Michael Sukkar MP

Interview with Tom Connell – NewsDay, Sky News

THE HON MICHAEL SUKKAR MP – SHADOW MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES, NDIS, HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS

TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW WITH TOM CONNELL – NEWSDAY, SKY NEWS

Monday 11 December, 2023

TOPICS: Migration, Foreign Property Investment and Housing

E&OE

Tom Connell: The government has announced a new tax on housing. It’s aimed at foreign investors. It’s set to raise billions of dollars – If, of course, some of the forecasts come true. What it will do is mean foreign investors are further encouraged to only buy new housing if they leave a property vacant, they’ll be taxed for the privilege. Joining me now is Shadow Housing Minister Michael Sukkar. Joining me now is Shadow Housing Minister Michael Sukkar. Thanks for your time. What do you make of these changes? I know they’re not a shift the dollar in a massive way, but every little bit helps in this area. Do you do you approve of what’s happening here?

Michael Sukkar: Oh, look, Tom, I think the truth is this is too little, too late from this government. The problem is they have presided over record levels of migration. I mean, the largest migration we’ve ever seen in a single year. And at the same time, they’ve presided over falling housing approvals, falling new homes being built, falling first time buyers. So this is really trifling at the edges. We’ll reserve our judgment on this on a couple of factors. Firstly, will it be enforced? And you know, are the numbers here so tiny that it’s quite disproportionate to the announcement that’s been made And I suspect that’s the case. In the end, if you want to improve housing affordability at present, you need to run a planned migration program that ensures that infrastructure and I think housing is the most important form of social infrastructure, is able to keep up with the levels of migration.

Tom Connell: We’ll get to migration in a moment, but just on this element, let me come at it another way – is there anything you disagree with or oppose from what was announced.

Michael Sukkar: Not really. We think what they’ve proposed looks fine, but again, it’s just so tiny it doesn’t move the dial. So it’s hard to object to. It’s so irrelevant. But the problem here is and where I get quite frustrated from this government is that they’re trifling on the edges and forgetting the main game here. And they’ve really got to answer to the Australian people why this year alone they’re bringing in 520,000 people when we’re only building 175,000 homes. They still haven’t answered that question. And until they accept that they’ve made a catastrophic error there, these sorts of things are really just window dressing.

Tom Connell: I am moving on to that. I’ve got one more for you though, on the housing aspect. So you say this is too small to shift the dial. What about what is essentially more up to the states but bigger in this area? Some form of tax on vacant properties for those who own them domestically, Australian citizens – Victoria has moved in this direction. Would that shift the dial or is that a good idea?

Michael Sukkar: In the end, the way you treat foreign investors who own properties. I have no no issue with that being quite different from Australians. In the end we think property rights should fix it. But as for foreign investors, there are, as you say, some there are already vacancy penalties in the form of taxes in some jurisdictions – they’re not being enforced. I can tell you right now in a number of local municipalities, we’ve got really good evidence to suggest that there are, in some cases, hundreds of properties that are empty, and yet the vacancy taxes that are being applied are only being applied to a tiny proportion of those. So one of the reasons why we’ll reserve judgment on this, Tom, is it’s not the media release or the headline or the glib words from the Treasurer, but can I actually enforce these things? And to the extent they can, we’ve got no issue with. But let’s let’s focus on the main game.

Tom Connell: Let’s talk about migration. So you say there’s no plan migration system. I mean, the government has essentially been continuing on with what it inherited and what has been long in place in Australia. Demand-driven temporary migration is the one that’s been rocketing up. So Labor hasn’t done anything differently, has it? It’s just we had a COVID pause and there was pent up demand and that’s increase. That’s the reality of why that number 500,000 is being hit.

Michael Sukkar: Well, if the government’s real claim here is, Tom, that they, you know, they had nothing to do with the migration settings – then why on earth are they there? They should they should hand over to a government that can do it. And the truth is, in government the Coalition reduced net overseas migration to 160,000. Part of that, yes, was pre-COVID, I admit. But part of that was to ensure that our migration settings kept up with and were tied to things like infrastructure and housing. We created the population center. For the precise purpose of ensuring that our population was tied to those things that affect everyday Australians lives, including have.

Tom Connell: Just on that though 160,000 was the cap on permanent migration. That hasn’t changed under Labor. What’s behind this 510,000 is temporary migration. It’s demand-driven now, as in it can be as high as it wants. And it was demand driven when you were in office. That hasn’t been a policy change. The figure driving this demand driven element was the same under your government.

Michael Sukkar: Well, no, Tom. So the net overstays migration number was reduced under the former Coalition government. So I accept your I accept your point. But the point I was making was there was a recognition from the former coalition government in lowering that permanent number that we did need to tie the level of migration to those sorts of things, including when I said we created the population center, that was a really definite expression of the view of the government of the day that you needed to ensure that those two things worked together, i.e. social infrastructure like housing and roads, schools and hospitals and your migration settings. Now the government’s been in office for 18 months. If they are seriously suggesting to you, Tom, that they have not been able to do anything for 18 months, the 520,000 that the ABS said we’ll see year has got nothing to do with them, then they are kidding you or they’re kidding themselves. Governments of the day have to address the issues of the day. And when you’ve got first home buyers at records we haven’t seen for over a decade, when you see new starts down, new home builds down rental vacancy rates at historically low levels and rents rising. The government can’t be allowing 520,000 people to come in and in today’s announcement that they’re reducing migration. Well, in the last budget they said they’d had 1.5 million people over five years. Now they’re saying it’ll be 1.6 million over five years. That doesn’t represent a cut in migration, in my view.

Tom Connell: Okay, yeah, a change from the forecasts, I believe. Anyway, we’ll see what the minister has to get up and say about it. Appreciate your time. Thank you.

Michael Sukkar: Good on you, Tom. Thanks very much.

ENDS