave it there, thanks, PM.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much, Clare.
JOURNALIST: Have Australia and allies guaranteed that Hamas plays no role in a future Palestinian state?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we've made it very clear that Hamas has no role. And importantly as well, the statement by the Arab countries after the meeting convened by France and Saudi Arabia just a couple of weeks ago, there's a real breakthrough. Countries that said Hamas must disarm. Countries that said that the October 7th atrocities, called it out and condemned it for what it was - an act of terrorism. Countries which declared as well that we needed to move forward in the interests of both states. Israelis and Palestinians have an interest in living in peace and security side by side. We have had 77 years of conflict and over the last couple of years we've seen too much loss of innocent life, whether it be Israeli or Palestinian. We need a common solution to this and the international community is saying enough is enough. We need to move forward and Israelis and Palestinians will benefit from that.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, just over two weeks ago you said that Australia's recognition of the Palestinian state is not imminent. Can you pinpoint on what day that you changed your mind, that you made that decision to recognise and why?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, these things don't happen on a day. These things happen over a period of time based upon the assessments that are made. Penny Wong gave a speech over a year ago where she indicated that the government's position was that the recognition of Palestine didn't need to be the end point, it could be a point on the way to the two state solution. Since then we've seen countries including the United Kingdom, France and Canada make declarations that they would be making a statement at the United Nations in September. We have said as well that we will declare based upon the commitments that have been received by the Palestinian Authority. The other things that have occurred in recent weeks are, as I have just said, the declaration at the meeting convened by France and Saudi Arabia. I spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu last week and indicated to him the direction that Australia was headed. Prime Minister Netanyahu, before yesterday's statement, made comments by the Australian government and before our Cabinet met, made comments based upon the discussion that I'd had with him.
JOURNALIST: But was there any particular assessment that was highlighted more than another? For example, was it more about those other countries changing their position or the Palestinian Authority's promises?
PRIME MINISTER: We make assessments based upon the totality of what is before us. The commitments from the Palestinian Authority have been important. The decorations by other countries means that there is momentum towards a two state solution and towards the international community making that position clear. The other thing that is occurring is of course the decision by the Israeli government to double down on its military solution without a political solution being advanced or forwarded by the Netanyahu government with the decision that they've made to go in and to occupy Gaza City. We have seen too many innocent lives being lost. If we continue to do the same thing, you will get the same outcomes. The international community is saying that we need to stop the cycle of violence, the best way to do that is to work towards what the solution is. What the international community have said the solution is for many decades now, it has been a bipartisan Australian government's position of support for two states in the Middle East. One of those states is Israel, the other state is Palestine. We need to make sure that Hamas is isolated. The comments by Arab League nations have made it clear that that is their position as well.
JOURNALIST: Are you worried about the United States stance on this issue and that it could impact our relationship with the United States?
PRIME MINISTER: President Trump has made it very clear that he wants to see peace in the region. Australia wants to see peace in the region. We make our sovereign decisions as a nation state in Australia's national interest and we are aligning ourselves with like-minded countries.
JOURNALIST: You spoke earlier today about Benjamin Netanyahu's denial in the consequences for innocent people. What else did you have to say to Benjamin Netanyahu when you did speak to him and tell him Australia's position on this?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it was a conversation which reflected the conversation that I had with him in 2024. And I expressed to him my concern that he was putting the same argument that he did in 2024, that military action against Hamas would produce an outcome. That hasn't produced an outcome. What it's produced is a lot of innocent lives, tens of thousands of innocent lives being lost. I expressed my concern about the blocking of aid that occurred as a conscious decision by the Israeli government earlier this year. And since aid was recommenced, the issues that have created, that we've seen played out on our TV screens every night. People starving, people losing their life queuing for essential food and water. This just cannot continue into the future without an end point. And the international community is coming up with an end point, which is how do we resolve this? How do we get a permanent, secure position? There can't be freedom and the aspirations of Palestinian people for their own state fulfilled, without also providing security for the state of Israel.
JOURNALIST: What faith do you have in the Palestinian Authority's ability to deliver on some of those conditions? For example, demilitarising and also being able to hold elections, given what we can see on the ground is the state of that area?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the Palestinian Authority, of course, have made those commitments, but importantly as well, Arab nations in the region have made those commitments as well. What we need is a normalisation of relations between Israel and the states which surround it to provide security for the state of Israel. And we need the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people for their own state to be fulfilled.
JOURNALIST: Polling shows that the PA is unpopular amongst Palestinians themselves. They're rife with corruption and most experts argue they've rarely resembled a functioning authority. Do you trust that they'll listen to these conditions?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I'm not sure how you poll in Gaza at the moment. It would be an interesting exercise. But what people in Gaza want clearly is for peace to come out. And when people have clearly uprisen against Hamas, Hamas needs to be isolated, Hamas needs to be disarmed. The state of Palestine needs to be created in a way that provides also security for Israel. And we've seen, we saw on October 7th that Israel, in spite of the fact that it has one of the biggest security regimes of any country in the world, the atrocities that occurred on October 7th were reprehensible, have been condemned consistently by Australia and have been condemned now by all of the nations around there as well in the Middle East. We need to have a breakthrough and my position and the Australian government's position is consistent with the position that governments have held for a long period of time, consistent it must be said, with what the Leader of the Opposition has said in the past of support for statehood when it comes to Palestinians.
JOURNALIST: Just on the demilitarising. There are a lot of arms groups within Palestinian territories, not just Hamas. Doesn't the PA have the right to be able to control its own security and its own state?
PRIME MINISTER: We want a demilitarised state and that's a commitment, one of the commitments that the Palestinian Authority themselves have given. Thanks very much.
