Mark Levy:
But clearly something’s not working. Daniel Wild is the deputy executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs. He’s on the line. Daniel, good morning to you.
Daniel Wild:
Morning, Mark.
Mark Levy:
Mate, I want to hear your reaction to Anika Wells comparing and trying to sell the government’s housing plan through Ooshies. Go.
Daniel Wild:
Well, where do you start, Mark? It’s a joke, isn’t it? I mean, it’s so demeaning. I loved it because it was like she just learned about economics. It was almost as if one of her staffers came in and said, “Hey, have you heard about this thing in economics? It’s called supply and demand. And if you have not enough supply and too much demand, the prices actually go up. Did you know that, Anika?” She’s like, “Oh wow, we’ve got to tell everybody about this. Oh, and by the way, Dolly Parton just passed away. How about we put 9 to 5 in the background?”
So look, the issue here is a very serious one, unfortunately, which is that the government is so far behind on its national housing accord. They said they’re going to build 1.2 million, what they refer to as well-located homes by the middle of 2029. Well, as you identified a moment ago, they’re already 88,000 behind where they need to be. And they’ve had this accord in place for 25 months and every single month they have failed to meet the monthly target of 20,000 every month. So there you go. That’s what the government’s been up to.
Mark Levy:
It’s extraordinary yet the spin doctors, they give all of the talking points to the ministers and even the Prime Minister who’s out there saying, “We’ve never made it easier for people to enter the housing market.” Well, one, through the tax changes announced in the budget, the house prices are declining more than they expected the government. There’s suggestions from Treasury, “Oh, well, the estimates were just made up.” We’ve got the major banks now coming out and saying, “Well, we’re going to have to revise our forecasts on that.” All the while when we’re trying to build more houses, clearly we’re not meeting our targets. So how can the Prime Minister and his ministers, the Labour front benches, continue to get out there and say they’re doing a great job when clearly the data suggests they’re not?
Daniel Wild:
Well, exactly. And this goes to an issue which is that Australians no longer trust their political leaders because they come out day after day. They tell us these things, “Your electricity bill is going to come down.” They tell us no changes to capital gains tax, no changes to negative gearing. They tell us, “Yeah, we’re building more homes.” They tell us we’re going to cut immigration. Well, none of this is happening. So Australians are tuning out of what particularly this government is saying and political leadership more generally. And exactly as you said a moment ago, this is what is driving so many Australians to look for an alternative primarily at the moment through One Nation, because people can see that something is very, very wrong in our country. And I think the failure of this government around housing, just to hit its targets, just to hit your basic targets. If you don’t hit the targets, fine, just admit you’ve missed it, you’ve got it wrong and you’re going to try better next time. But sorry seems to be the hardest word, doesn’t it?
Mark Levy:
Yeah, certainly does. Daniel, just one more. Obviously there’s the immigration issue and migration policy. What about the knock-on effect of our energy policy at the moment? Because the price of everything’s gone up. So I hear from developers, I hear from builders every time saying, “Mark, we go out and quote to build a home, we go out and quote these jobs, but we end up losing on the job because everything’s through the roof as a result of our energy policy in this country.”
Are you finding the same thing?
Daniel Wild:
Oh, absolutely. I mean, the cost of building a new house has doubled in the last 10 years and there’s a lot of causes of that, but one of them is the cost of electricity, the cost of energy, and of course this net zero madness that the government continues to pursue. But of course, the thing is energy is everything. It’s embedded in everything we have. No matter what you’re doing right now, no matter what you’re looking at, no matter what you’re eating, no matter what you’re doing for a job, at somewhere along the line, energy or electricity was involved in making that happen, even if it was just the transportation of it because you need fuel in your vehicle to get it from A to B. So if the price of energy goes up, the price of everything goes up. That’s why we’ve seen inflation so high, skyrocketing and interest rates going up.
So unless you get your energy prices low and stable like we used to have, we used to have the cheapest energy or among the cheapest energy in the world, now it’s among the most expensive. So you bang on. This is one of the key economy killers that we’re facing at the moment.
Mark Levy:
Are you a fan of Ooshies?
Daniel Wild:
I am not. I have three kids and they will not see an Ooshie as long as I’m above the ground. I can tell you that much.
Mark Levy:
It’s funny. I was at the local shops the other day and I was handed an Ooshie and there were some kids behind me and I just turned around and I said, “Look kids, I don’t have any kids so you can have that.” Mum looked at me and said, “Thanks very much for that.”
Daniel Wild:
I would’ve done the same, although I would’ve used slightly different language, I reckon.
Mark Levy:
Yeah, probably. Hey Daniel, keep up the good work, mate. We’ll talk again soon.
Daniel Wild:
Good on you. Thank you.
Mark Levy:
See you buddy. Daniel Wild, deputy executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs. He’s spang on the money, isn’t he? He always hits the nail on the head when he joins us here on 2GB Mornings. And we always get a great response from you, our wonderful listeners whenever we chat to Daniel, who I think is joining us today from Victoria. So another listener in another part of the country.
This transcript of Daniel Wild on Mornings with Mark Levy – 2GB from 2 September 2026 has been edited for clarity.
