Michael Sukkar MP

NATIONAL PRESS CLUB – HOUSING POLICY DEBATE

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

TRANSCRIPT

NATIONAL PRESS CLUB – HOUSING POLICY DEBATE

Tuesday 26 November, 2024

E&OE

Andrew Probyn: Well, welcome to the National Press Club. I’m Andrew Probyn, I’m National Affairs Editor for the Nine Network, and also a Director here at the Club. And as you just heard, this is the first of what we hope will be several policy debates ahead of next year’s federal election. And we thought, why not start on that really hot-button issue; housing?

For many Australians, having a house they can call their own is an unaffordable dream. We have a growing number of people who now thoroughly expect to have a lifetime of rent, and rent itself is often painfully high, especially in homes approximate to jobs. So this has provoked lots of competing policies to increase housing stock, help first home buyers and put downward pressure on rents.

And joining us today, we have two gentlemen. We have Michael Sukkar, who’s the Opposition Housing and Homelessness Minister; and we have Max Chandler-Mather. He is the Greens spokesman on housing and homelessness. So, Max, Michael, thank you for joining us. Let it be made clear that we did also ask Clare O’Neil to be with us today, but she declined.

Now, here are the rules agreed to by both parties.

Each will give opening statements of six minutes. In answer to questions put to Michael and Max jointly, each speaker will have two minutes to respond. In answer to a question put to one speaker, the other can have a response, but the initial response will be also two minutes.

Halfway through, each participant will be given the opportunity to ask a question of the other speaker. We hope that’s some sparky TV, let me tell you. We’ll be running a time clock, and a warning bell will alert speakers that they’re 20 seconds from time being up. By mutual consent, Michael Sukkar will speak first.

Michael Sukkar: Well, Andrew, thank you very much for the invitation and to, of course, the Press Club for everybody being gathered here today on what is going to be an extraordinarily important issue, not just for the next election, but for our generation. And if there’s one message I want Australians to take away from today, it’s that the Coalition will not accept a situation where a generation of Australians do not have the same opportunities for home ownership that previous generations have enjoyed.

But this Labor Government is failing those very Australians. Not enough houses are being built, with falling completions, approvals and first home buyers over the past two and a half years. Labor has run the biggest migration program in a generation, with more than 1.4 million migrants entering Australia since coming to Government, even with fewer homes being built.

The deposit hurdle is too high, with Labor trenchantly standing in the way of first home buyers having access to part of their own superannuation savings for a first home deposit. Access to finance is becoming almost unattainable for your typical worker, with restrictive and cumbersome lending regulations.

Labor has prioritised foreign corporate landlords, now supported by the Greens, over Australians owning our own housing stock. Construction is at record lows, and construction costs have been exacerbated by the unholy alliance between the Labor Party, the criminal CFMEU and, again, now the Greens. Planning and zoning laws have wrecked development, and private developers have been demonised and penalised. And Labor State Governments have rationed land supply and consistently uninvested in the most affordable form of housing, being houses in greenfield developments.

For these reasons, under this Labor Government, housing outcomes have worsened on every single metric. First home buyers have plummeted from 171,000 in 2021 under the Coalition, to just 108,000 in ’22/’23. Home completions have dropped to 177,000 last year, 40,000 fewer than under the Coalition Government. Approvals for new homes have also crashed, falling to around 167,000 over the past year, compared to more than 230,000 when the Coalition was in Government.

Meanwhile, national rents have skyrocketed by 23%, reaching $632 a week, from $512 as it was in May ’22. And families with mortgages are now at least $25,000 a year worse off under Labor. Labor’s promise, so-called, to build 1.2 million homes over five years, will never see the light of day, with industry experts almost unanimously predicting a shortfall of at least 400,000 homes on that promise.

And despite the so-called promise of a $32 billion housing investment, Labor is yet to deliver a single new policy implemented in this term that’s built a home. Most of these so-called investments have seen funds handed over to states without responsibility, or tied up in capital like the Housing Australia Future Fund, the only policy they’ve successfully passed in two and a half years, with reports that the first round of the HAFF has seen at least half of its successful projects already fall over.

So for an incoming Coalition Government, we know that we’ll have a big job to repair the damage caused by this Government. Coming from a migrant family, I experienced firsthand why millions of people have come to Australia and home ownership has undoubtedly been a big part of that better life. But migration needs to be planned, which is why the Coalition has proposed several measures to free up more than 100,000 homes in the next five years.

These include a two-year ban on foreign investors and temporary residents buying existing Australian homes. A significant reduction in the permanent Migration Program and to net overseas migration, and ensuring an adequate number of skilled visas for those in the construction sector to support our very capable local workforce.

We also know that one of the biggest barriers to home ownership is saving for a deposit, which now takes on average 7.8 years nationwide. Part of the solution does exist with the highly successful Home Guarantee Scheme, which I delivered as Housing Minister, that is now helping nearly 40% of first home buyers purchase a home with a deposit of as little as 5%.

The other crucial part of the solution is our Super Home Buyer Scheme, allowing first home buyers and separated women to use up to $50,000 of their own superannuation savings for a home deposit. Because we know the key determinant of your success in retirement is your home ownership status, not your super balance. So having access to your super when you need it, and returning it to super once you’ve sold your home, is undoubtedly the best of both worlds.

Post-GFC regulatory reforms have also made it harder for first home buyers to access loans. We’ll tackle those barriers. Another is housing supply, which is why we have announced a $5 billion program to help fund the greenfield sites that remain underdeveloped throughout our country, a fund to support the infrastructure that gets those housing developments going.

So Australians can expect an incoming Coalition Government will be singularly focused on home ownership. We are the only party in this country that still believes in the Australian dream, with the individual, not corporates or large institutions, at the centre of our focus. Australians deserve no less, which is why this will be the defining issue of our generation and the next election.

Andrew Probyn: Max?

Max Chandler-Mather: The barrier to fixing this housing crisis is not economic, it’s not technical; it’s political. Australia’s political system has been corrupted by the power of the banking and property industry. Both Labor and the Liberals pursue policies that either push up house prices, or give more money to property developers. Both major parties oppose any changes to the tax handouts to property investors that ultimately put more money in the pockets of property developers and the banks in the form of higher house prices and mortgages, while denying millions of renters the chance to buy a home.

Recently, a property industry analyst told The Age newspaper that prices on apartments needed to rise by another 15% before property developers decided it was profitable enough to build. Just think about that for a moment. Because what they are really saying is that property developers are choosing not to build, waiting to push up prices, and that’s exactly what they do. Property developers sit on vacant apartments and tens of thousands of blocks of vacant land, only releasing them when the price is right.

Property developers and banks will never fix this housing crisis. To understand what has caused this housing crisis comes down to two major changes that happened in the ’90s and the early 2000s. First, Labor and the Liberals jointly decided to massively cut funding for public housing. Australia used to build a lot of public housing. In fact, construction of public housing as a proportion of all housing construction went from 16% under Menzies, to just 1.8% of homes built in Australia today. If Australia still built public housing the way we used to, we’d have hundreds of thousands of extra genuinely affordable homes changing the lives of millions of Australians for the better.

The second major change was the introduction of the capital gains tax discount by John Howard. This was the massive tax handout for property investors that helped turn property in this country into a lucrative asset, where previously it was a place to build a good life and a good home.

Before this, house prices and wages roughly increased at the same rate. After the capital gains tax discount’s introduction, house prices increased at about the rate of two to three times that of wages every year. Over the next 10 years, the Australian Government will give property investors $176 billion in tax handouts in the form of negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. The housing crisis we find ourselves in right now is enormous, but we can’t keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result. The same policies that have got us into this crisis, are the same ones that both Labor and the Liberal continue to peddle. We are told that the best we can hope for is scraps, but I genuinely believe Australia can do better.

I believe we are capable of undertaking a genuinely transformational national project to improve the lives of millions of Australians. After all, we’ve done it before, and countries around the world do it right now. So this is what it would take to tackle our housing crisis. The Greens would start by phasing out the tax handouts like negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount for property investors, denying millions of renters the chance to buy a home. Instead, we’d invest the billions of dollars saved into creating a government-owned property developer to get to work building hundreds of thousands of good quality homes to be sold and rented at prices people can actually afford. The public property developer would save a renter on average $319 a week on their rent, and a first home buyer $249,000 on the price of a market home, by cutting out the profit margins and building good quality homes for people the way governments used to.

These homes would be available not just to the worst off, but to anyone who didn’t already own a home. So teachers would be living next door to cleaners, next door to nurses, next door to young families, and next door to people on income benefits. We’d build an institution that everyone has a stake in, just like Medicare.

A roof over your head is just as essential as health care and education, and we should have a public option to challenge the stranglehold the private industry has over our housing system. For those still renting, we would coordinate new national tenancy standards including long-term caps on rent increases, longer leases, and better conditions. We would create a National Renters Protection Authority to enforce new national tenancy standards, issuing fines to landlords or real estate agents who break the law. Renters would finally have someone they could call when their landlord is doing the wrong thing.

Look, we all only live once. But for so many in my generation, the chance of a good life is denied to them. So much of our lives are spent working, paying a huge portion of our income on rents or mortgages, stuck renting forever, moving every couple of years, never able to set down roots, pulling kids out of their local school, or stuck with a huge mortgage, repayments leaving them on the brink of default, or worse, living out of a car, maybe with young kids.

I’ve been told before that I’m too angry, but I am angry about this situation for my generation, and you should be too. Our lives on this planet are brief, and I firmly believe that everyone in this country deserves the shot at a good life, to be meaningful and full of things that matter; time with family and friends, time to go to the beach and be alive in the sunshine. That so many in this country, a wealthy country like ours, aren’t afforded these opportunities is something to be mad about.

Everything the Greens are fighting for is already policy in countries around the world. Australia used to do it as well, and nothing changes if nothing changes. But in the space of just a few short years, the Greens have secured $3 billion of investment in social housing, the largest investment in over a decade, shifted the public debate to the point where rent caps, phasing out negative gearing and establishing a public developer all enjoy broad popular support. We have given renters a voice on the national stage and seen genuine positive shifts in renters’ rights across the states in this country, and we’re only just getting started.

Andrew Probyn: Thanks, you two. Now, before I ask the journalists to ask their questions, firstly to you, Max Chandler-Mather. I imagine you’re feeling a bit bruised today, given the Greens’ capitulation to Labor on Help to Buy and Build to Rent programs. What do you say to those who you’ve been campaigning for on the basis of inadequacy that you have rolled over? What do you say to those people, given that what you’ve done has only delayed help?

Max Chandler-Mather: Firstly, I would say that it is reasonable to feel terrified and scared about the housing crisis we face. We have a Government who is willing to leave behind millions of renters who will never be able to buy their own home, and every day that the Government doesn’t take substantial action is a sad day.

But what I would say is, in this term of Parliament, we have secured $3 billion of investment in social housing, six times what Labor wanted to spend. We brought Labor to the brink of phasing out negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. They had costed that policy, and if that change had happened, it would have been the most positive and genuine shift we have seen in housing policy in generations. It would have given light at the end of the tunnel for millions of renters right now, who have given up on ever being able to buy a home.

But the reality is, change in this country, especially on housing, is hard, and it will take time. And my message to people across the country is, have hope. Look at what we have been able to achieve and shift in this country in the space of a few short years. Who would have thought that, right now, I could be standing here and saying rent caps, phasing out the tax handouts for property investors, establishing a public developer, all enjoy broad popular support? Who would have thought we could talk about the fact that renters finally have a voice in this country? Who would have thought that we’d come into an election where the defining political debate is who has the best policies on the housing crisis?

I have hope because there are millions of people across this country who genuinely want change, and come the next election, they know they can vote Greens to keep Dutton out and put Greens MPs in Parliament to push Labor further and faster on this housing crisis. We will get there. It will take time. But I genuinely believe we can do it.

Andrew Probyn: Michael Sukkar, do you care to respond?

Michael Sukkar: Sure. Well, I think the least surprising thing that we’ve seen this week is that the Greens and the Labor Party have come to an agreement. The kabuki theatre of the Greens and Labor fighting in the Parliament really betrays the truth, which is Labor and the Greens are in an unholy alliance, a coalition, an uneasy and unhappy coalition from time to time.

But I am disappointed to see that the Government fiddles while Rome burns. Their signature policies, in potentially the last week before we enter the election, is a shared equity scheme that replicates shared equity schemes that have already existed throughout Australia for many years. Replicating state-based schemes that have already been largely rejected by Australians, with so many places still available in those state-based schemes. The absolute essence of fiddling while Rome burns.

And probably where I’m most disappointed with the Greens is buckling with Labor, buckling under the pressure with Labor to now support a corporate ownership model. The build to rent legislation that the Greens have now signalled they will support, will provide preferential treatment to foreign corporates owning Australian housing stock. The Coalition wants Australians to own our housing stock, and that will be a massive difference between the Labor-Greens coalition, and the Liberal and National parties.

Andrew Probyn: Michael, just following up on that, you’ve explained why you don’t like build to rent. You’ve criticised the Labor Government for not pursuing meaningful reform. Reminders, why did you not support help to buy, which seems to have some similarity to what you’re suggesting?

Michael Sukkar: Well, I just described it, Andrew. So the help to buy scheme is a shared equity scheme that actually requires State Governments to pass their own legislation. So they’ve taken what were already state-based schemes and brought it national. State-based schemes that were already not being used by Australians, because Australians don’t want to co-own a house with the government. The New South Wales scheme, for example, had more than 90% of its available places unused. So what genius in Labor thought, aha, the solution to the housing crisis is coming up and replicating a policy that already exists, with products that are already being rejected by Australians?

And it’s easy to understand why it would be rejected. Who wants Anthony Albanese owning nearly half of their home, taking all the upside at the end when you sell it and saying, thank you very much, we’ll take our 40% of the uplift in your home, but the costs associated with repairs and maintenance, maintaining a home, those costs are borne by the person who owns the other half of that home. No wonder Australians have completely rejected it.

It’s again, fiddling while Rome burns. We have on every single metric, every metric available, and I outlined some of them in my opening remarks, we have gone backwards after two and a half years. Fewer first home buyers.

Less homes are being built. And scarily for Australians, if you think the housing crisis is bad, it’s getting worse, because approvals are down. So over the next 12, 18 months, 24 months, even fewer homes will be built.

And amongst all of that, the geniuses in the Labor Party have decided to bring in more than 1.4 million migrants, with no idea of where they will live, and no concern for the increase in rents and prices that it will cause Australians. We will reduce migration, we will make sure the homes are there, we will build the homes for Australians, and make sure they can get into their own homes.

Andrew Probyn: Max, I saw you shaking your head at the mention of the M word; migration. What’s your response?

Max Chandler-Mather: The idea that the Liberals want Australians to be able to buy their first home is an utter farce. The Liberals support a policy to give tax handouts to property investors over the next 10 years in the tune of $176 billion. If you’re a first home buyer or renter at home right now, you’re a grandparent or a parent watching this, know this: every time your daughter or son goes to an auction under the Liberals, and Labor at the moment, a property investor can go to that auction, use tax handouts in their pocket from the Government, bid up the price of housing and screw over your kid or your grandkid. That’s the housing system we have right now.

And of course the Liberals bring up migrants, of course they do, because it’s such a useful tool for them to distract from the fact that the real winners out of this housing crisis, the ones really hurting people right now, are the large property investors and the banks, and the property industry who benefit to the tune of billions and billions of dollars.

The Liberals were in power for nine years. What do they do? Give tax handouts to property investors, build less public housing than any Government in Australian history since World War II, help screw over renters. This housing crisis isn’t just the making of the Labor Party, it’s the Liberals too. And it isn’t remarkable, genuinely remarkable, that the Liberals won’t take any responsibility for this housing crisis. It hardly gives me any confidence that they’re going to be able to fix it.

Andrew Probyn: First question from the journalists here; Tom McElroy.

Tom McElroy: Thanks, Probes. Tom McElroy from The Financial Review. Thank you for taking our questions. Mr Sukkar, would you be able to give us more information about what the Coalition is going to take to voters at the election? You say housing is a generational challenge. It’ll certainly be a key issue in the campaign.

And could you provide more detail about the savings, I think 100,000 homes over five years from curbing migration? You’re not convinced at all that international students live in different kinds of accommodation to people who settle with families or whatever?

Michael Sukkar: Thanks, Tom. Great question. Look, there are, between now and the election, everything we do will fall within four categories that we think will make a meaningful difference to Australians owning their own home. And we’re not waving the white flag on home ownership as the Labor Party and the Greens have.

The first will be, how do we help people with the deposit hurdle? And we’ve spoken a lot about that with our super housing policy and other things. How do we provide them with access to finance? We know a CEO of a big four bank blew the whistle on this and said, we don’t lend to people who aren’t wealthy. That has to be looked at.

Supply. How do we increase supply meaningfully? That’s why we announced a $5 billion program to fund the essential infrastructure to get greenfield developments going. And finally, how do we strip out costs and regulation that finds its way into every home? Because every dollar of cost, either a tax or regulation, is not worn by the property developers, I hate to break it to the Greens. It’s worn by the end consumer, the first home buyer at the end, the renter at the end.

So everything we announce, Tom, between now and the election will fall within those four categories of aspiration, the planks of what we’ll take to the election. As for the 100,000 homes that will be freed up, it’ll be freed up because we will reduce migration. Peter Dutton made very clear, very clear in his Budget in Reply speech, whilst the Labor Party was running and is continuing to run a rampant migration program with no concern for where those people will live, that we will reduce migration, which will free up at least 100,000 homes. We think it’s more than that. We think we’ve used a very conservative number there. We’ll free up homes for Australians. And to go to what Max said earlier, I’m a product of migration. I come from a migrant family. One of the reasons migrants have moved to this country is to share in the hope of the Australian dream, and we’ve always had planned migration in this country. That’s why we’ve had great success. And that planning needs to include housing for those people coming here, but also housing for the people that already live here, and Labor and the Greens have completely abrogated responsibility for that, which is why they’ve brought in 1.4 million people in just two and a half years.

Andrew Probyn: Max, you have one minute to respond.

Max Chandler-Mather: There is twice as many property investors purchasing properties in the last quarter in Australia as there were first home buyers. What we know in Australia is prior to the year 2000, housing was genuinely affordable for working people in this country. Rents were a fraction of what they are now. And the reason is because Labor and the Liberals conspired to create a housing system that generates huge profits for large property investors, for the banks, and for the property industry. As long as housing is treated as a lucrative financial asset like that, we will never fix this housing crisis, and it has to start with phasing out the billions of dollars in tax handouts for property investors.

And does anyone genuinely believe, when we were in COVID and net migration got below zero and house prices kept going up, are anyone really suggesting that this Liberal policy to attack and demonise migrants, to defend big banks and their massive profits, is going to fix the housing crisis? Of course it won’t, because we know what works around the world, and it is building enough good, genuinely affordable housing for people to live in, and stop giving so many massive tax handouts to property investors to buy their 10th property and beat out a hapless first home buyer.

Andrew Probyn: OK. Rhiannon Down.

Rhiannon Down: Mr Sukkar, Labor has set itself a target to build 1.2 million new homes by the end of the decade. Will the Coalition recommit to this goal if elected? And if so, how will it turbocharge construction to reach this level?

Michael Sukkar: Thanks, Rhiannon. Well, we’ll build more homes than Labor. We built more homes in the last five years of the Coalition Government than this Labor Government will. We built more than a million homes in the last five years of the Coalition Government. As I said in my opening remarks, it’s almost industry consensus now that not only will Labor not meet their 1.2 million homes, they won’t miss it by a smidge, they won’t get close, they’ll miss it by more than 400,000 homes. Around 800,000 homes is what the industry expects will be built based on the current trajectory. And may I add, that trajectory is still getting worse, so it could even be worse than 800,000.

So we will build more homes than Labor. One of the ways we’ll make sure, as we did in the past, we built more homes in the last five years of the Coalition Government, the way we’ll do it again is through the Housing Infrastructure Program and other things that we will announce. The Housing Infrastructure Program will fast-track 500,000 homes throughout our country. We know there are greenfield sites throughout Australia ready to go, but the thing holding them back is the vital funding for the infrastructure that gets those houses going.

It’s not exciting stuff in many cases. It’s water. It’s sewage. It’s telecommunications. It’s water pumping stations. It’s access roads. Vital infrastructure that’s not being funded at the moment. So even where there are approvals, the projects don’t go ahead, because our State Governments and Local Councils either won’t or can’t fund the infrastructure.

So we’ve said we’ll step in; $5 billion to fund that infrastructure, and again, if you don’t believe me, listen to the industry. The 500,000 additional homes it will unlock – not business as usual – additional homes it will unlock in greenfield sites throughout our country, which is the province of first home buyers, is going to mean that in the five years following the election of a Coalition Government, we will deliver many hundreds of thousands of more homes than what Labor has committed to. Not that Labor’s commitment is worth a tuppence, to be quite frank.

Andrew Probyn: Max, unlocking greenfield sites, a good idea?

Max Chandler-Mather: Look, all of that and none of that was actually about directly building homes. The Greens are still the only party coming up to this election with a genuine plan for the Government to actually build hundreds of thousands of good, genuinely affordable homes. Countries around the world have their versions, basically, of government developers, as the Greens have proposed. We can say, hand on heart, we would build 610,000 homes over the next 10 years, saving renters and first home buyers thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars on the price of a home, because we’d cut out the profit margin and build genuinely affordable housing. There’s renters in the middle of Vienna, where, in that city, the Government builds a lot of good quality homes. That renter pays about $250 a week on rent. $250 a week on rent. The median house rent price in Australia is over $650. And that is achieved by the Government directly building homes. And we still haven’t heard neither major party actually talk about a plan to do that.

Andrew Probyn: OK. Ben Westcott.

Ben Westcott: Ben Westcott from Bloomberg.

Michael Sukkar: (inaudible)

Ben Westcott: Thank you so much for your speeches today. It’s great to have you here. One thing that neither of you have really discussed is the skills shortage. And I’ve been speaking to developers, and this is something that really is at the absolute heart of what the problem is with getting more homes built in Australia more than almost anything else, is that, well, it’s construction costs, and there’s a lack of labour. There’s a labour shortage. Now, it’s a question to both of you. How will you address that, particularly if, on Max’s behalf, you’re going to be building a large amount of public housing, and particularly on Michael’s part, if you’re going to be slashing migration to the bone? So how do you address the labour skills shortage in both those situations?

Andrew Probyn: Let’s go to Max first.

Max Chandler-Mather: The nature of Australia’s private housing system at the moment is it’s boom and bust. So you have peaks and you have troughs. And that makes it difficult to maintain a consistent and strong construction workforce where you can plan for the future about how many homes we are going to build.

One of the utilities of establishing a government-owned developer that signals to the country and the construction industry that we will be building 610,000 homes, roughly about 50,000 a year, 75,000 a year in the first few years, is that you can plan for that. You can plan your career. You can plan how many construction workers we need in that area, in that area.

The Federal Government used to employ architects and town planners and project managers in a genuine Federal Housing Department, which is what we’re planning to establish. And so one of the ways we can deal with this boom and bust nature of a private housing market, is smooth it out with good counter-investment from the Federal Government in genuinely affordable housing. Otherwise, we’re going to continue to see the same boom and bust nature of our housing system that screws over millions of renters.

Michael Sukkar: Well, Ben, forgive me if I don’t share the same amount of faith that Max has in his supposed Greens housing commissar to build the homes Australians need. It’s quite frankly ridiculous, too, that what Max is suggesting that somehow Max and the Greens, through their Greens housing commissar, are suddenly going to teach the industry how to build homes and teach them how to build them more cheaply.

The truth is we need to rebalance our Migration Program. Yes, we need less migrants. Fewer migration from the record levels we’re at. By no means is the Coalition suggesting we won’t have a healthy Migration Program, but it will not be the unsustainable, reckless migration we’ve seen in recent years.

And in rebalancing the Migration Program, we are untethered to the criminal CFMEU, which has been the thing that has stopped so many of the trades coming to Australia that, quite frankly, our industry needs. Indeed, Max has even conceded that we need. We have a very capable local workforce. Very capable.

But you don’t improve housing outcomes in this country by bringing in more yoga instructors or fitness instructors, important though they may be. This year alone, in this financial year, we’ve brought in nine bricklayers. Nine. Nine bricklayers. Speak to any builder of the skills of which they have the greatest shortages. And bricklayers are pretty high on the list. Nine have been brought in this financial year by the Government.

Now, why is that the case? Well, the dirty secret that the Labor Party don’t want to expose is that the criminal CFMEU has rationed and basically dictated the way in which our Migration Program operates. Now, the CFMEU is not concerned with yoga instructors coming in, but they don’t want skilled migrants coming in. Now, Greens, the Greens and Max, who shares a stage now with the CFMEU, I assume, is tethered to the same requests from the criminal CFMEU. That’s not the case for us. We’ll rebalance our Migration Program. We’ll reduce migration quite significantly, but we’ll rebalance it to the skills that Australia needs.

Andrew Probyn: OK, next question from Poppy Johnston.

Poppy Johnston: Thank you. Poppy Johnston from AAP. One for you, Mr Sukkar. You put a lot of emphasis on greenfield development, and while choice is valuable, building on city fringes does come with its challenges. It takes up a lot of land. It’s hard to make public transport viable, leaving people with long commutes in the car. Given these sorts of challenges, is it responsible to go all in on greenfield development like this?

Michael Sukkar: Totally. Greenfield development, the suburbs of the future, are the suburbs that Australians want to live in. These are the suburbs when you have a land release, we’ve all seen it, young first home buyers, often couples, sleeping out to have an opportunity in the ballot to get one of those homes. For new migrants to this country, for many of them, I can say including my own family, one of the attractions in coming to Australia was owning your own little patch of this country. It doesn’t need to be the Taj Mahal, but just owning your own home that’s your own.

And I said in my opening remarks, we’ve got Labor State Governments who have, Poppy, quite frankly, perpetuated this idea that the suburbs of the future are somehow impossible or improper. If our forebears were able to build the suburbs that many of us now enjoy, in my home state where I live, it was only a generation ago it was an apple orchard. One generation ago. Now it’s a wonderful suburb. These are the suburbs of the future.

And State Labor Governments have used the excuse for a long time, “can’t fund the infrastructure.” But they ignore that when you have infill developments, there are still massive infrastructure costs associated with it. In most of our major capital cities in the established suburbs, if you want to put another five, 10, 15,000 people into a suburb, you’re not just running on the existing infrastructure. Water, sewage, roads, all of that must be upgraded.

So it’s not cost-free to have density in our inner suburbs. It’s actually quite costly as well. And so the infrastructure should not be the barrier. It’s, I think, an animosity that the Labor Party and the Greens have to detached houses in greenfield estates. We know many Australians want those. We know many migrants want that type of housing stock.

Now, in the end, we’re agnostic. We want houses built everywhere. We want high density, medium density, and detached in greenfield sites. But we’ve got to challenge this idea that the suburbs of the future are somehow improper or impossible. If our forebears were able to do it in 2024, we can absolutely do it.

Andrew Probyn: Max, you’ve got a minute to respond.

Max Chandler-Mather: Well, the first thing to say is that we can achieve good quality, medium density development that is next to good schools and public transport and parks. And that does require investment in public infrastructure. And you achieve that by making sure the developers building in those areas pay their fair share to make sure we can contribute to that public infrastructure.

But I find it really difficult to see how Michael Sukkar’s dream of fixing this housing crisis over the next few years is ever going to become a reality, because you’ve got to ask yourself these questions. They had nine years in Government. And this country inherited one of the most broken housing systems in the developed world. In the developed world. And now, all of a sudden, their plan is to do a little bit more of the same. More tax handouts, more money for property developers, more little sort of concessions for them, and expect this country to believe that it’s going to be different than how the last nine years were, which was higher house prices, higher rents and more people on the brink of homelessness.

Andrew Probyn: Next question from Patrick Bell.

Patrick Bell: Hi there, Patrick Bell from the ABC. A question for Mr Sukkar. Your Senate colleague Andrew Bragg today said that you would repeal Help to Buy and Build to Rent if you won the next election. I’m interested to, (a), confirm if that is the case and, (b), probe why, if that’s an option people want, it may not be what you agree with, but why take that away from people if that is the case?

Michael Sukkar: Well, thanks for your question. They’re terrible policies, which is why we are, in many respects, unsurprised but dismayed that the Greens are now supporting it. On Build to Rent, the Greens have sold out. Max speaks in this room today, railing against the property industry and the banks. Yet the Greens have said that they’ll vote with Labor to give preferential tax treatment to foreign corporates to own housing stock in this country through Build to Rent. We don’t think that the most beneficial tax arrangements for housing in this country should be the province of foreign fund managers. They should be the province for Australian mum and dads. We want Australians to own our housing stock. If you accept that around a third of people rent, and that’s not likely to change, or it’s not likely to drop, who’s going to own those third of homes that Australian renters rent from? Well, now, Max and the Greens have signed up with Labor to say, we want those third of homes to be owned by large corporations, foreign corporations to own those homes. Whereas the Coalition wants Australians to own those homes.

As for the shared equity scheme, the fiddling while Rome burns, quite frankly, these schemes have been rejected by Australians. And at a cost of $5.5 billion, I can assure you we can find many better things to do with that money to help Australians get into their own home, than a shared equity scheme that, quite frankly, is not new thinking, it’s not innovative, you don’t give any credit to the Labor Party for coming up with ideas. Just like the Housing Minister couldn’t show up today to explain herself and the Labor Party position, they have no ideas, no new policies, and no will to help Australians get into their own homes. And that’s why we unashamedly oppose both of those measures, and will not do what the Greens have done, which is go back on all of the arguments and critiques that I’ve made that Max has very eloquently made in the past, who he will now support those bills.

Andrew Probyn: Before you respond, Max, just on shared equity, the Queensland LNP has its own policy to support some shared equity. Are they wrong?

Michael Sukkar: Well, shared equity has been a province of State Governments for a long time, and I’m not going to gratuitously criticise State Governments if that’s what they choose to do.

Max Chandler-Mather: Hang on, it’s either a good policy or a bad policy.

Michael Sukkar: But the Australian people have voted with their feet. The Australian people have voted with their feet on shared equity. In New South Wales, more than 90% of the shared equity places were still available. They couldn’t give them away. And it’s not entirely surprising to the Australians watching this telecast that the answer, supposedly from Labor, is that potentially 10,000 very lucky people a year, 10,000 a year – when we think about first home buyers under the Coalition Government got up to 180,000 – 10,000 a year may get an opportunity to have half their home owned by the Government.

The Government takes all the upside when you sell it at the end and they take their share, but for all the costs and the repairs and the maintenance on the way through, that’s yours. You bear that cost. No wonder, quite frankly, Andrew, Australians voted with their feet and have rejected it. If State Governments want to do it, fine. We don’t think it’s the job of Federal Governments to perpetuate policy that hasn’t worked elsewhere.

Andrew Probyn: Max?

Max Chandler-Mather: Look, I’m not going to stand here and defend either of Labor’s housing policies, and it is disappointing that the Labor Housing Minister isn’t here to defend them. We tried as hard as we could in this process to build constructively on housing policy in this country. We’re not like the Liberals. We’re not just going to destroy, cut and block, and destroy any hope of actually fixing this housing crisis. We are trying to build public consensus for large-scale action on this housing crisis. It has been our goal for the last few years, and indeed for the entirety of the existence of the Greens.

And I think we’ve got some of the way there. And you’ll notice that a lot of the Liberals’ rhetoric around housing is just attack and destroy and talking about cutting things. Our plan is to build public consensus and public support for real action on this housing crisis. And the idea that the Liberals care about renters when they support unlimited rent increases, people being evicted because they can’t afford the rent, is frankly a farce.

Andrew Probyn: Now, before I ask Nick Bonyhady to stand up, time for some popcorn TV. You get the opportunity to ask each other a question, and we will do it in the order of the opening statements. So, Michael, off first.

Michael Sukkar: Thanks, Andrew. Well, Max, given we’ve seen this week Labor and the Greens really acting in concert, in coalition in the Senate on these housing bills, by your own admission, are you expecting after the next election, if Labor and the Greens are in a minority coalition government, are you expecting that you will be the Housing Minister?

Max Chandler-Mather: No, I won’t, and certainly don’t. I certainly think that our role is to use our power and balance of power in the Parliament to win real concessions from the Government. And what you get, when you get Greens MPs at the end of this next election and you do vote Greens, is you get a vote to keep out Peter Dutton. And you also get a vote for someone in there who will push Labor on capping rent increases, on phasing out negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, the tax handouts for property investors, denying millions of renters the chance to buy a home. And investing those savings in a public or Government-owned developer to build hundreds of thousands of good-quality homes like this country used to and countries around the world do, that people can genuinely afford.

Positive change does not happen overnight, but we have seen in the space of a few years $3 billion of investment in social housing secured by the Greens in the balance of power in the Senate. That’s the biggest indirect investment in social housing in over a decade from the Federal Government in this country.

We have seen Labor brought to the brink of making changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. They costed those policies, and I have a sincere hope that we can push that after the next election. And let me tell you, talk about, what, just 170,000 or whatever it is, first home buyers. If we change negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, that could mean hundreds of thousands, even costings on a pretty timid version of changes to those tax handouts from the New South Wales Treasury, said you would see over 300,000 new first home buyers in this country. It would fundamentally change the lives of so many renters. I have hope that we can win those changes.

No, I don’t want to see Peter Dutton as the next Prime Minister, but nor do I want to see Labor continue on their tinkering around the edges of a massive housing crisis. And I think the way to achieve that is building constructively on what we’ve built and pushing for more in the future.

Andrew Probyn: So just to be absolutely clear, Max Chandler-Mather, you don’t want to be a Minister in a future Government?

Max Chandler-Mather: No.

Andrew Probyn: Nick McKim was a Minister in a Labor-Greens agreement down in Tasmania?

Max Chandler-Mather: I think that, personally, I would prefer to be on the crossbench and deciding on good pieces of legislation, and pushing further after the next election.

Andrew Probyn: You might be able to get more done inside the tent as opposed to adjoining tents?

Max Chandler-Mather: I think probably the feeling is mutual between me and the Liberal Party around not being the Housing Minister.

Andrew Probyn: Max, your opportunity.

Max Chandler-Mather: Why don’t you ask Anthony Albanese?

Andrew Probyn: Oh, we will, we will. Max, your opportunity now.

Max Chandler-Mather: Do you think it’s fair for a property investor with 10 investment properties who’s going to buy their 11th property, to get tax handouts from the Government that helps them beat a first home buyer at an auction?

Michael Sukkar: Well, let me answer it this way. I don’t believe, Max, unlike you this week, that the most preferential tax treatment that we provide for anyone investing in a property in this country should be a preferential tax arrangement for foreign corporates to own tens of thousands of Australian properties. Not 10 properties. Foreign corporates to own tens of thousands.

Australians should realise that in many parts of the world they do have corporate ownership models of housing. It’s, in many respects, foreign to us here. Where corporations and big funds, vulture funds, private equity funds, own tens of thousands of homes. And this Labor Government, now supported by Max and the Greens, will give the most preferential tax arrangements to them. Not to the Australian mums and dads.

And to go to Max’s question, for nearly 90% of Australians who own an investment property, they own one. And when you look at the categories, as reported by the ATO in their data, we all know when we fill out our tax return you’ve got to put in your occupation, that the largest occupations who own investments in this country are teachers, are nurses, are police officers, essential workers in all of our big capital cities. They are the largest cohort who own properties in this country.

Now, what Max and the Labor Party want to do is they want to tax those Australian mums and dads more, and hand a tax cut to large foreign funds. Private equity, vulture funds, to own tens of thousands of homes. Not 10 homes, Max. Tens of thousands of homes. Now, if you’re willing to swap the mums and dads for them, go for it. At least Max has the courage to be here today and try and argue for such a crazy idea, unlike the Labor Housing Minister who has squibbed it and is not here to defend her policy. A policy to exchange Australian mums and dads for large foreign corporates.

And the Coalition, I say this to Australians, is the only thing standing in the way between that foreign corporate ownership model, and Australian mums and dads owning the housing stock in this country. And, most importantly, young Australians owning their first home in this country.

Andrew Probyn: Next question, Nick Bonyhady.

Nick Bonyhady: G’day, Nick Bonyhady from The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. For Mr Sukkar, at various points in your speech, you’ve talked about we, the Government under the Coalition Government, building more homes than Labor. We, the Government, building a certain number of homes. And at other times, you’ve seemed highly opposed to the Government having a role in directly owning a home. So how are those things reconcilable?

And for Mr Chandler-Mather, out of curiosity, you’re a very highly paid Senator on 220-some-thousand-plus-a-day salary.

Max Chandler-Mather: I’m not a Senator.

Nick Bonyhady: Sorry. But you are a renter. Why haven’t you purchased a home?

Max Chandler-Mather: OK. Damn. Do you want my bank account details?

Andrew Probyn: Look, you can consider your answer. We’ll first go to Michael.

Michael Sukkar: Thanks, Nick. It’s actually a very good question. I mean, when I say we, I say the Government, under policy settings, when we were in Government, when I was the Housing Minister between 2019 and 2022, that created an environment where the private sector could build more homes. Not just the private sector. As Assistant Treasurer then, or Assistant Minister to the Treasurer, I established what is now known as Housing Australia, the largest single investment into social and affordable housing in this country. In the five years, the last full five years of the Coalition Government, we built – we, the Government, supported by a healthy private sector, built more than a million homes. This Government, by consensus in the industry, will be lucky to reach 800,000. So when I say we, Nick, it’s an environment that does that. When I was Housing Minister, I established the Home Guarantee Scheme. We knew that one of the biggest challenges for first home buyers was getting that deposit together, and banks were requiring first home buyers to save a full 20% deposit before they could get finance to buy a home.

I established the Home Guarantee Scheme, which enables first home buyers, Government-backed, Government-guaranteed, to get into their first home with a 5% deposit. And single parents, 84% of which are single mothers, with a deposit of as little as 2%. The Labor Party criticised that policy when I was implementing it, when we announced it. It’s now supporting nearly 40% of all Australian first home buyers. So, Nick, if the Government, and if Governments, plural, want to do something to address problems, they can. It’s a great example where you can address a problem in Government.

And that’s why this Government has failed so badly. In two and a half years, they’ve done nothing. Not one home has been built through a policy that they have legislated in that Parliament. Not one. And on their Housing Australia Future Fund, which has just had its first round close, industry tells me that probably about half of the projects that have been approved will not go ahead, because they’ve fallen over in the meantime, because this Government botches everything they touch.

Andrew Probyn: OK, Max, just to recap Nick’s question, what exactly are you doing with your hard-earned?

Max Chandler-Mather: I’ll tell you why. Different rules for renters in Parliament, hey? Look, honest answer, small family, we’re on a single income, and I give up about $50,000 of my salary to run all the free meal programs we run in the electorate. So I can talk about it if you like. Using that money, we’ve served now over about 50,000 free meals, including in our three weekly free school breakfasts in State schools. My view is when I got elected, I was elected by a movement of people, a lot of whom are low-income renters, and it wasn’t right for me not to give up a big portion of my salary to make sure that I could give back to that movement in the electorate that I represent. Because of that, giving up that money and being on a single income, and in an inner-city electorate with very, very high median house price, it is actually sort of difficult at the moment to buy a house there. I want to be clear, though, I’m not the one doing it tough, but I’m answering your question.

I’ve got a minute left. I just wanted to respond to the idea that the Liberal Party cares about public housing. That is – on no evidence can you make that claim. Because in that term of the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison era, we saw the lowest rates of Federal investment in public housing we have seen since World War II. The Liberals have to wear their share of the blame for chronic under investment in public housing.

And I want to talk about what public housing used, the role it used to play in this country. After all, we hear a lot about the fact the Prime Minister grew up in public housing. He was able to do so because, in the past, we built enough that not just the lowest income but good middle-income people could move into those homes as well, with subsidised rents that gave them a chance to save up to buy a home. We are never going to fix this crisis if we keep going down the path that the Liberals, and Labor, unfortunately, want to go down, which is continued chronic underinvestment in public housing.

Andrew Probyn: OK, straight to Paul Karp.

Paul Karp: Thanks very much. Both your parties have patchy records when it comes to supply, which is the one thing that housing experts say will solve the crisis. On the Coalition side, the Victorian Premier successfully baited a rabble of Victorian Liberals into opposing greater density at Brighton, a suburb well-served by public transport. And on the Greens side, elected officials, including MPs, have written submissions or encouraged their constituents to write submissions opposing developments.

Now, I don’t want to get into an argument about particular developments in the flood zones of Brisbane, but what commitment can you both give that at every level, Federal, State and Local, that your parties will be part of the solution and break their addiction to NIMBY votes?

Andrew Probyn: Max, do you want to take this one first?

Max Chandler-Mather: Sure. Firstly, I want to make it clear; there is one party in Federal Parliament that pushed and won for the biggest investment in social housing in over a decade in Parliament, and it was the Greens. We just went into a housing negotiation where our final compromise offer to the Government was to invest in an extra 25,000 social and affordable homes. We’re going to an election with a plan to build 610,000 good-quality Government-built homes that are rented and sold at prices people can actually afford. We are literally the only party right now with a comprehensive, costed, released plan to build hundreds of thousands of good-quality homes, including in the city, including good medium-density developments.

I have been asked personally one time about what I thought about a social housing development in my electorate, and I wrote a letter effusively supporting it. When we have written submissions on developments, our primary criticism is that a portion of that development is not being provided as social or affordable housing. Because, look, I grew up in West End, which is an inner-city suburb in Brisbane, and it’s now one of the highest, especially in parts of it, one of the highest-density parts of Brisbane. But I have seen countless of my friends and my generation being priced out of that area, because neither Labor or the Liberals ever thought it was a good idea to push and force those developers to provide a portion of that housing as affordable or social housing.

If I was born today, I would not be able to grow up in West End. My parents – I was born into a share house. My parents – one was stacking books at the State Library, the other a student, and they managed to scrape together enough money to buy a house in West End. That would be impossible now if my parents were coming through today. And that’s precisely because we never see either Labor or the Liberal Party stand up to their property developer mates, who they, both parties, take a lot of donations from those property developers, and push them to actually provide genuinely affordable housing.

Andrew Probyn: Michael.

Michael Sukkar: Well, Max is going to have a whole lot of new property developer mates with his big foreign corporate funds who are going to be very good friends of the Greens after you vote to support the Labor bill. Paul, very good question. I would challenge you in one aspect; don’t give Labor State Governments a leave pass for belatedly now trying to come up with solutions to a problem that they created. They refuse to release new land. They refuse to build the suburbs of the future. They tell Australians, your only prospect of living in your own home is to live in an apartment.

I’ve lived in an apartment. They’re suitable for many people, but we need to give Australians options, particularly if you’ve got a family, you’re growing, or if you’re a migrant, and you came to this country to share in part of that ideal of the great Australian dream. And so we believe that there are phenomenal opportunities to turbocharge housing supply in this country through investments in infrastructure, in greenfield sites throughout our country, very well located in good places near good jobs, to give Australians that realistic aspiration of owning their own home.

But let’s not forget who’s created this problem. Typically, State Governments who have refused to make those investments, who now want a leave pass by apparently going after so-called NIMBYs. For many Australians who live in established suburbs, they are very happy with some form of density, but they shouldn’t be demonised for wanting to retain the essential character of the communities that they live in. And the only reason they are being demonised is the Labor Party wants an alibi not to grow the suburbs of the future, because they have an ideological opposition to it. And we say in the Coalition that Australians should have that realistic opportunity of owning their own home, including a detached home in a greenfield-growing suburb.

Andrew Probyn: Next question, Sara Tomevska.

Sara Tomevska: Thank you both. Sara Tomevska from SBS. This question is for you, Michael Sukkar. You’ve spoken a lot about migrants coming to Australia to realise the dream of owning a home. A lot of people also come here to realise their full potential. We know that the skills shortages aren’t being faced just in the construction industry, and yet we have a perverse situation where more than half of migrants in this country are working below their qualification level. We’ve also seen the Parkinson review report that Australia’s parent visa wait times of up to 50 years are a significant deterrent for skilled migrants coming to this country. Under a Coalition Government, what incentives are you offering to skilled migrants to choose Australia over the UK, US or Canada?

Michael Sukkar: Great question, Sara. I mean, fortunately, there hasn’t seemed to be, both historically, in recent times, or indeed today, a shortage of really outstanding migrants who want to call Australia home. I don’t think we are in an environment, Sara, where we don’t have those wonderful people choosing to come to Australia. Indeed, more people choosing to come here, quite frankly, than we can properly accommodate.

I don’t disagree with some of the aspects to the question. How do we appropriately recognise skills that people bring here? I think there’s a lot more that can be done there. Again, when you’ve got vested interests like the criminal CFMEU, they have a real vested interest in rationing the amount of that labour that comes in. And we’re not here to supplant any Australian worker, but to be complimentary where there are skills shortages.

But the message that I have for Australians today is we will rebalance our migration program that it works in your best interests, and it works in the best interests of the migrants coming here. Like my family, like millions of families who have come here, they came to Australia to enjoy many aspects of our society, but home ownership was a big part. In many parts of the world, many Australians know home ownership isn’t a realistic thing. Unless you inherit a family home or inherit wealth, it’s not a realistic prospect to own a home.

That’s one of the reasons why they come here. Which is why we do them no service at all by what this Labor Government has done, bringing in 1.4 million migrants in two and a half years, with absolutely no idea where they are going to live. It doesn’t help them, and it doesn’t help the young prospective first home buyers or the renters that have seen their rent under Anthony Albanese’s watch increase by 23%, and Max says he wants to support Anthony Albanese to have another three years. Absolutely crazy.

Andrew Probyn: Max?

Max Chandler-Mather: Look, we see this every time, every time there’s a cost of living and housing crisis in a lot of places around the world. The rich and powerful, especially in the Liberal Party, and now the Labor Party, turn around in a race to the bottom on who can demonise migrants more.

And the reason that they do that, the reason they go after and demonise migrants and try to blame them for a crisis they had nothing to do with, is because it’s an excellent way to distract from the fact that the Commonwealth Bank in the middle of a housing crisis just last year made a $10 billion record profit. That property investors are getting – will get $176 billion in tax handouts from this Federal Government, supported by both the Labor and Liberal Party. That there are hundreds of thousands of vacant properties in this country left deliberately vacant by property investors or property developers to help push up the price.

Why is it every time there is a crisis that the rich and powerful in the major parties, backed by their big corporate donors, facilitate a debate and a race to the bottom in going after migrants? The Greens will not participate in that. We just won’t. And the real solution to this is taking on those big corporations who are getting away with paying no tax, taking on those property investors and phasing out those tax handouts, and getting back to a more fair and equitable system that Australia used to have, where we were able to provide affordable housing without going after migrants. We were able to provide affordable rentals. And the way to do that is to stop treating housing as a lucrative financial asset for banks and the property industry.

Andrew Probyn: All right, our very last question, and I’m going to give you one minute to answer this one, from Nick Stuart.

Nick Stuart: Michael, you’ve said that it’s important that we turbocharge housing. One of the ways this is occurring in New South Wales and Queensland is, for example, that they are not enforcing regulations to build bathrooms, particularly with doors and other things like that. This is of a disadvantage to people who are older and people with disability. What are you going to do to make sure that those sort of regulations are enforced?

And Max, I know that Michael is about to tell us –

Andrew Probyn: One minute for an answer, as opposed to a question.

Nick Stuart: – how many immigrants we will get next year under a Coalition Government. What would your position be?

Andrew Probyn: OK, before you start, I want you to include your closing statement. You guys have got one minute each.

Michael Sukkar: Sure. Well, look, I’ll reiterate what I said at the outset. If there’s one message that I want Australians to take away from today’s debate, it’s that the Coalition just will not accept a situation where the current generation of Australians don’t have the same opportunities for home ownership that every generation has had before them.

We think that the Labor Party and the Greens have demonstrated very clearly, reiterated today, that they’ve waved the white flag on home ownership, utterly vacated the field on home ownership. We hear nothing from the Labor Party about meaningful support for first home buyers. The Coalition is determined to ensure that young Australians have that chance, and we will do everything we can between now and the election to prove to Australians that the way to getting to a home will be for voting for the Coalition and Peter Dutton at the next election.

Andrew Probyn: I’m sorry, Nick, I don’t think you got an answer there, but it was about – his question – Nick’s question was about building bathrooms with particular width doors.

Michael Sukkar: I can quickly touch on that. We’ve announced a 10-year freeze to the National Construction Code. The Construction Code already includes livability standards, Nick, livability standards that mandate those sorts of requirements. It’s up to the States through the Building Ministers Forum to enforce those.

But our central message is we are going to freeze the NCC. We want to get regulation and red tape out of building new homes because, again, a reminder to everybody, every extra tax that a Labor or Greens politician wants to put on housing, every additional dollar of regulation that they want to put on housing is not worn by the property developer, it’s worn by the end consumer, the end user, the purchaser or the renter. So we want to strip those costs out.

Andrew Probyn: Max Chandler-Mather, do you want to jump in there, your closing comments?

Max Chandler-Mather: Look, we won’t participate in a race to the bottom on migrants. The Greens just never will. But what I will say is Australia is an incredibly wealthy country, one of the wealthiest in the world, and right now we face a housing crisis where three million are at risk of homelessness. My entire generation is facing a situation where we may be worse off than our parents, and many of us locked out of ever being able to buy a home.

And what you have heard today from the Liberals is just more of the same. It is abundantly clear that the major party system will not fix this housing crisis. It’s clear because they helped create it together. And another three years of the Liberals will see the housing crisis just get worse.

But where I draw hope from is that whether it’s capping rent increases, or phasing out the tax handouts for property investors, or setting up a Government developer to build genuinely affordable housing, that enjoys majority support in this country. And there are over seven million renters in this country, and the question you have to ask yourselves and your parents and grandparents is, what happens when our voice becomes united? How much power can we wield to get real positive change in this country when we come together and fight for a better future? And that’s what the Greens will be offering at the next Federal election.

Andrew Probyn: Well, viewers, there you have it, the first of the National Press Club policy debates. Housing today; we will have more to come in the new year. Please put your hand together for Max Chandler-Mather and Michael Sukkar.

Andrew Probyn: Thanks, guys. And as is tradition, we have some cards here for you, which I’ll come and hand to you.

Max Chandler-Mather: It’s not the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge, is it?

Michael Sukkar: Thanks, mate.

Max Chandler-Mather: The National Press Club.

Andrew Probyn: Thank you. Good on you.

Michael Sukkar: Thank you, beautiful.

Andrew Probyn: Well done, Max. Good on you.

Max Chandler-Mather: Thank you. Cheers.

Andrew Probyn: Please put your hands together again.

ENDS