{"id":853517,"date":"2026-08-13T07:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T07:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/853517\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T07:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T07:36:09","slug":"bragg-says-lower-income-earners-should-accept-substandard-housing-as-colleagues-rebuke-his-migration-target-australian-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/853517\/","title":{"rendered":"Bragg says lower-income earners should accept substandard housing as colleagues rebuke his migration target | Australian politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew Bragg has agreed that lower-income Australians should accept poorly built housing in a bid to boost the number of dwellings built nationally, amid growing internal fallout continues over his proposal to cap net migration to modern historic lows<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, and several of Bragg\u2019s colleagues publicly cautioned the NSW Liberal moderate for going off script in his speech on Wednesday as the Nationals warned against any changes to working holiday visas.<\/p>\n

The shadow housing minister\u2019s proposed \u201ceconomic revolution\u201d centred around cutting red tape to get more houses built. As part of the agenda, Bragg would condense the National Construction Code from nearly 2,000 pages to just 80 to get more \u201cbasic and safe\u201d homes built and doing away with \u201coptional extras\u201d such as compulsory energy efficiency and accessibility measures.<\/p>\n

Asked on ABC Radio National on Thursday whether this meant low-income earners should accept substandard housing, Bragg replied \u201cyes, definitely\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to be clear, there are trade-offs here. And I\u2019ve been counselled not to use the term \u2018Maslow\u2019s hierarchy\u2019, because perhaps some people don\u2019t know what that means,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I mean, it\u2019s more important to have a house than to not have a house. And so, given the affordability crisis we have in the housing system, we need to just build more houses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maslow\u2019s hierarchy of needs is a psychological theory proposing a ranking of basic human needs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

Bragg\u2019s comments followed shadow treasurer, Tim Wilson, suggesting on Wednesday that people, in some cases, could put \u201ca jumper on in winter rather than spending huge amounts of money\u201d on improving housing quality.<\/p>\n

Housing inequality groups including the Australian Council of Social Services (Acoss) have criticised Bragg\u2019s suggestion, saying quality housing was both more affordable and safer for vulnerable portions of the community.<\/p>\n

Maiy Azize, spokesperson for the housing advocacy group Everybody\u2019s Home, said the change would make building homes cheaper for developers by allowing them to cut corners.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccessibility, energy efficiency and basic liveability are not luxuries. They are the minimum standards people should be able to expect from their homes,\u201d Azize said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a housing crisis because people cannot afford a home. Building more poor-quality homes does nothing to fix that crisis. It simply gives developers another way to profit from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

On immigration, Bragg said the net overseas migration (Nom) figure would have to be lowered to 180,000 a year over four years to ensure housing supply matched population growth \u2013 a Nom that would become the country\u2019s lowest since the mid-2000s.<\/p>\n

Bragg said the change was possible through \u201cmodest reductions in international students, working holidaymakers, and some unskilled workers\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Coalition has yet to formally nominate a figure<\/a> or determine which visa categories would be slashed to achieve the outcome though Taylor has indicated it would be \u201cwell below 200,000\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the Nationals leader, Matt Canavan, was quick to rule out any cuts to visas for workers undertaking jobs in rural and regional areas for farmers but downplayed any concern of conflict.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll Andrew said was that we\u2019ll look at all these things to bring migration numbers down now,\u201d he said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a mountain out of a molehill being made here, but I had a good chat with Andrew this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor said he had \u201cmade clear\u201d to Bragg he needed to stay on script, refusing to provide the Coalition\u2019s Nom figure as it will \u201cdepend on housing supply\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI made clear to him that his job is to express \u2026 the views of the Coalition and the senior team, of which he is a member,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Andrew Hastie, who stepped down from shadow cabinet over immigration policy<\/a> under the former leader Sussan Ley, said Bragg\u2019s ideas did not go through a \u201cformal process\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think when you when you step out into the media that if you\u2019re going to talk about someone else\u2019s portfolio, you don\u2019t make announcements,\u201d he told 2GB radio.<\/p>\n

The shadow defence minister, James Paterson, said he was not surprised Bragg shared his view publicly because he was an \u201coutspoken person\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Bragg\u2019s] got lots of strong views, and he shares them freely,\u201d Paterson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrew Bragg has agreed that lower-income Australians should accept poorly built housing in a bid to boost the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":853518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-853517","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\/853517","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=853517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/853518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}