Michael Sukkar MP

Interview with Stephen Cenatiempo – Breakfast 2CC Radio

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

TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW WITH STEPHEN CENATIEMPO – BREAKFAST 2CC RADIO

Monday 21 October, 2024

TOPICS: Housing Infrastructure Programme

E&OE

Stephen Cenatiempo: Obviously the two things front of mind for all Australians is the cost of living crisis, which miraculously the Treasurer says is over now. Goodness, he needs to ask around a bit. And the other thing is the housing crisis. Well, a Coalition Federal Government will fast track water, power and sewerage and road infrastructure to unlock 500,000 new homes across the nation as part of the policies that they’ll take to the polls in the lead up to the next federal election, which we’re expecting to be May next year. Michael Sukkar is the shadow housing minister and joins us now. Michael, good morning.

Michael Sukkar: Stephen, great to be with you.

Stephen Cenatiempo: This is an ambitious plan. The only problem I see with it is you’re relying on other governments at other levels to actually carry this out. How do you make that happen?

Michael Sukkar: Well, we’re not going to rely on state governments or territory governments. The truth is, handing over money to states and hoping that we’ll get different outcomes is not what the objective of this policy is. The truth is there are hundreds of local projects for the types of infrastructure you’ve described sewerage, water, roads, other enabling infrastructure that is ready to go. It’s shovel ready, it’s there. There’s just a lack of funding. And with that funding, work can be undertaken and those houses can be unlocked. A great example – I was out yesterday in Drouin with the Baw Baw Shire Council here in Victoria where they’ve got a project that they could literally start next week if they had the money, a $4.2 million upgrade to a road that would unlock 5,000 new homes. There are hundreds of these projects around the country and the way that we will ensure that it doesn’t just become another one of these sort of Labor funds is – it’s use it or lose it. If you don’t use it within 12 months, you lose it and it’ll go somewhere else.

Stephen Cenatiempo: So, are we talking about land that has already been earmarked or Greenfield sites that have already been earmarked for redevelopment – You’ll just provide the funding for the infrastructure to move them ahead quicker? Or are we talking about creating new Greenfield sites?

Michael Sukkar: Well, I think it’ll end up being a bit of both. I think the first, at first instance, we’ll end up funding the sorts of Greenfield sites that have been identified that, you know, might be on the never never for ten, 15 or 20 years before the homes are built on them. So we’ll massively bring those forward. But what I suspect and expect might happen is that as we improve the pipeline of new homes that unlock these 500,000 homes, that it will free up and create more incentives for local governments around our country to start identifying that next corridor for the Greenfield developments and the one after that, because at the moment with there being such a bottleneck, that pressure to identify those next locations are not there. Once we get that through and get those homes unlocked, my expectation is that it will naturally cause further corridors to be unlocked much more quickly.

Stephen Cenatiempo: One of the other things you’ve identified is the recent changes to the National Construction Code that have seen about $60,000 added to the price of a new home. How do you address that? Because, I mean, whilst, you know, you might not buy into the Government’s climate change ideology, you want to maintain those efficiency standards, don’t you?

Michael Sukkar: Well, it depends. I mean, if you’re a very wealthy person, you know, that’s building a clifftop mansion, for example, you might be able to afford that extra $60,000 for those regulations and environmental standards. But if you’re a first time buyer scratching together every dollar you possibly can to try and get the deposit so you can sign on the dotted line, that $60,000 is often the difference between either being able to buy it or not, and we’re focused on those those first home buyers, those people working hard, paying their rent, living through this cost of living crisis, trying to scratch together every dollar they possibly can. And for the government just to whack on $60,000 of additional charges, really for regulations that don’t mean you’ve got a home at the end that’s worth $60,000 more, let’s be frank. This is these are costs that you don’t necessarily see the fruits of, if that’s the difference between being able to buy your first home or not, we’re going to stand on the side of those first home buyers. And if you want to build a clifftop mansion on the Central Coast and you’ve got the money, you know, over $4 million to spend on those things, then good luck to you, we want you to do that. But we don’t think it should be mandated for every single Australian.

Stephen Cenatiempo: Michael, one of the things I’ve advocated for a long time and I know former ACT senator Zed Seselja had a similar view here in the ACT, is that there’s a lot of federal land out there that could be turned into housing plots. Is there any move towards an audit to identify every bit of federal government or Commonwealth government land that can be turned into housing?

Michael Sukkar: Look, we actually did undertake this when I was Housing Minister. We did undertake an audit of the suite of property that we own. It’s not as much as you’d think. A lot of it also is former defense sites and they tend to be quite badly contaminated with all sorts of chemicals. For example, we’ve got a 127 hectare site down here in Melbourne on the beautiful Maribyrnong River – It’s really quite prime real estate, but there’s probably a you know, it could be up to a billion dollars to decontaminate the site because it was an old munitions factory. So there’s literally every single chemical you can imagine under the sun there. So I think I think the opportunities are probably not as great as you’d think. Certainly in the ACT, there are a number of opportunities, including the CSIRO site and others, but you seem to have a re-elected government down there that wants to drip feed supply, presumably to keep prices high, which is a real shame for people who are trying to buy a home in Canberra.

Stephen Cenatiempo: No two ways about that. Michael, thanks for your time this morning.

Michael Sukkar: Good on you, mate. Thank you.

ENDS