‍DR ANNE WEBSTER MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR REGIONAL HEALTH
SHADOW MINISTER FOR REGIONAL COMMUNICATIONS
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR MALLEE

TOPICS:  Housing tax settings, housing completions,  visas for farm workers, harvest pressure, net overseas migration, public servant numbers, Labor's migration settings

Kenny  

Let's go to the regional health minister, shadow health minister that is, Anne Webster, live from Mildura, Victoria. I accidentally put you into government there for a moment, Anne! That would be that would be a welcome thing to you, no doubt. ...  I wanted to start off on house prices because Jim Chalmers made a concession on this on radio this morning. Have a listen.

Sally Sara, ABC  

So, you don't think the current changes are because of your changes to capital gains tax?  

Chalmers  

I think that's one of a number of reasons.

Kenny  

So, Jim Chalmers has admitted, Anne Webster, that his own policies are part of the reason housing prices are going down.

Webster  

Chris, I've missed some of that, but I'm assuming that you are talking about housing and also about the settings, the tax settings. Of course, it came in, in May. The lack of confidence that the market is now showing, first homebuyers not being able to get into the market, despite Labor's rhetoric, and then of course we've got 3,400 construction businesses who have gone under. This is an absolute shame on the Labor government, who are great with the spin, as we've said often enough, but not great with delivery. Under the Coalition, we had an average of 200,000 homes being built a year, and now under Labor, it's 170,000. So - this is not a good story. And look, it's nice that Jim Chalmers can admit that some of those tax settings are part of the problem, but they've got to do something about it.

Kenny  

Yeah, I think it's very obvious. The whole country can see what's going on. Of course, there are other factors at play. Everyone knows that as well, but it was the worst time in the world to make it less ideal to invest in property. Last time Labor did this, back in the mid '80s, they recognised the error and repealed it within a couple of years. I wonder whether Labor will be forced to do the same here, we will see. I want to get your thoughts, though, on immigration because I know you've got concerns about temporary visas for farm workers.

Webster  

Absolutely, the working holiday maker visa is very popular with broadacre farmers. Particularly, they have multi-million-dollar pieces of equipment, and they bring in the same workers from the UK, Canada, Ireland every year. Across my electorate, I've been out in my electorate this week - and let's remember, I have the largest grainbelt, shall I call it, over a third of Victoria, which is largely broad-acre farming - and farmers are ringing me, talking to me in the streets about the fact that instead of working holiday makers visas taking one day, which is what the department actually has on its website, now we have them taking 40 days or not actually happening, and you can see Tony Burke and Anthony Albanese anxiously going, how do we reduce our net overseas migration? Well, I can tell them it is not by reducing farm workers. And I've got another piece of news for the Labor government that our harvests don't wait for them to sort out their visa mess.

Kenny  

Yeah, well, they don't shouldn't add to net overseas migration anyway, because they're only here for a short stay, and this is a government that's added 40,000 federal public servants, so they ought to be processing things more quickly.

Webster  

You'd think so, absolutely you would think so, and that's what I've said to the farmers today. You'd think that in the public service that they have increased astronomically, that these visas would be processed very quickly, but I actually think it's a political issue, Chris. I think it's Tony Burke who - remember he didn't give his press conference or press ...  

Kenny  

... speech at the press club ...

Webster  

.... address a few weeks - yeah that's right, a few weeks ago, he didn't give it because obviously the people even higher up, i.e. Anthony Albanese, saw it and went, "Maybe this is not a great time. We need to tweak those numbers again." I repeat, it is not with our farm workers - who are desperately needed.

Kenny  

Thanks for joining us, Anne. Appreciate it, Anne Webster there, joining us from Mildura.

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