She's On The Money - “Can I Actually Afford My Life Right Now?” We Put Australia’s Ministers In The Hot Seat

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

Right after the federal budget dropped, I sat down with some of Australia’s most powerful ministers and political voices to ask the questions our community actually cares about. Not the polished political talking points… the real stuff. Housing affordability, childcare costs, rising bills, negative gearing, fuel prices, domestic violence support, women’s financial security and whether Australians are genuinely better off after this budget. Across this bonus episode, I speak with Housing Minister Clare O'Neil, Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek, Infrastructure Minister Catherine King, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen and Independent MP Monique Ryan about what this budget actually means for Australians trying to buy homes, leave violent relationships, pay power bills, raise kids and build financial security in an economy that feels increasingly hard to keep up with. We also get into the politics behind negative gearing reform, whether the government has gone far enough on housing, why childcare still feels impossible for so many women, and what politicians really think when Australians say their paychecks simply aren’t stretching anymore. Some of their answers genuinely surprised me. Hi friend, we’re She’s on the Money, an Australian finance podcast here to help you feel more confident with your money. From understanding your money story, to actually sticking to a budget, to starting to build wealth in a way that feels doable. We’ve got hundreds of hours of podcast episodes and loads of free resources to help you get started. Some links to get you on your way:https://bio.site/shesonthemoney The advice shared on She's On The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's On The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708, AFL - 451289. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello my friends and welcome to She's On The Money. I am Victoria Devine and around here we are all about making money a little less overwhelming. We have a community of more than 300,000 people, we have podcasts and blogs, we also have freebies like budgeting tools and investing cheat sheets to help you feel more in control of your financial future. She's on the money. She's on the money. My name is Natasha Bamblett. I'm a proud First Nations woman and I'm here to acknowledge country. Hello, beautiful friends. We gather on the lands of the Aboriginal people. We thank,

acknowledge and respect the Aboriginal people's land that we're gathering on today. Take pleasure in all the land and respect all that you see. She's on the Money podcast acknowledges culture, country, community and connections, bringing you the tools, knowledge and resources for you to thrive. Hello and welcome to She's on the Budget, a limited series where we take you behind the 2026-2027 federal budget so that you can sound smarter at the water cooler, in the group chat or while spiralling over property prices on realestate.com.au at 11pm. I'm your host Victoria Devine and after spending the day inside budget lock-up at Parliament House reading through hundreds of pages of announcements, spin and economic jargon, we reached out to ministers,

cross-benchers and key political voices from across the budget conversation to ask the questions our community actually wants answered. In this episode I've put some of our ministers in the hot seat to ask questions that our community has and genuinely cares about. I sat down with the Minister for Housing Claire O'Neill, Minister for Social Services Tanya Plibersek, Minister for Infrastructure Catherine King, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen and Independent MP Dr Monique Ryan to unpack what this budget actually means for Australians trying to buy homes, pay bills, build wealth and survive the cost of living crisis with at least some skirk of dignity remaining intact. Because budget night might be technically about the economics,

but for most Australians, it's actually about one thing. Can I really afford my life right now? So join me as we put ministers and independents to the test and hear about our government's ongoing investment into women. Claire, welcome to She's on the Money. For those of you who maybe haven't met Claire online before, Claire is Australia's Minister for Housing. She's also the Minister for Homelessness and the Minister for Cities, meaning she's, I would say, one of the key people who is shaping the government's response to the housing crisis, affordability and rental pressures at the moment that a lot of our community are facing and kind of struggling with and I feel like a lot of us are grappling with what the new budget means and how that works

for us also before politics you worked as a lawyer and a management consultant so you're kind of really knowledgeable in this space and you've also become one of or I would say one of the government's most visible voices on housing reform migration and economic policy and I'm just so excited to finally get you in the hot seat oh my gosh I'm so excited to talk to you Victoria I love what you do and especially empowering women around australia to get them into a good financial situation so i'm thrilled to be talking to you trying really hard i feel like get into it the budget's so huge in common and yesterday you came into our lockup to have a chat with us but i was floundering around outside with somebody else doing content and i missed the whole thing so

could you give me a really quick summary of you know why you came in to have a chat with the content creators and I guess your key headlines of what the budget means for us yeah I came to talk to the content creators because I really want Australians to understand why we have such chronic problems with housing for everyone who's listening they're probably you know struggling to get into the housing market seeing their rents going up worried about that increasing population of homeless that they probably see in parks and streets around their suburb and wondering why is this all happening? So there's one really important reason. This has been building up over 40 years in our country. And the big issue is that for that 40 years, we have not been building

enough homes. So we in Australia today have a supply shortage. And the best way for us to get out of what's going on in housing is to build, build, build. And that's why the majority of the activities of the government are focused on trying to get home building moving. If we're building more homes then housing becomes more affordable for everyone so the budget last night was pro supply it'll mean that we build more homes for the country but the other thing we were tackling is this really unfair situation that has put investors on a higher level than first home buyers now we support people investing in property it's not that you're doing anything wrong it's really a question of who the government should be backing in yeah we've got young people young women who

feel that there's a housing system stacked against them and we want your listeners to get ahead and we want them particularly to get into home ownership so last night was about leveling that playing field getting 75 000 australians out of renting and into home ownership and putting a fairer system in place for everyone going forward now i haven't had enough time to pour over the budget in the way that you have i feel like i've had a couple of hours and i've been scrambling to get my content together. I don't know how you guys do it. We have weeks and months to think about this. We don't sleep and I'm really excited. You're looking really fresh given that. Thank you, it's makeup. But having looked at the budget, obviously we are, you know, pegging back the

investors a little bit. But when I look into it, the economy, it's not stacked in our favour to get into being a homeowner. So if we're pegging back investors, is that going to mean that there are less rental properties on the market for us to rent. Therefore, is rent going to then go up? I mean, just extrapolating it out in my head, is then rent going to go up and it be harder to get into the market, making homeownership sexier, but also even more out of reach? Yeah. So I really understand the question you're asking. And the way that these reforms have been balanced is that we get lots of new homeowners, 75,000 renters becoming homeowners, but we only see a very minor impact on rents of about two dollars a week so why do we see that effect

because we are allowing people who have existing negative gearing arrangements in place to keep those arrangements so if we were to change that we probably would see investors take their properties out of the rental market we're leaving that as it is because those investors had particular conditions promised to them and we shouldn't we shouldn't back away from that so because of that we're not going to see a big drop-off in rentals in the market. And remember that you can still access those property tax concessions for listeners who want to do that. What we're asking is that if you want to get access to those tax concessions, help us with our national challenge of building more homes for the country. So you can get access to those concessions, but we want you to buy into

a new home. The old system allowed these big tax concessions, even for investors who were buying existing properties and that has helped drive property prices up and also created a situation where at every auction we've had investors who are using these tax breaks but first-time buyers who weren't getting the help that they deserved so just quickly we're coming in behind first-time buyers the five percent deposit programs made a massive difference to the chances for young people now we're also leveling that playing field which i think is very sexy but at the same time it's just so rough like I speak to the average she's on the money listener and my community member and they'll say something along the lines of Victoria I went to university still got some

hex debt I've got a really good job you know I'm in a position where I'm not single I've even got a dual income household and we still can't purchase a home how do we deal with that are we meant to change our mindsets completely around the uh hope of one day owning our own home yeah or is it realistic to think that we'll still get in the door in the same way we always did yeah really fair question and you know to those young people let me just be really direct the situation they're facing today is unfair when i look at their the housing opportunity of their parents and grandparents it was radically different to what's faced today and i'll just share one fact with you the um for a low-income young couple in our country they are almost half as likely to own

a home today than they were in the year i was born and that's the thing that keeps me up at night as housing minister so our government is doing everything that we can to turn that around for people now it's not going to change overnight but remember we're making already a really meaningful difference to this that five percent deposit program has got 240 000 australians into their first home. We've got Help to Buy, which is another program I'd love to talk to your listeners about. It's a viable option for a lot of people. Now we're also levelling that playing field and getting another 75,000 people into home ownership. That reverses a decade of decline in the home ownership rate in our country. So I'd say to people who are listening who are stressing about

this, I really get it. This is what motivates me and drives me in politics. You've got the government on your side here fighting for you and by the way you know these things that we're doing five percent deposit program the level playing field these are fights like there are a lot of people in politics who don't want us to make these shifts towards first home buyers but we strongly believe that we should have a country where ordinary people can get their stake and grow their wealth and have stability for their family and don't give up on that dream there are programs available to help you and our government is backing you in a hundred percent yeah and i don't know if you know this about me, but I own a mortgage brokerage in Melbourne and I have six mortgage

brokers that work for me. And we do this day in, day out. The 5% deposit scheme is so popular in our business. Tell me what Help to Buy does and how that can help our community. And then I know we're running out of time, but I then want to touch on single women because I feel like they are often left out of the equation. They're often left out of the conversation. And I did a quick control f the second i got my little mitts on that budget and it said nothing about single women so let's come to that because it's actually that's really often at the forefront of our minds when we're thinking about housing so so we'll come to that just briefly for your listeners for your listeners if you are trying to get into the housing market there's two programs that i want you to have

a look at there's a really good website firsttimebuyers.gov.au have a look and you'll be able to easily see what you're eligible for. The first is the 5% deposit program. So gone are the days where you're saving for 11 years for a 20% deposit. This can bring your savings back to two to three years, where you're getting eight years now where you get to pay off your own mortgage, not someone else's. It's tremendously popular for a good reason. The second program is something called Help to Buy. This is really targeted at those families who are going to really struggle to get into the housing market, even under something like the 5% deposit program. The Commonwealth government actually comes in and pays 30 or for a new build, 40% of the purchase

price. And we are effectively your partners in owning that home. So you get into the property market with the government. And over time, you can either pay the government back or when you sell your home, you can pay the government back. So this is a fantastic program. The majority of people who are using that program are single people because if we think we've got challenges when you're in a couple buying a home when you're on a single income in this country is no mean feat and this is a great option for people who are listening who might be on that lower end of the income spectrum and just feeling hopeless about it check out this program it's fantastic yeah and let's touch on single women specifically you and I both know that that is the number one demographic

of women experiencing homelessness over the age of 55 which breaks my heart every single time but there is a rising trend in women just choosing to be single and I kind of love this because on the flip side like all I'm clearly all for women empowerment and I'm clearly all for you know being who you want to be but sorry more women not settling for less I love to see it but on the flip side now we're settling for less money as well and therefore the decisions we're making to be empowered and you know have freedom of choice and not settle for a man who's not going to serve us is now going to impact our ability to retire it's going to impact our ability to create wealth yeah yeah what would you do well firstly what an important question and I can tell you

Victoria I was raised by a single mum and the icon the she is an icon in every regard but she drummed into me from the day I was born that women need to be financially independent and so I'm right there with you so a lot of the government's work is focused on or thinking about single women or single mums I mentioned the five percent deposit program you can actually get access to that program at two percent deposit if you are a single parent so that is really thinking particularly about our restarters our women who perhaps were in a marriage potentially scaled back work to care for kids don't have much super don't have a great work history because their work has been in the family home and suddenly find themselves maybe in their 40s single without knowing that

they would be and they need a chance to build a financial future so this is a great option for them i mentioned help to buy i really want people to google that program and have a look it's a fantastic way to get into the market and then the final thing i want to mention is we haven't talked much about this today but our government has an absolutely massive agenda in building social and affordable homes and crisis accommodation for women who are in need so this is something that governments used to do a lot of back in the 50s and 60s but for 70 years the commonwealth basically step further and further away from rolling up our sleeves and building homes we're changing that we're building 55 000 social and affordable homes and many of those homes are new crisis beds for

women and children fleeing family violence this is a really important part of our housing agenda that people don't honestly pay a lot of attention to i get a lot of challenges getting media interested in this for me it's one of the most passionate parts of my job we need to provide housing for everyone in our country and there are just many families who are going to need extra support and assistance and our government is making sure that they get it yeah and that's a really good place I think to land it but I want to ask you and I asked Katie this yesterday I said you know worst case scenario Labor's out next election what are you most proud of to have achieved in your term? I want to mention two things. The first is the first home buyers that

I get to meet whose lives have been changed. It's an amazing experience that I get to talk to people who they often say to me things like they didn't know they were carrying around this stress and anxiety with them until they stepped into a home that they owned and how transformative that sense of peace that they got was so that would be the first but the second thing is is domestic violence housing we live in a country today with a domestic violence crisis where women tell us that one of the main reasons they don't leave a violent partner is because they can't get stable housing to go to and that should not be happening in a country like Australia so we're making huge inroads and every time I visit a shelter and speak to women and children who are safe because of something our

government did, I'll carry that with me forever. Welcome to She's on the Money. It's such a pleasure to be with you. I am going to introduce you for those in my community who may not have crossed paths with you before. The Honourable Tanya Plibersek MP is the Minister for Social Services and one of the most senior women in the Albanese government. Over her political career, she's held portfolios spanning health, education, environment and social policy and has been long associated with advocacy around gender equality domestic violence prevention and social welfare reform in this year's federal budget in this year's federal budget many of the government's social support measures sit across areas directly impacting women's financial security from child

from child support from child support enforcement and violence prevention to housing health care and community support services which honestly makes her one of the most important voices in the entire budget conversation for Australian women right now and I am so excited that I have managed to secure you for a quick hot seat chat. Oh well it's great to be with you and I know how much your audience really respects and values your views. I've got a daughter who really listens all the time. Well hello that is very fun. Now let's get into a few quick fire questions. I would love to know a few more details about what you thought was most powerful in last night's budget well one of the um one of the big changes is in the way that the child support

scheme is going to operate to make sure that more children get the money that they need to be brought up in comfort at the moment there's about 1.9 billion dollars of child support debt that is unpaid and that's only the debt that we know about that's only the people who are using the child support agency to collect and they're actually disclosing what they actually 100 so we think that the debt is probably more than twice that it would have to be and we need to change that and it's terrifying because I feel like everyone every woman has a story of a friend who knows someone whose ex-partner or family member isn't disclosing that and trying to get out of it and it's basically being weaponized against women right yeah and kids who are growing up in single

parent households are three times more likely to be growing up in poverty and if we get the child support system right, those poverty rates drop dramatically. We also know that it's not just about kids not having the money they need to put food on the table, to have a roof over their heads. It's also about the way the system is used to continue to harass and intimidate ex-partners after, you know, sometimes years after a relationship has ended. So we're doing a few really important things. We're stopping people who've got a child support debt leaving the country. We're making sure that people are penalised if they're not lodging their tax returns to hide income. We're making exchange of information between government departments

much easier so we can catch those people if they're hiding income. And one of the other things that I'm really excited about is we're going to make the deduction of child support from wages much simpler, much easier, so that for most people it will be as easy to pay their child support as it is when their employer pays their tax or pays their superannuation we just set it up we automate it and we really reduce the conflict that goes with it and to me that just makes sense yeah like it just makes sense and it's so frustrating because it's not the way it's been but are you feeling that as well look um it's frustrating that it's taken so long but we're talking about a million kids who rely on child support so this is not a fringe issue it's

important just to make sure that when people go into the child support system they make decisions that ensure they get their money so give better advice up front about what what should work for you what rights you've got and all the way through we'll make sure that enforcement is better so that kids are actually getting the money they need to support them yeah in our community and i think in the wider community as well there's often a narrative that child support disputes are just quote relationship disputes or relationship drama but the financial but the financial consequences of that are catastrophic do you think that the conversation around child support needs to change culturally as well as politically as well as systemically yeah look i think the child

support system was originally set up on the principle that a child's still got two parents and a child should benefit from the financial circumstances of both of their parents I think we've really a lot of people have come to see this as a battle between mum and dad it's not it's just about making sure that there is adequate support for that child and if you know mum's wage goes up or dad's wage goes up the support for that child is also improved yeah i would also like to pivot off just child support and ask about some state-specific programs that i i saw and i was really interested in can you tell me a bit more about some of those state-specific programs um and how they're being and how they're being extended across the country at the moment so

i'm talking about like the leaving violence program regional trial which i saw and i was like i don't know if this is getting as much press as i think it deserves oh yeah look that that is an amazing program in four sites across australia uh broom darwin cairns and dubbo we're doing really intensive support through aboriginal community controlled organizations to help people who are leaving violence now um i mean we've got this fantastic leaving violence program that we've made permanent it's right across the country if you need to leave a violent relationship you can get up to five thousand dollars support and fifteen hundred of that in cash the rest of it in you know changed locks or a bus ticket to get out of town but that comes along with safety

planning and it comes along with ongoing support but in those regional towns we're doing something even more intensive where councillors are working face to face with women who are planning to leave a relationship safely now you say what you know why do we need specific programs think about if you live on a remote island in the Torres Strait or if you live on a remote community on Cape York or a tiny country town in the far northwest of Western Australia safety planning like actually getting to safety and having the financial support to do that is it's not just life-changing it's life-saving. Yeah and I think that I know and you know but I'm not sure if everybody in our community knows that the riskiest point in time for a woman is when she's exiting the relationship

if she's in a situation of domestic family violence um leaving is actually the time at which her life is most at risk and i think that's heartbreaking because that's the decision she needs to make to be in a better position but women know that too and that holds them back how do you think that the sentiment is going to change in those regional communities because i think it's already quite taboo to think about this or already quite taboo to talk about it and even plan because you're an example of being in Cape York where is she meant to go? 100% that's why we're doing this intensive investment particularly in those communities but it's also why we made the Leaving Violence Program permanent for every Australian it's irrespective

of visa category it's and that's very important too if people are here on a fiancé visa or something, they think, oh gosh, if I leave this violent relationship, I'm going to lose the support I need to keep safe. That Leaving Violence Program helps right across Australia. And that's a billion dollar commitment from the government. But those regional trials where we're doing face-to-face work in remote communities, that shows us what is possible. All too often, the question is, why didn't she leave? And we should be asking, where would she go? and who would help her leave safely exactly and i was having a conversation with the minister of housing earlier today and she was saying that the number one thing that is stopping women at the

moment from leaving relationships is they have nowhere to go so i think there's just a bigger picture if we zoom out and look at the budget as a whole of all of these things kind of looking in together and working together to put women in a better position which i'm she's on the money I love to see that and the government and the government recently announced an additional investment of 2.64 million dollars and then another 2.52 million dollars later in the year to help Australian social enterprises how might this investment actually impact the women who are listening to this today it is another fantastic question because these social enterprises are not always but often working with newly arrived migrant and refugee women they're working with

women in um like socioeconomic disadvantaged communities and basically they're taking people who feel like they are excluded from the labor market and giving them the skills they need to get back into the labor market and very often to set up their own businesses as well so i've been to visit a lot of the social enterprises that you're talking about and they are things like um learning how to make and alter and tailor clothes and a lot of food businesses as well so what I mean it's always a fantastic visit we go and visit a community kitchen or a food business I meet the women there many of them have never had a job before like there's a fantastic one in Wynyard station most of the women there are from Afghanistan they weren't allowed to work

outside the family home and the pride they have from learning those work skills and the plans they have to set up their own catering businesses for example to support their families it is really heartwarming i think that that would just spark something else in me like i would love to be in your shoes on those days i love it there's a really great organization called played it forward that does a lot of this work i reckon you need to interview them and get some of their women on because I definitely do you know economically they have gone from being not allowed to work not allowed to leave the home in some cases to incredible plans to not just make a job for themselves but to employ others to train up others to pass it forward when women have financial

literacy and financial freedom all they do is help other women it's my favorite thing in the whole world now I know I'm running out of time with you and I want to ask one last question in the budget last night what were you disappointed with that wasn't addressed to the full extent that you thought it maybe should have been oh look you know budgets are always um what you can afford to do at the time and we always want to do more i i'm a i'm an ambitious minister i want i want big change for this country and uh i always you know there's always more things that i want to do but I'm proud, I'm super proud of what we did last night. I think the intergenerational equity in this budget, the gender equality in this budget, it's a real Labor budget. It's a very

Labor budget. Dr Monique Ryan is the independent MP for Kooyong and one of the growing wave of Teal independents who reshaped Australian politics at the last federal election. We're also neighbours, we work in the same building. Before entering politics, get this, she was a paediatric neurologist and hospital director which means she came into parliament from an actual career not just the party machine she's become known for speaking strongly on climate policy political integrity health care and women's representation while also challenging both major parties on housing affordability and cost of living pressures given this budget is so heavily focused on housing tax reform and household pressure i would say she's got a particularly interesting perspective

on whether these measures actually go far enough. Monique, welcome to the show. Thank you, it's lovely to be with you. I'm very excited about this because not only are you my local member and not only are you my local member but I just feel like everything you stand for is very she's on the money aligned

so my community are going to want to hear from you. This budget made some very significant changes to negative gearing and CGT. Some we definitely saw, some we were like, oh that's new that's been put on the table do you think these reforms go far enough to actually improve housing affordability for younger Australians? I think there will be an improvement in housing affordability for young Australians as a result of the changes that were announced yesterday and that's great it's long overdue because we knew that we could see this impending

crisis for young people where effectively they were not going to be able to afford a home of their own in their own lifetime if they didn't benefit from intergenerational wealth transfer and for many young people that was just becoming a bridge too far the problem with the changes that the treasurer announced yesterday were that they were pretty incremental and they're only really going to have an effect over a relatively long period of time because of the grandfathering arrangements now i i completely respect the fact that it has been impossible at the australian federal parliamentary level for a long time to change negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts. So I'll give props to Jim Chalmers for the fact that he's done it. And credit where

credit is due. But I think we could have perhaps expected a bit more. And we could have expected for these changes to be introduced more quickly than they will be. And I think there's still a lot to do for this government to address intergenerational inequity. Yeah I feel like that's what I was reading through the budget last night and that's kind of what stood out to me as well and maybe this is a brazen thing to say but I felt like it was very optimistic that two years from now they will still be the government leading these changes that they could have done some pretty heavy-hitting things right now but it was a little bit incremental and really does rely on them getting in in two years or another government actually picking it up and agreeing with their

stance and actually continuing it for it to have a long-term impact would you agree they've got 94 seats i actually think they've got a massive mandate and this is the time to make big bold changes to have the courage to really commit to the next generation so use the audacity and slide on in yes and and use the fact that the the coalition is a screaming heap at this point in time and one nation for all the blather has one member of the house at this point in time the government's got this massive mandate and it could show courage right now it could show that real commitment to the next generation that we need it too but there really wasn't that much on housing in this that's going to affect the dial in the next two or three years even there

wasn't a whole lot on child care there wasn't a whole lot or there was no mention of students or no no mention of universities wasn't a whole lot for single parents um the the health care initiatives that we heard yeah they were okay but they were a bit mid as well i would say uh and and so there's still a lot more that this government could do and that people like me will continue to push it for yeah i have two kids under the age of two because i'm quite delusional but like you don't get here um by not not having um a healthy sense of delusion when it comes to child care and you just touched on that before i feel like it's a really it's not just a touchy subject but it's something that we really need to be investing more time and energy and effort into what did

you hope to see when it came to child care in the budget this year well i'm still pushing for universal childcare and for better regulation of the sector as well. I think that to a significant extent, privatisation of the childcare sector has been against the best interests of parents and children. I think the government really needs to get on the front foot. It's the most important thing it could do to address gender equity in this country is to make sure that all women can access safe and affordable health childcare for their kids. Yeah, absolutely. And this government, you've heard it over and over and over um this government's really pushing that housing supply is the core issue here this is what they're trying to address with this budget you know

I heard Jim Chalmers yesterday say this this budget's for the first home buyer um but many Australian investors have had I guess structural advantages for years do you agree with that do you think that you know housing supply is the core issue here? I think in terms of getting people into homes that they own, I think in terms of getting people into homes that they own yes we need more supply that that is the single most important issue and the Treasury's model that we as a result of these changes announced yes they should probably get another 75,000 homes although some of the secondary considerations that they had suggested that might not be quite that high and so that that is really really important but it's also a question of where

those homes are and what are the facilities that support them so most young people don't want to live an hour or more from where they work or from their parents and they don't want to live on the outskirts of really big cities that don't have decent amenities whether that be child care health care sporting facilities all the things that you know contribute to your daily quality of life when especially when you've got young kids so they're the things that governments really do need to commit to we also need a really I think burgeoning economy in terms of one of the issues that I've been pushing on hard is medical research funding young people are telling me that they don't feel we're an innovative and clever country in the way that we used to be and and some of the

the push to the right some of the conservative side of politics has really got you know wants take us back to the 60s and 70s whereas the young people I talk to want to be able to afford degrees and pay them off quickly and then get going with really interesting careers that will benefit from a really strong R&D sector for example which is something that the major parties really aren't talking about all that much there was some stuff about that in the budget last night I've been pushing really hard for more money for medical research and we got a really big commitment on that which was fantastic to see but there's still a lot to do in the R&D sector and in medical and scientific technology yeah you just touched on medical and I feel like women's health was one

of the bigger winners in this budget which is always exciting to see because like for years we've been rallying for it but do you think we're finally seeing women's health there women's health care being treated as an economic issue rather than just a medical one yes absolutely and I think that is one thing that I will give this government props for, that there has been a real commitment to women's health and a really significant number of initiatives over a number of years now aimed at looking at some of the inequities there in terms of healthcare outcomes and the cost of healthcare. There's still a lot more to do. I'm actually the Deputy Chair of the Health Committee and we're looking at the moment into the access to and affordability of specialist

medical care in this country and too many women are still struggling to get obstetric care in particular but also care around endometriosis and other you know just access to gynecological supports really. Yeah and I think that for me that's really exciting seeing my community of women jumping up and down for so long about needing funding just needing access to medications needing or like it's so exciting but another issue that they are not so hot on and I'm excited to ask someone outside the Labor Party about is the shift in CGT and negative gearing and the sentiment around that because Labor has now shifted its position on policies or it has now shifted its position on the policies of CGT and negative gearing after previously saying no we're ruling

that out we won't touch that no worries do you see that as responsible economic adaptation or political pressure finally forcing against i would have preferred to see changes on cgt and negative gearing have been to have been part of the labour party's platform at the last federal election i thought that we should be talking about those issues at that point in time and so when people talk about a broken promise i completely agree that it should have been on the table earlier and the government should have been up front about that having said that i don't think that we should be waiting another year or two to take action on this and so i have to applaud the fact that the treasurer managed to get this across the line we've seen lots of people fail to do that

since john howard introduced these changes uh you know 20 years ago and so uh it is it's you know you might question why it's been done now and I think it is political pressure and and the fact that the government's become increasingly aware of people's dissatisfaction and frustration but it would have been better there's no doubt had they been a bit more upfront about the fact that they were thinking about this way back when I would say the fact I really I really feel pretty strongly that the crossbench have had a pretty significant impact on the agenda at this federal budget. So many of us pushed hard for the statutory tax cut reform before the government did it. Many of us have spoken about negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount and Allegra

has come up with a really mature body of work on tax reform in this country and has pushed the government on it. Many of us have been pushing the government for reform of our oil and gas taxation for a long time now. We didn't get that last night. It's not going to go away because young australians old australians as well are furious that we are effectively giving away our gas and oil for bugger all yeah and and that the fact that the government didn't address that last night is you know it's incredibly frustrating but the crossbench will keep them to it we've also pushed hard on the cost of education on hex i've pushed hard on health care medical reform and these are all things that have come to the fore and been talked about because the crossbench

have put it on the agenda. So I'll give the government props for responding to that pressure but I'm going to say that I and other crossbenchers have put these issues into the spotlight. I've got young people in particular say we care about this and we want you to do something about it and the government's responding as political parties do. Yes and I feel like there's been a lot of conversation especially when it comes to you know capital gains and negative gearing and what's going on economically in the world and them saying oh it's a very different budget than the budget we would have presented pre the 28th of February and you know I applaud them for being nimble and able to change and change policies but that was also something we

were asking for back then and to me should have been taken into consideration absolutely so if you can be nimble on that but sweep this under the rug and say that you didn't have time and you didn't have enough resources for that I feel like that's just a bit of a get out of jail free card yeah potentially I mean I think I know that lots of other people have been saying don't waste a crisis you know when people can really appreciate because fuel prices have gone up so much that we have a real problem here that's when you should act on it but the government has wasted that crisis when it comes to oil and gas taxation and the potential to reform those. What I have learned since I became a politician is that people have power, you know, constituents have power, young

people have more power than they realise, and people who aren't members of the parties, by picking up issues and pushing really, really hard on them, can affect policy, can affect what the government is thinking about and the decision that it makes. And even just in the last few weeks when I've been really pushing the government hard on funding for medical research I've realised that these decisions are made you know sometimes 72 hours 48 hours before the budget papers are actually published you know you can you can really up the ante and keep if you can put pressure on the government about political issues effectively and you know the challenge is how to do that you can actually affect real change and it's one of the exciting bits of the job

it's one of the things I love about my job getting young people on board in particular but also other people who don't feel that the government's really representing their best interests and then trying to get a result on things that really matter to them yeah I was I attended the budget last year and I am obviously here and having the privilege of doing so this year and I got a lot of criticism from my community saying why are you getting political and I find that an interesting narrative given money is inherently political and it impacts women disproportionately and you know sitting here hearing you speak with such passion it's making me wonder how does a paediatric neurologist and hospital director go you know what I'm going to

go into politics where did that come from did you always think that you were going to do that why well you can choose not to be interested in politics but you can't choose not to be affected bite because how much you pay for the home that you live in or for your groceries or the power or your kids child care you might not be interested in it but baby you're involved they're affected so yeah you are involved yeah no look I was just like many of the other cross benches in 2021 late 2021 during COVID I was frustrated and our government at that time did not represent me yeah it didn't represent women it didn't represent people who were able to think independently and critically about how the government was acting it wasn't acting with

integrity I was really frustrated with how it managed COVID but for me the big issue was climate and its failure to engage with the need for effective action on climate not just for our environment but also for our economy and so there was a community group put an ad in the paper and said are you the next independent member for Kooyong and you were like yes actually I am damn right yeah no I mean I didn't think they'd choose me actually but you know I went along and met these people and they did choose me and you know we did something quite remarkable it was just a community having a little bit of audacity well audacity yeah but also the support of incredible people with with vision and energy you know we we took on something that we didn't

you know we didn't really believe that would succeed until right up to the last you know vote was cast on election day in 2022 but it was we basically said we're not happy with this and we want to take a stand and we want to change things if we can and it turned out that we could and you could i was saying earlier today as i waltzed on into the prime minister's office i leant over tkr and i said has the joke gone too far like how have we gotten this far and i think that we just need to throw our hats in the ring because how hard could it be men do it well exactly it can't be that complex so when it comes to your political future what does that look like where do you want to end up well I absolutely love being an independent because people come to me

and say I really care about this I really want you to do something about it and if I think that it's a reasonable thing and I think I could perhaps do something about it and it's something that would make a meaningful difference to my community I can pick it up and run with it i can't i couldn't do that as a member of a political party and as a member of the house of representatives i can talk to in the house about things that people care about i get emails or phone calls from constituents and i tell their stories in the house of parliament a week later i'll be doing that this week and it's just an incredibly exciting and inspiring position to be in it is a bit exhausting and it plays have it with your your family life and my convertal doesn't

appreciate it at all but i'm here for the long run i'll stay as long as kiyom will have me i love that well thank you so much for spending some time with she's on the money we really appreciated it me specifically oh thanks victoria i really appreciate it was fun the honorable katherine king mp is the minister for infrastructure transport regional development and local government, which honestly means she oversees a very huge amount of stuff Australians interact with every single day, from roads and rail to fuel policy, regional funding and major infrastructure investments. She's one of the Albanese government's most senior ministers and has become a key figure in conversations around housing supply, transport availability and how

Australians prepare for long-term population growth. Given this year's budget has such a strong focus on infrastructure, housing and fuel pressures linked to global instability. She's at the centre of some of the biggest cost of living conversations that are happening right now in Australia. Welcome to She's on the Money. Thank you for having me. No, I'm very excited about this. Today has been my like nerdy dreams come true. Last night's budget included major investments into fuel security and temporary fuel excise relief because of pressures from global fuel from the global oil crisis how concerning or how concerned is the government about rising fuel prices over the next 12 months well obviously you know this is not a war of our making but we're

having to deal with the consequences and so from february 28 and i don't think many people in australia would have known you know where or what the stratum was was what i think we all know now and really what we've done is the first focus was on getting supply like absolutely doing everything we possibly could to make sure supply kept flying. We saw those original sort of spikes in demand as people sort of panicked a bit, but that's really settled down now. I think Australians have been magnificent, but that's been because of some really hard work to get supply in. So we've now got more fuel in the country than we did previously, but we've still got to watch that. But then, of course, we're dealing with the consequences of the price rise,

which every country is having to deal with. So immediately cutting, halving the fuel excise was really important in my portfolio road user charging like the truck trucking company have a particular uh road user charge that they have to deal with and so taking that down to zero has meant our trucking companies could keep moving freight around and that's increasing every warehouse you go to massive online shopping everywhere it's full of goods that people have bought from all over the place and keeping all of that moving around the country as well as when our food supply has been pretty pretty critical so both of those things but we're in no doubt that you know the price has fluctuated a bit it went down for a bit I think that you know

we're in for an extended period of this and so that's why the cost of living relief that's in the budget's really important as well so tax two tax cuts that are coming up this year and next the thousand dollar instant tax deduction and then of course the new 250 dollars for tax offsets and I think that sort of builds a system where we're actually wanting people who are earning an income to pay less but we also want to try and deal with some of these issues around assets and other investments so we want the tax system to work for people who are working. Yeah now I understand from a government level why the fuel excise maybe wasn't extended further but I did kind of expect it to see or I expected to see it be extended even for a few more months

was that a topic of conversation and why wasn't it included well certainly one of the things we've had to really weigh up in this budget which is is hard and we haven't had you know previous governments haven't had this same sort of issue around inflation anything that you spend on putting on a cash handouts or fuel excise or things like that can be inflationary and we've got this circumstance right at the moment where inflation is going up and that's largely driven by what's happening in the Middle East but we've started to see it start to creep up beyond where we would have liked to see it and so putting a lot out there in a budget can be seen as inflationary and then that also sends a signal to the Reserve Bank that they might increase interest rates

because they want to see inflation come down so we've had to balance this really really carefully provide cost of living relief where we can build the resilience into our fuel security supply but really calibrate that in the budget and that's really you know why why you've seen the initiatives that we've put in place yeah i think sometimes when my community looks at it they go well that just doesn't seem fair and you know a lot of the politicians are talking at the moment about it being a really fair budget would you say that's reflective of the reality yeah i think what we're trying to do is really, as I said, provide that cost of living relief. And it's obviously not just through the tax cuts. There's things which make a big difference in communities that I live

in. Things like making the urgent care clinics permanent, the bulk billing clinics, cheaper medicines, putting investing in our public hospital system. And I'm really trying to work hard to make sure, particularly in healthcare, that we're taking costs out of the system where we can as well so those things are really important there'll be a big focus along the way on specialists that you know that's something we've flagged is an area that we really need to start to think about and look at as well so all of that has been really important to put in the budget but at the same time you know we don't want to put we don't want the budget to put more pressure on inflation and that's really what we've also got to try and do as well because that will

hurt people as well yeah in my community when we hear infrastructure spending I think a lot of us just assume that means that Sydney or Melbourne is getting something new and fancy and shiny but is that the reality because I think that a lot of regional communities are feeling like they're left waiting for things to happen would you say or what would you say to regional Australians who are currently feeling a little bit forgotten? Yeah well almost over half of the projects that I oversee out of the governments we've got a 10-year 120 billion dollar pipeline of infrastructure that we co-invest with state governments, territory governments and local governments. Like a lot of those are in regional areas as well. So whether it's rail or road projects, whether it's community

infrastructure, which is also funded out of the regional development part of my portfolio and the local government part of my portfolio, we've been at pains to really make sure that we keep those investments across the board. One of the things I'm proudest of having done and early days in our budget and this budget continues the flow of money is we've doubled the amount of money the federal government gives to every single local council for roads when we came to office we knew you know there'd been big weather events in 2022 lots of potholes across the country federal government can't be responsible for every pothole in the country but what we can do is give money to that level of government that is responsible for those local roads to really help them out and

that helps communities right the way across the board so there's now we're getting to a billion dollars each and every year which is distributed to the 600 councils across the country the vast majority of which are in regional Australia the other thing I did was increase money for what we call the black spots program so program to try and help road safety as well as another program for local government so really concentrating on providing that opportunity for local councils the level of government closest to where people are to try and spend more money on their roads and their infrastructure. This budget also has got a big amount of dollars for community infrastructure whether you're in the suburbs or in the regions so new rounds of grant programs that help with

things like sporting facilities, theatres, arts precincts because we want people to have great places to live and whether you're in an older established suburb with ageing infrastructure or a brand new suburb this program really helps councils apply for money for those new big projects that they can't necessarily afford on their own. Yeah which I think is really exciting and really is pretty fun actually back into the community and like that's kind of you know at the crux of it what the everyday Australian is actually experiencing what's where your kids play sport or it's where they learn to dance it's all of those halls and you know there's a lot of them so I wish we could fund everyone all the time because when you're an infrastructure minister you want to

build everything all at once but really you know what this program does is allow for councils to determine what's the next priority and to do that like this week alone I've just opened Carterfield's hockey centre which again there were just hundreds and hundreds of kids doing training here in Canberra and that's been funded out of our one of our election commitments but that sort of community infrastructure is really it's actually great to see people participating but and that's you know where you spend the vast majority of your time whether it's at work or school and or at this kids sport one of the coolest things about the opportunity I've had today to talk to so many people is the only male I've interviewed today was Mr Anthony Albanese and every other minister

and politician I've spoken to today has been female and I just really get excited about the fact that there are so many female that there are so many female voices in this space at the moment because the female experience is relatively unique and we know that women in regional areas specifically are disproportionately impacted by transport accessibility, healthcare access and then housing insecurity, which I've had a number of conversations today about. Was that considered in this year's infrastructure

and regional development spending? Yeah, so a couple of things. And whilst it's administered by the Housing Minister, Claire O'Neill, she and I work pretty closely on local government. issues the housing support program it's an existing program that's been around for a while i've had several billion dollars into that which is about you know taking out some of the costs of these big developments and i'm really proud that claire in this budget has got an additional two billion dollars 500 million of that quarantine just for regional areas to build the you know

the sewerage the water again none of the things that sound particularly exciting but they're the things that stop housing developments going ahead because developers say well we just can't afford it at the moment it's taking some of those costs out and so we see really great examples of regional communities who are seeing new developments occur because of this money so I'm pretty proud of that there was a big focus on how do we get more supply particularly into our regions but also and I have one of the sort of economic facing portfolios but you know when you look at whether it's social security whether it's issues around domestic violence all of the money that's going into really improving the level of services availability of um of housing stock for um not-for-profit

organizations all of that focus has been something that we bring around the table yeah and i feel like all of that we mentioned table and just like around the table it's really hard for the average australian even getting food on the table is really hard at the moment because cost of living is impacting us all but again and i'm kind of honing in on this regional sorry do you need some water i'm all good i'm honing in on regional i guess because i have so many people in my community because it is an online community that are regional and it's a really beautiful i think she's on the money is a really beautiful way of them connecting in spaces that they haven't been able to connect before but the cost of living does look very different for

especially women in regional areas what specific measures in this budget do you think regional women and families are actually going to feel day-to-day rather than you know the big ticket building stuff infrastructure yeah well I mean I guess you know there's 6.3 million women who are Australian taxpayers who work and all of the tax cuts the two that are coming the instant tax deduction as well as the 250 dollars tax offset as well all of that helps helps women but one of the things I'm really proud of when you look at and again it's in the health portfolio but again the urgent care clinics if you have a look at my community I live in Ballarat that's my hometown and so we have an urgent care clinic there and we've had over 50,000 people have used

that since it opened and I think about all of those people who've had a free service so whether it's someone who's just been, you know, worried or they're worried about something and they're not sure about their new baby, or whether it's their kids had an injury at sport, rather than having to go to the hospital or wait to go get an appointment at a GP, they're a really big deal. And they're in regions across in my home state of Victoria, from Bendigo to Ballarat to Albury to Warrnambool and Shepparton, there are urgent care clinics in those communities. And I think they know, you know, not that, you know, there is sharing of care responsibility of children but often it is women who are taking their kids to these health

appointments and so I think that has been a real game changer in terms of access to health care and I think that's a good thing in regional communities. Yeah incredible thank you so much for spending some time with me today it has been very exciting and I just know that the community is going to love this. Terrific you are very welcome. The Honourable Chris Bowen MP is Australia's Minister for Climate Change and Energy and whether Australians realise it or not, a huge amount of the cost of living conversation actually runs through his portfolio. From power bills and fuel prices to renewable energy investment and energy security, many of the pressures households are feeling right now are deeply connected to global energy markets and Australia's transition away

from fossil fuels. In this year's budget we saw major discussion around fuel security, global oil shocks and renewable investment, as well as energy resilience, all while Australians are continuing to ask the same question over and over, when are power bills actually going to feel cheaper? Chris Bowen, can you answer that for me? Well, the good news is, and I'm very pleased to join you, the good news is that we've got lots of goals. We want to reduce emissions, we want to make our energy system more reliable, and we want to reduce bills. And it's the same answer to all three problems, which is actually properly designed, well calibrated. Renewable energy is the fastest to deploy, the cheapest, the lowest emissions, and we are seeing that start

to impact. We're going to see just in a couple of weeks the latest energy bill update. I'm pretty optimistic that's going to show reductions in energy bills. But also one thing I think our listeners will be interested in is the benefit of this system is that you can take control. In the old days, you used to get a bit of a choice about which electricity company, but that's it, really. The power was generated in a coal-fired power station and you bought it.

Maybe you could buy it off different people, but you're still buying the power. It's the same thing repackaged. Well, exactly. But now you can have a power station on your roof. You can make your own energy. You can have a battery in your garage to store that energy. Increasingly, you can have a battery in your driveway

because EVs are also a battery. on wheels and we're integrating them into the system so you can draw the power off your car so you can charge it in the day when power prices are cheap often negative you know you power your car in the day if you can not this won't work for absolutely everyone but depending on your circumstances power your car in the day and then charge your house from your car in the night so that you're not calling on the electricity at all and when electricity is most expensive is the night because that's when we're relying on coal which is a very expensive form of energy in a day electricity is very cheap and also we're giving people the opportunity where we can

to have three hours of free power in the middle of the day through what we call the solar share offer if you choose to take it up so my point is really it's putting people much more in control it's turning into what we now call a prosumer you're consuming energy sure but you're also producing it and for people who you don't want to design the system in such a way as it suits them now the world's your oyster yeah we we have power at home it's all good i can make some we don't need to go out you sound like my mum who's like no we have food at home well it's true though right i think it's really cool i don't want to hear that again so this budget has repeatedly referenced global instability and fuel security particularly with the tension in the middle east

impacting oil prices how much of australian's current or how much of australia's current cost of living pressure do you think is actually tied to energy markets right now oh look energy is the economy right so it's direct the bills you get but it also impacts on the cost of production so the things we buy you know energy goes into them the cheaper we can make energy the cheaper it flows right through so yes we are facing global instability oil prices have been way up that's the bad news better news is gas prices haven't increased by as much as we thought they might so that's good but ultimately these shocks are going to happen more often right the world is becoming less secure place you know i've lived through three energy crises in my life i'm 53 and i've

been energy minister for two of them right because so that what that means they're happening a lot more rapidly right so we need to make our energy system stronger more secure more resilient less dependent on these very expensive and volatile international commodities like oil yeah absolutely And I feel like having it at home, being able to produce it ourselves, all sounds incredibly fantastic, to be honest. But that's expensive to implement. So what type of incentive are we being given as the everyday consumer to implement these things in our home, which ultimately take pressure off the economy? Yeah, lots, lots. So there's always been, for the last 25 years, there's been support for solar panels.

Of course there have. Right, yep. We've introduced support for batteries. Roughly a 30% rebate, depends on the size of the battery, etc. But say on average 30%, you get off the cost of your battery. Australians are taking that up in gangbuster proportions. Today we hit 390,000 batteries installed in the last, not even 12 months, since 1 July last year.

That's massive. And that's what a bit of support from government can do. So we can have all the government subsidies we like, unless Australians want to take it up, they won't. So they're taking up home batteries. EVs, depending on your circumstances, you can get what we call the EV tax cut, which is through the novated lease. Australians are taking that up in big numbers.

We've just kept that. We've made it a bit more focused on more affordable cars, so anything under $75,000 for an EV. So there's plenty of support there. You're right. The capital costs, the upfront costs can be very big. And there are other things too, like you can get low interest loans through most banks, which we help finance through the Plenum Geo Finance Corporation, the government. We actually make those loans cheaper if they're for EVs, solar panels, batteries.

So you get the upfront rebate, you get low-interest loans, there's lots of support. So talk to me about the changes to the EV tax concessions that are coming over the following years because what I took from that last night was that if I really want to buy a very nice electric vehicle, I maybe should do that before the 1st of April next year? Yeah, if you want to buy an electric vehicle between $75,000 and $91,000, that's correct. So at the moment, the threshold is 91,000. Nothing above 91 do we support. Below 91, we do.

The 1st of April next year, we're bringing that down to 75. Now, there are still lots of very nice EVs for 75 or less, like really nice EVs for 75 or less. We can do that because we've changed the rules and forced car manufacturers to bring more types of models to Australia. When we came to office three years ago, there were no EVs under 40,000. Now there's 10.

You don't... And they're pretty nice too, but you can get a really nice one for $75,000, which is still covered. But if you do want to go to that $91,000, then yes, you've got roughly 12 months. Well, I found it quite interesting as well, because if you want us to be moving towards this, I would have assumed that that would have been broadened instead of restricted. What were the decisions behind that?

Well, we want to drive it further. We want to drive that. I mean, it's taxpayers' money, right? So we want to make sure it's focused. So we're not, you know, I'm not interested in subsidising cars that are $150,000. you know even if you can afford that if you can afford that pay for that exactly right i'm on your team here i just was like i reckon people are going to wonder why we would be cutting that back because we've put more money into it to make it last longer but we have said okay we couldn't do

this four years ago because there weren't any affordable evs in australia now you can so let's you you adjust these policies as you go to change the circumstances absolutely absolutely and talk to me about, I guess, a lot of Australians are feeling that climate policy gets framed as an environmental issue, but not necessarily as a financial one, which it is. Do you think enough is being communicated about the long-term, I guess, cost of living benefits of implementing renewable energy? That's certainly my approach. As much as I can, I agree with you because I say, well, look, all this, we do need to reduce emissions for the planet. Absolutely. That's obligation to future generations and an obligation to the rest of the world but even if we didn't

have to this would make sense right this is better economics better for households better for governments better for countries what's good for the planet is good for your pocket and vice versa it's good economics and the world's climate emergency is australia's jobs opportunity and it's also an opportunity for better energy where consumers are in charge it's cheaper it's fastest to deploy you can put a solar panel on your roof in you know a month when you put in the order you can't build a coal I have yeah I tell you what it takes more than that to build a coal-fired power station right so um you know it's quicker for everyone it's a win-win-win yeah so when I was reading through the budget last night and even this morning there's a lot

of talk about energy resilience yeah what's that what's it mean why do we keep using this frame Well, it means being able to continue to produce and consume energy when we're facing big shocks in the supply chain. It means, you know, if the Straits of Hormuz close or Vladimir Putin stops exporting gas or any international development in our region, in Asia, which, you know, people say is possible in coming years, that our energy system will get through just fine. we'll have enough energy and we don't need to worry about it frankly that's energy resilience yeah awesome and critics internationally and nationally often say that australia is just too slow when it comes to making change on climate action despite already seeing some of the economic impacts of climate events and global instability what would you say to younger australians who we're just feeling really frustrated about this rate of change

or the pace of change. I get it. We all would like to go as fast as we can, but we're going very fast. And I keep my foot on the accelerator real hard on this decarbonisation. Of your EV, I'm assuming. Well, that too, but also the transition. I mean, we just hit 50% renewable energy in Australia. Which is incredible.

It's incredible. It was 33% four years ago. we're driving towards 82 percent by 2030 80 to 2030 is four years away it's not long right so we don't have long to get this transition done um and we're making other progress like in evs in 2022 australians bought one ev every 50 minutes now they're buying one ev every three minutes like we are getting on with this task sure i know people would like a faster i'd like faster but it's going very fast and our 2035 target 62 to 70 percent is extraordinarily ambitious by international standards and by our own like we are going to have to drive fast to

get there so we are doing that i don't disagree one of the most interesting tensions i've seen in this budget um i think is balancing energy affordability with decarbonization how difficult is it politically to do both of those things at the same time? Well, in one sense, it's easy because, you know, as I keep saying, when you want to do cheap, it's form of energy and it decarbonises. So in that sense, it's easy. In another sense, it's hard because people twist it. You know, there are politicians and commentators who say,

well, if you're willing to do cheap, how come your bills are going up? OK, well, yeah, because it's been a war in Ukraine. Correlation doesn't equal causation. Correct. Absolutely correct. But not everybody seems to subscribe to that. There are people of bad faith who, you know, write that and say that. And then there are people of good faith in the community but are very busy and don't think about this all the time

and you hear that message. Oh, yeah, that sounds right. We need a bloody renewable energy again. Actually, renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy. The more of it we have, the less reliant we are on coal and gas, which are expensive. Batteries are setting the price in Australia

much more often, about 30% of the time. That's great. That means it's cheaper because that means that the cheap renewable energy we've got in the middle of the day is now setting the price in the night time because of the batteries we're building. So talking about that initiative, Victoria's Midday Power Saver initiative is I think an

interesting concept and I've been you know logging my washing machine to go off at midday to make sure that I'm making the most of it but it's an interesting concept because it rewards households for using energy when solar supply is the strongest but that's not necessarily when they are home because most of us are working Australians. Are we likely to see more programs or more flexibility in these programs rolling out? Yeah, so, I mean, credit to the Victorian government for doing that, but they're based out on our program, so we introduced that.

So they copied you. Yeah, and in a good way. I'm not critical of them. In a good way. They didn't copy your homework, but you, like, shared it with them. Yes, exactly, because it's a very complicated arrangement, but we can do it for some states but not others for reasons many years standing. So we've done it for New South Wales, for South East Queensland and South Australia.

So we call it solar sharer. They call it midday saver. Yeah, we've got our own. Yeah, you've got your own, which is basically exactly the same, which is great. So basically three hours in the middle of the day, the companies can choose which three hours, but it's pretty obvious it's going to be around midday.

Yeah. Because the energy is so cheap then. And so if you just move part of your use to the middle of the day, you can save a lot of money. And it's better for the grid, better for the country, because there's less reliant at night when things get tighter and tougher. Now, it's not for everyone, as you said.

You know, if you're out in the middle of the day and you can't use it, but for lots of people, either, you know, retired couples working from home, you know, if you can do it if you're working from home, or increasingly, you know, smart appliances you can schedule from your workplace and say, okay, turn the dishwasher on now

or schedule it before you leave. I mean, that wasn't possible when I was a kid, but it is now for, you know, lots of things, not everything, but for lots of things. Yeah, it is very cool. Now, I know I'm running out of time with you, but tell me, what is one thing that wasn't included in the budget that you wish was? Oh, that's a bit of a tough question because I'm a member of the cabinet. I know.

So I sign off on the budget with the treasurer. So you did this. But I feel like it's a reasonable question that kind of humanises ministers and people in politics because we all kind of wish we had an endless budget. We do. But at the end of the day, it is a budget because we are limited. And it's limited in time. you know there are only so many things you can argue for in a political cycle this is a big budget like there's lots of reform in this budget um you know negative gear and capital gains tax

you know really putting young people at the heart of the budget that's going to be a big i don't know if you see the front pages of today's papers i haven't even had time if we're being honest i did get a notification that you haven't missed much um because you know they've got jim charmers painted as a communist and you know all that oh good i'm interviewing him after this well you can You know, race down to the newsagent and get a copy and show him and say, what do you think of this? You're like, hey, are you actually a communist? That's right, that's right.

So, you know, that's the normal sort of very understandable reaction. We're going to be in a big argument, like, dealing with a lot of this disinformation. So you can't, you know, fight every battle all in one budget. You sort of think, okay, we're going to do this this year and, you know, we'll think about other things later. So, yeah, it's a great budget. You didn't answer the question.

I didn't answer the question. But you are a very good politician and tried to skirt around it. But I've completely acknowledged that I did not answer the question and don't intend to answer the question. Well, you know what? Honesty is the best policy here. Thank you so much, Chris. Great pleasure.

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