Julie Collins trades housing for agriculture, fisheries, and forestry in Cabinet reshuffle
Labor MP Julie Collins has traded in her housing portfolio for new responsibilities, after a cabinet reshuffle. Here’s what she has now.
Tasmania
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Tasmanian Labor MP Julie Collins is no longer the federal Housing Minister following a Cabinet reshuffle, taking on the agriculture, fisheries, and forestry portfolio instead.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a series of changes to his frontbench on Sunday after news that Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney and Skills and Training Minister Brendan O’Connor would be retiring from politics at the next election, due in 2025.
Clare O’Neil has been dumped from the home affairs ministry and will be the new Housing and Homelessness Minister, which has resulted in Ms Collins being shifted over to agriculture, fisheries, and forestry, replacing Murray Watt, who is now responsible for employment and workplace relations.
Mr Watt replaces Tony Burke, who assumes the mantle of Home Affairs Minister and takes on immigration after Andrew Giles was switched to skills and training, which now falls outside of Cabinet.
Northern Territory senator Malarndirri McCarthy replaces Ms Burney as Indigenous Australians Minister.
Tasmanian Labor senator Carol Brown revealed to the Mercury on Saturday that she would be stepping away from her responsibilities as Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport due to health issues.
Ms Collins, who has been the member for Franklin since 2007, will retain the small business portfolio.
She was appointed Housing and Homelessness Minister following Labor’s election win in May 2022.
Ms Collins grew up in public housing and said she knew “firsthand that a place to call home is life-changing, so it has been a great honour to serve as the Minister for Housing and Minister for Homelessness in a reforming Labor government”.
“I welcome the great honour to serve as the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry in the Albanese Labor government and thank the Prime Minister for this new challenge,” she said.
“Agriculture plays a vital role in our country, and our national economy continues to rely on a strong and diverse sector.”
The Prime Minister said Ms Collins had done an “outstanding job” as Housing Minister and noted that she had been Labor’s agriculture spokeswoman in Opposition.
“Tasmania is of course a great centre of agriculture, it is one of the drivers of the Tasmania economy, and Julie will bring that experience to the portfolio,” Mr Albanese said.
But Tenants’ Union of Tasmania principal solicitor Ben Bartl was disappointed in the decision to shuffle Ms Collins out of the housing portfolio, saying that she “understood the scale of Tasmania’s housing crisis” and had relevant lived experience.
“A new minister is likely to mean three months of inaction while they get their head around the scale of the problem. We don’t need a new minister, we need urgent action,” he said.
Ms Collins’ achievements as Housing Minister included the passage of the $10bn Housing Australia Future Fund - which she described as the biggest investment in social and affordable housing in more than a decade - and the signing of the National Housing Accord, which outlined a national target of building 1.2m new homes over five years from July 1, 2024.
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