Barnaby Joyce and one of his One Nation colleagues have struggled to detail the party\u2019s housing policy, with Joyce requesting a second TV appearance to do so and senator Sean Bell being cut off during what a radio host described as a \u201ctrainwreck\u201d interview.<\/p>\n
Joyce first told Sky News on Thursday that his party wanted to force permanent residents to sell their homes \u2013 before clarifying the policy with colleagues and quickly returning to say that it wasn\u2019t actually their policy.<\/p>\n
The program\u2019s host Andrew Bolt, who interviewed Joyce on Thursday night, later told viewers the bungle demonstrated Pauline Hanson\u2019s party was \u201cliterally making up policy as it goes along\u201d.<\/p>\n
Hanson herself intervened on Friday morning by saying One Nation\u2019s policy would allow permanent residents to own homes but force \u201cforeign owners\u201d like temporary visa holders to sell properties within two years.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
But even after Hanson\u2019s clarification, Bell could not explain the policy himself during a 2GB interview. Pressed repeatedly by host Mark Levy on whether One Nation would dispossess non-residents of their home if the property wasn\u2019t sold, Bell said it was \u201can excellent question\u201d but did not directly answer.<\/p>\n
Levy cut Bell off, ending the interview and saying \u201cthis is turning into a trainwreck\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou call back through when you get a definitive answer, I\u2019m going to let you go and get some clarity before this gets worse for you,\u201d Levy told the senator.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t come on the radio and say \u2018we\u2019re going to give people two years to divest their property\u2019 and then not answer the question: \u2018what happens at the end of the two years if they don\u2019t sell that property?\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
One Nation\u2019s policy on \u201cforeign ownership\u201d on its website<\/a> states: \u201cWe must stop the sale of property to non-residents and non-citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n On Sky on Thursday night, Bolt played a clip of Hanson telling the Senate in 2024: \u201cWe must stop foreign ownership of housing indefinitely. Give foreign owners two years to sell up so we don\u2019t suddenly flood the market. If not sold, the property will be repossessed by the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n In his pre-recorded interview, Bolt asked Joyce if the policy would require people who were permanent residents of Australia to sell their homes.<\/p>\n Joyce at first did not answer directly, stating: \u201cYou have to be an Australian citizen if you want the benefits that are indelible about that.\u201d<\/p>\n Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n Bolt persisted, asking again: \u201cDoes it [house repossessions] apply to permanent residents as well?\u201d<\/p>\n Joyce responded: \u201cYes, it does. That\u2019s my belief in the policy. We want to make sure that you become a permanent resident \u2026 sorry, excuse me, become an Australian citizen. And that\u2019s going to deal with the issue, isn\u2019t it? Become an Australian citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n After playing the pre-recorded interview, Bolt told viewers that after the recording, \u201csomething extraordinary happened\u201d. He said Joyce had called \u201ctwo people back at the office\u201d to discuss One Nation\u2019s housing policy.<\/p>\n \u201cHe must have figured, well, you know, he actually had no idea what Pauline Hanson\u2019s policy in foreign ownership of homes really was, and must have realised this was going a bit harsh,\u201d Bolt said. \u201cSo, with our cameras still on him, he rang two people back at the office.\u201d He said Joyce had received two different answers.<\/p>\n \u201cBarnaby left the studio. Minutes later, he came back and said actually there was now a change of policy. Could he record a new answer? And I agreed.\u201d<\/p>\n Bolt then played a second clip in which Joyce said he wanted to provide \u201cclarity\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThis policy is formative,\u201d Joyce said. \u201cBut on further investigation and discussions with One Nation, no, we are not going to be kicking permanent residents out of their house.<\/p>\n \u201cThis policy, as it progresses on, we have to absolutely make certain that there\u2019s no unnecessary fallout of it. The concept is quite clear, it\u2019s that we want people to progress through to Australian citizenship<\/a>. But that should not come at the expense of permanent residents being divested of their house. It was an issue that needed further clarity. I\u2019ve got it. And that\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n Bolt asked who would be subject to the policy of forced property sales, and Joyce replied: \u201cObviously, it applies to people who are foreign citizens who are basically not permanent residents. And there\u2019s your line.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked about Joyce\u2019s interview on Friday, Liberal senator Jane Hume also called it a \u201ctrainwreck\u201d.<\/p>\n Hanson, in posts on social media on Friday, said Joyce had \u201ccorrected the record\u201d, claiming \u201cAustralians would rather see politicians be upfront and do this instead of lying to avoid embarrassment\u201d.<\/p>\n She said permanent residents would not be forced to sell their homes.<\/p>\n \u201cForeign owners \u2013 temporary visa holders and foreign citizens residing overseas \u2013 would be given two years to sell their Australian residential properties under One Nation\u2019s policy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cPermanent residents have been accepted to settle in Australia permanently. One Nation\u2019s policy does not require them to sell their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n The Coalition leader, Angus Taylor, has said he wants to restrict first home buyer concessions and welfare payments to citizens only<\/a>. Those policies have been met with alarm by migration and advocacy groups<\/a>.<\/p>\n One Nation declined to comment further when contacted by Guardian Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barnaby Joyce and one of his One Nation colleagues have struggled to detail the party\u2019s housing policy, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-716048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}