TV interview with Minister Butler, Sunrise - 26 May 2026

NATALIE BARR, HOST: The Federal Budget is receiving fresh backlash this morning, this time through new modelling from the property industry which shows the tax changes will trigger rents to surge and make the housing crisis even more severe. Now, the modelling shows that over the next four years, the Federal Budget will cause new housing supply to fall by almost 9,000 homes, rents to increase by up to $9 per week and construction jobs to fall by more than 3,800.
 
For more, we're joined by Health Minister Mark Butler and Deputy Liberal Leader Jane Hume. Good morning to both of you. Mark, we'll start with you. These rent increases are about four and a half times more than your government has projected, which was, I think, about $2 increase per week. Is there a chance your modelling is incorrect?
 
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: No, we'll back the officials in Treasury who are employed by the public to do this modelling in the public interest, not in the interest of vested interests. I'm not sure people will be particularly shocked that the real estate industry, for example, is very happy with the status quo. They don't want to see change. What a surprise that they've got some modelling that indicates the government should do absolutely nothing. Remember, Nat, that existing negatively geared properties see no change to their negative gearing arrangements at all. That is the bedrock of the private rental market right now. There is no basis for all of those properties, and there are hundreds of thousands of them, no basis at all for any rental increase for them. But having said that, officials say going forward there'll be a modest impact of rents of about $2 a week. Other independent groups like the Grattan Institute have backed up that modelling. But over time, there'll be downward pressure on rents, not upward pressure.
 
BARR: Mark, have you ever seen anyone put the rent up $2 a week?
 
BUTLER: No, well, that's averaged across the whole sector, as I said. The vast bulk of the rent, the vast -
 
BARR: Okay, $8 a month. Has that ever happened?
 
BUTLER: The vast bulk, this is an average across the entire sector, Nat, because the vast bulk of the private rental market will see no change to their negative gearing arrangements because we grandfathered them. They have no basis for a rent increase at all.
 
BARR: Yes, let’s talk about rents, though.
 
BUTLER: No, but they have no basis for a rent increase at all, because their existing arrangements, which grounded their existing rental price, should see no change at all.
 
BARR: Because we've got people writing in saying, they're actually complaining to us for even reporting the $2 a week, they're complaining to us for even reporting the $9 a week, saying we're idiots because they're already having rent increases of way more than that every year. So somebody's wrong. They're living it.
 
BUTLER: Of course, we're arguing over numbers that are directly related to the changes set out in the budget. There are a whole bunch of other reasons why landlords will increase rents, of course. As I say -
 
BARR: So they'll go up, but just not for that reason?
 
BUTLER: That's right. Existing landlords have no basis for increasing their rent because of these tax changes because they're grandparented. There may be increases in their rent because of other reasons, but not because of this budget. But again, I come back to this question of rival modelling. We employ experts who were employed under Jane's government, used exactly the same models under Jane's government as they use under ours, to model these things in the public interest. It shouldn't be of any surprise to your viewers that vested interests who are very happy with the status quo, like the Real Estate Institute and others, lo and behold come up with modelling that says don't change anything.
 
BARR: Right. Okay, Jane, look, we've seen the Nationals leader, Matt Canavan, calling for an early election over this so people can vote on it. Trouble is, if an election was held today, there is a you could lose a lot of seats to One Nation, isn't it?
 
SENATOR JANE HUME: But these tax changes weren't taken to an election. And for that reason, Labor has no mandate for them. Mark is wrong. The numbers in the budget were explicit. It said that there was going to be a reduction in the number of houses built because of Labor's toxic taxes. And now, we're hearing that rents may go up nearly five times more than was anticipated from those specific policies. Now, rents have already gone up around 22 per cent under this Labor government because of inflation that is being driven by government spending. But now we're hearing that these new housing changes, these toxic taxes, are actually going to reduce the number of houses built and push up rents, making it harder for Australians to get into their first home. These taxes are a terrible idea, and that's why we've said that we will repeal them, but the government should have taken them to an election in the first place.
 
BARR: Yeah. Jane, why aren't more people supporting you, then? If this is so bad and so many people are complaining, why are so many people not on your side?
 
HUME: Well, it's time that people started listening to Coalition policies about how we're going to get supply of housing moving again. We're going to repeal the red tape that's involved with building houses. The construction code has blown out by 2,000 pages. It used to be 200. No wonder it's so expensive to build a home. We're going to take the cost of building a home down by $70,000 just through that one measure. But most importantly, we're going to bring back a common sense approach to building houses. We're going to link migration to the number of houses built, reducing this demand pressure on new housing and helping with supply.
 
BARR: Okay. We thank you very much for your time. We'll see you next week.