Michael Sukkar MP

Statement by Members: Housing

We’ve got a new financial year and more failures from the Labor Party on housing. We’ve got a government that’s got no idea about housing. That’s why it’s never been more difficult to rent and it’s never been more difficult to save for a home. You never hear anything from this government about first home buyers. But today’s the first day that Labor’s very lofty aspiration of 1.2 million homes starts. It will require 240,000 homes this year. What did we see last year in approvals? We saw 160,000; that’s a drop to the lowest levels we have seen in over a decade. What do Labor want you to believe? It’s that they’re going to have a stunning form reversal and that, all of a sudden, dropping housing approvals and fewer homes being built is overnight going to lead to record levels of home building—to 1.2 million.

This so-called promise is already over. It’s been trashed. It’s yet another promise from this government that is not worth the media release it was written on. A typical family in this country with an average mortgage is $35,000-a-year worse off. It has never been more difficult to buy a home, and, if you want to find a rental in our major capital cities, you go and join a long queue, because this government has no idea about housing, and, sadly, it’s going to get worse this year.

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