Subjects: Telstra Outage, Labor’s Housing Target
E&OE
STARTS: 4.30pm
ENDS: 4.38pm
PATRICIA KARVELAS
I want to bring in my political panel for today, Josh Burns is a Labor MP and a special envoy for social housing and homelessness, Michael McCormack is the Shadow Veterans Affairs and Water Minister. Welcome to both of you.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Thank you, Patricia, hello Josh.
PATRICIA KARVELAS
We must start on the Telstra outage. Lots of changes were made, Josh Burns I’ll start with you, in the wake, of course, of the Optus outage. Right now, there are welfare checks on Australians who were unable to reach triple zero. If something catastrophic has happened and people have lost their lives, will it show that your reforms have not worked, that there have to be more changes?
JOSH BURNS
Well, I think the responsible thing to do right now, first and foremost, is to make sure that everyone who tried to get through to triple zero is OK and that those welfare checks, I believe, of the 24 calls that potentially were affected by this are being followed up and that those people are able to access medical care if they need it. So, I think that’s the first thing to do. I don’t think it’s worthwhile speculating on whether or not certain reforms are needed right now, because we also need to have a clearer picture from Telstra about what exactly has gone on and why Telstra have overseen this particular outage, and Australians have been affected by it. So, let’s get to the facts of this before we start speculating. And I think first and foremost, those people who potentially tried to get on to triple zero are safe and are being looked after and are getting the medical care that they need.
PATRICIA KARVELAS
Michael McCormack, your side of politics has raised questions about whether it might be linked to the Chinese missile testing that we saw earlier this week. Telstra has made it clear that there is no evidence of any malicious activity. Was it a mistake to raise that?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, Telstra has said that it’s a synchronising error, but the Prime Minister also says it’s terrible how people’s lives were disrupted. Well, I tell you what is disrupting people’s lives in regional Australia, it’s not just the Telstra outage today, it’s the fact that this government continues to buy water away from our farmers. Now, Josh represents an electorate where there’s two Olympic-sized swimming pools, 34,400 swimming pools’ worth of water was bought just a couple of weeks ago out of regional Australia, out of my area, and no-one, no one, apart from myself and maybe one or two others, were kicking up a fuss about that. I tell you what, it’s one thing to have your phone disconnected and not working for 24 hours, wait till the city Australians wake up one day and find that there’s no food in the supermarkets because we’re unable to grow it because of this government’s terrible water policies.
PATRICIA KARVELAS
Ok. I respect your pivot to something you’re passionate about and the issue is important, but that’s not the issue I asked about, it was about whether raising something malicious where there’s no evidence for it in relation to a link with the Chinese. Was that wrong? That’s a direct question. Was it wrong to raise that?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
We shouldn’t jump to too many quick conclusions. Allow the government to explain what happened, allow Telstra to explain what’s happened. And I’m sure Telstra is working through exactly what happened, and give them the next 24, 48 hours, we’ll find out. I agree with Josh, the fact that people were unable to make triple zero calls, we need to thoroughly investigate that and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
PATRICIA KARVELAS
OK, Josh, the triple zero calls that Sarah Henderson made, she’s put out a statement, she’s about to join us, but she said she called triple zero twice initially and when the calls did not connect, she immediately notified a senior Telstra representative. Doesn’t sound like an apology but she says she dealt with it, telling Telstra. Do you think it’s still wrong?
JOSH BURNS
Well, I’m not exactly sure of what happened with Sarah, and I think if she’s coming on the program, she can let you know what was said to her by Telstra. But what is really important here is that Telstra fronts up, that they provide the answers as to exactly what’s happened here, and that they explain what has been done, if it is some sort of software or some sort of internal hardware issue, what has been done to rectify this, and there needs to be safeguards, especially when it comes to triple zero. There is network sharing that does happen if something does cut out that people are able to access other networks in order to call triple zero, so, something must have glitched there as well. So, I think there are, you know, there are serious questions to be answered. Obviously, we don’t want people testing triple zero just because of it, because it can potentially clog up the network in a way that would otherwise be used for people who really need triple zero. But if you do need to call triple zero, then obviously absolutely call it. And hopefully the issues that Telstra has had today are restored.
PATRICIA KARVELAS
Was it wrong, Michael McCormack, for Sarah Henderson to call it? I mean, it’s a criminal offence, you’re not meant to do it, you can go to jail.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
I wouldn’t call triple zero unless there was an emergency, I think you only reserve that call if there’s an emergency.
PATRICIA KARVELAS
OK, so it was wrong?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, you only call triple zero if you’re in an emergency.
PATRICIA KARVELAS
Yeah, that is actually the law, that is the rule. I want to change the topic, and I’ll deal with this a bit more with Sarah Henderson in a moment. But let’s just talk about some figures that have come out. This is very much in your portfolio area, I’ve got to say, Josh Burns. Australia is now more than, I think it’s 112,000 homes behind your target of building 1.2 million new dwellings by the middle of 2029, that’s according to fresh data, this is the ABS data. That’s disappointing, isn’t it? You’re not going to meet that benchmark.
JOSH BURNS
Well, I think the first thing is, is that by setting a target, what it actually did was get all of the states and territories thinking about how many homes we need to be building. And it is difficult, Patricia, when dealing with, you know, the eight states and territories, to align a lot of the policies that can really impact supply. Now, that’s not to lay the blame anywhere. It’s just a fact of how difficult this problem is. But I think it’s actually really important to set a target on how many homes we need to build as a country. It focuses people’s attention on the sort of work that needs to happen. And there has been significant reforms across some of our major cities to try and unlock housing and to try and make sure that housing planning processes can be sped up, that there is land available for housing and that also, especially around where I live, that the medium density homes can go through the planning processes faster. All of these things really matter, and it all adds to the price of housing. The other thing also I would say with the targets is that ultimately, what we want to see is homes being built at an affordable rate for Australians, and we know that it’s just not affordable for Australians. The cost of housing has gone up, and we are looking for ways in which we can reduce the cost of production, because ultimately, if people can afford to buy or build their own home, then more homes are going to be built. And it’s also another reason why our negative gearing and capital gains taxes, which were just adding to the cost of housing because investors had tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of extra support and taxpayer funded support to boost up the price of houses, it means that not only were investors keeping first home buyers out of the market, but making houses less affordable and far, far higher than the wage increases that people are having.
PATRICIA KARVELAS
Michael McCormack, it’s an ambitious target. The Opposition’s been critical of Labor being too slow on this, but isn’t it right to have an ambitious target and to try and pull every lever you possibly can to accelerate this?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, you can set the bar as low or as high as you like, Patricia, but when you’re trying to lock up the forestry industry and stop it and prevent it from actually logging and importing timber, that’s a mistake. When you’re not placing migrant chippies and sparkies and bricklayers and plasterers and carpenters as a priority for migration, that is a problem. And then when you have a building construction code that runs to thousands upon thousands upon thousands of pages, that’s also an issue. And the federal government is doing nothing to address those three issues I just mentioned.
PATRICIA KARVELAS
Alright, we’re out of time but it’s been a good panel, lots of topics covered and I appreciate your time. Thank you.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Thanks Patricia. Thanks John.
JOSH BURNS
Strong pivots today, Michael, strong pivots.
PATRICIA KARVELAS
That was Labor MP Josh Burns and Shadow Veterans Minister Michael McCormack.