The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
NEWS24 WEEKEND FIRST EDITION, WITH ALEX THOMAS
SATURDAY, 5 SEPTEMBER 2026
SUBJECTS: Housing; National Accounts; Interest Rates; Social Media
ALEX THOMAS: Let's speak to Assistant Treasury, Productivity Competition and Charities Minister Andrew Leigh, who joins us live now. Andrew, thanks again for your time on News24.
ANDREW LEIGH: Good morning Alex.
ALEX THOMAS: Those REA figures make pretty grim reading don’t they? Does the government need to do more?
ANDREW LEIGH: We’re the government that is most engaged in home building of any government in the past half century. We're working with states and territories engaged with those policies at the state and local level which have impeded building. And we're building more social and affordable housing through the Housing Australia Future Fund.
Our government recognises that the primary solution to the housing affordability challenge is home building. We've got to boost supply. We're engaging on modular construction, thinking about how we can get more homes built affordably through factories. And we're working to ensure that land release is supported through more Commonwealth funding in order to unlock the enabling infrastructure. We're pushing on all of these levers. But as your viewers know Alex, building homes take time. And after that decade-long pause under the former Coalition government, there's a lot of catching up to be done.
ALEX THOMAS: Yeah, and even in that clip we heard just then from one of the REA senior economists. They admit it is too early to tell how much May's federal budget has contributed to these changes in the housing market. How frustrating is it to see the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers under so much pressure?
ANDREW LEIGH: Look, the Treasurer’s reported Treasury modelling which has the effect of our housing policies being about 2 per cent slower growth in house prices. To put that in perspective Alex, house prices have grown by more than 400 per cent since the capital gains tax changes put in place in 1999, and they’ve been growing at an average of 6 per cent per year. So, the budget would take about 4 months growth off house prices. But really, this is a supply challenge and that's why Clare O'Neil, the Housing Minister, has been so focused on working with her state and territory counterparts in order to get more housing in the places where people want to live.
ALEX THOMAS: But the government's modelling is definitely out of step with many other forecasts showing that house prices could dip by a much greater percentage than just 2 per cent. And more worrying, perhaps, for the Labor Party is that some of the tax changes, I guess, were aimed at helping first-time buyers, right? And it looks like it might be working against them?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, you're comparing two different things there, Alex. Our modelling is about the effect of our policies, and then you're comparing that with what people's forecast for house prices, taking into account many other things going on, including global instability and the interest rate changes.
The PropTrack report that came out recently pointed to interest rates as being the principal driver of house prices. Certainly, we understand tax policies play a part but it's a fairly modest part. Fairly modest in the context of those 6 per cent average annual house price rises. Certainly very modest in the context of the fact that house prices have gone up 25 per cent per cent over the past 5 years and they’re still up over the last year.
ALEX THOMAS: How does it fit into the broader economic picture, Andrew. We saw the Australian Bureau of Statistics declared growth for the June quarter up 0.4 per cent. Is that encouraging or does it increase the prospect of another rate rise?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, the growth figures are encouraging. We're doing as well or better than every major advanced economy. And in the area we have just been talking about Alex, we saw an increase in dwelling investment and in building approvals. And so, that's important in terms of seeing the movement in the property sector, which is about unlocking more opportunities for first home buyers.
In my electorate of Fenner, there's a big development taking place in Belconnen – closely linked to transport networks, easily walkable and it'll contain a significant portion of social and affordable homes. And those sorts of developments are going up across the country. We're working extraordinarily hard with states and territories, getting more private sector housing built and getting more social housing built. Both things that Australia lagged behind under the previous government.
ALEX THOMAS: Nine newspapers are reporting the government will next week seek to introduce new legislation aimed at forcing big tech to change their social media algorithms. You and I have spoken before about the dilemma for parents when it comes to our kids and mobile phones. How concerned are you about social media's influence, particularly on boys and their attitude towards women and girls in the light of so many pretty gruesome headlines in recent weeks?
ANDREW LEIGH: Yeah. I mean, there’s a classic exercise which one young couple did, where they both opened the same Instagram video which showed a man and a woman fighting. And she saw comments which defended the woman and he saw comments which defended the man. In some sense, our algorithms are encouraging us to fight – even domestically. We're seeing that in politics where the algorithms are weaponising anger and outrage, and I think that's been one of the factors in the rise of right-wing populists around the world.
We're also seeing algorithms which are encouraging behaviours such as sexual choking. That just didn't exist when I was a teenager. So these algorithms really are out of control, they’re a toxic force in our society and that's why the government's digital duty of care seeks to address it. Obviously we're working alongside parents here and parents will be recognising the challenges that we face in a very different social media ecosystem from the one in which many of us grew up.
ALEX THOMAS: Yeah look, there’s dangerous social media and then there's also cringy social media. Let's just remind our viewers now about the Dolly Parton tribute from some Queensland LNP Members.
[Excerpt]
ALEX THOMAS: Andrew, that must be your worst nightmare when you get the text from party officials saying, ‘Hey do you want to contribute to a fun social media clip?’ How much pressure do you feel under, because you want to get your message across to all demographics of society?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, I do remember after an incident along those lines under the Gillard Government, where Julia Gillard issued an edict and said, ‘The only person in my cabinet who is allowed to now sing in public is Peter Garrett’. The challenge of engaging with voters is a real one. If you do pure sort of public service announcements, then no one watches them. If you go over the top, then you end up looking like the folks in the video you've described. We aim to hit a balance in our social media, trying to be a bit entertaining, but recognise that voters expect parliamentarians to uphold themselves with a little bit of dignity.
ALEX THOMAS: Yeah, be careful about ripping into other people too much, isn't it? Because you never know when you might be next in line. Although you strike me as such a sensible chap, Andrew, maybe you can avoid those pitfalls.
ANDREW LEIGH: Doing my best!
ALEX THOMAS: We wish you all the best. Assistant Minister Andrew Leigh, thank you for your time.
ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks so much Alex.
ENDS