Michael Sukkar MP

Interview with Andrew Clennell – Sky News

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

TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW CLENNELL – SKY NEWS

Sunday 24 March, 2024

TOPICS: Tasmanian state election, Religious discrimination laws, Help to Buy, Amelia Hamer for Kooyong

E&OE

Andrew Clennell: Joining me now is the shadow minister for the housing and the NDIS, Michael Sukkar. Michael Sukkar, thanks for your time this morning. Let’s start with the Tasmanian election result overnight as a surprise twist with Labor trying to seize power with the Greens. Even though it won less seats than the Liberals. What’s your reaction?

Michael Sukkar: Well, I think to some political observers, Andrew, it’s the least surprising news ever that there seems to be an appetite within the Labor Party to governing coalition with the Greens. We obviously saw the Greens in the lead up to Election Day saying there’s no circumstance where they would support the Liberal Party. We had the Labor leader last night refusing to concede defeat. You can only draw one conclusion and that is the Labor Party has in mind a coalition with the Greens, and I wouldn’t be surprised if those discussions were occurring prior to the election, to be quite frank. But what we did see, Andrew, is the Liberal Party win the highest share of the vote, win the highest number of seats. So I’m sure they will be invited by the governor to test the numbers on the floor of the Parliament invited to form a government and no doubt there’ll be a lot of horse trading between now and then. But as the highest vote getter, highest number of seats. You’d expect that Jeremy Rockliff and the Liberal Party will be invited to form a government, notwithstanding the Labor Party seemingly having a bob each way with the Greens to have a formal arrangement with them.

Andrew Clennell: Well, it comes after some encouraging results in Queensland a week ago for the LNP. Having said that, there was a disappointing result in South Australia for the Liberal Party in Dunstan after the disappointment of Dunkley, did some of these results give you encouragement leading into a federal election next year.

Michael Sukkar: Well, Andrew, they’re all different and they all have their own context. I think anyone that’s watched the opposition over the last couple of years have seen that we’re very focused, that we’re principled, that under Peter Dutton’s leadership, we stand for the things that will make Australians life easier. But the truth is, Andrew, politics is an arm wrestle. There’s no silver bullet, there’s no knockout blow. You’ve got to get up every single day and convince the Australian people as to why your vision for the country is better. I must say it’s relatively easy when you have a Prime Minister like Anthony Albanese who breaks promises at will, just constantly breaks promises. And you alluded to another potential broken promise and also a Prime minister who’s so disconnected from what is happening with household budgets, the pressure that families are feeling with cost of living, the pressure they’re feeling, paying their mortgages, the pressure, paying their energy bills, even though the Prime Minister promised them energy relief of $275 a year. So Australians are hurting. We’ve got a prime minister who thinks they’ve never had it better and our job will be to side with Australians, fight for them. And I think if we do so, Andrew we’ll be very competitive at the next election.

Andrew Clennell: I wanted to ask about the Government’s proposed religious freedom changes. What do you make of the Prime Minister’s approach on this?

Michael Sukkar: It’s extraordinary. I mean, he went to the election making this promise. He’s now saying he won’t proceed with bipartisan support. Well, that’s quite an extraordinary statement. And the consultation that the government’s undertaken on this has required religious leaders, religious organisations to sign non-disclosure agreements. When the coalition went through this very laborious process of consultation, it was all done publicly, all draft bills, exposure drafts were released publicly for people to digest and disseminate in a number of different forums. This has been cloaked in secrecy and we see an open letter from a range of leaders – Christian, Muslim, Orthodox, a number of religious organisations who have educational facilities expressing their deep concern with what the government’s proposed. So you’ve got the alarm bell being run by the organisations who run religious schools, who educate millions of Australian children if they haven’t been brought to the table, if they haven’t been convinced of these changes. How on earth does Anthony Albanese think he’s going to get bipartisanship?

Andrew Clennell: Alright, there’s been a report this morning that Building Skills Australia is warning there’s not enough tradies to meet the Government’s housing target. What did you make of that?

Michael Sukkar: Well, it’s just another example of how the Labor Party’s fake target can never be met. We saw data just a couple of weeks ago reported in The Australian that showed that their 1.2 million home target they would miss by anywhere from 200,000 to 400,000. I mean, we’re not talking about missing it by a small margin. We’re talking about the promise being broken by hundreds of thousands of homes. We’ve seen new homes at their lowest levels for over ten years, we’ve seen new home buyers at their lowest levels since the global financial crisis. We see rents up by 26 per cent, we see, surging and record migration. And yet on the skills lists, the sorts of skills that are involved in the construction of homes have not been dialed up. We’ve seen students dialed up. Obviously we saw 548,000 migrants to the end of the September quarter, absolute record levels of migration. Yet, the government’s not using those places to bring in the people with the skills to build homes. They’re bringing in predominantly students. So we’ve got a migration program that’s not helping build homes. All we’ve got is a migration program that’s putting more pressure on the market. We’ve now got vacancy rates at a national level sitting at 1%, and in many markets it’s below 1%, as I said, rents up by 26 per cent, a government that has absolutely opened the floodgates to migration with no idea of where those people would live. And that’s why we see Labor’s housing crisis, where it is right now.

Andrew Clennell: On the Government’s help to buy legislation. Then why is the Opposition so opposed to it? Because in some ways it can be compared to your super for housing first home buyers policy. People argue it might drive up prices, but at least it helps first time buyers in the market.

Michael Sukkar: Well, Andrew, to be frank, their so-called help to buy scheme is so tiny and insignificant, it’s barely worth talking about. But the truth is we’ve got shared equity programs throughout the country. If you want to co-own a home with the government, which let’s be frank, very few Australians want, but if you do want to do that, there are state governments who offer you shared equity places. In New South Wales, for example, 94 per cent of the shared equity places are still available. They’re unused. Only 6 per cent of them have been taken up because people don’t want to co-own a home with the government and this help to buy scheme, which is now already more than 12 months late, it was supposed to start on the 1st of January last year – has so many unanswered questions. If your income goes above the required levels, will you be forced to sell your home? Who covers the repairs and maintenance on the house? If the government owns 40 per cent of your home and you need to spend thousands of dollars fixing the roof – Why would it be that the home owners responsibility to fix that roof without a contribution from the government? Because let’s remember under that scheme the government gets a whack that 40 per cent back at the end. So there are so many reasons why Australians don’t really use shared equity schemes. There’ll be a very small number that do, and anyone that wants to use a shared equity scheme can do so now because they’re already available. And it’s a shame that two years into this government, the only thing that could come up with was a half baked plan that just replicates what happens in the States and they haven’t delivered any other home ownership policy in two years in the midst of a housing crisis. It’s quite remarkable.

Andrew Clennell: Alright. Just finally, nearly out of time – there was a Liberal pre-selection for Kooyong, last night, Amelia Hamer was preselected. Can we assume this is the end of any speculation Josh Frydenberg will run again?

Michael Sukkar: Well, look, Josh has made his position clear, but we we know Josh was supporting and will support a number of candidates, including Amelia Hamer in Kooyong. We will all get behind Amelia. She’s an outstanding individual and let’s be frank – I’m a bit biased, but I think we have preselected a number of outstanding candidates, particularly here in Victoria with the Liberal Party, whether it’s Amelia, whether it’s Manny Cicchiello in Aston, whether it’s Theo Zographos in Chisholm, whether it’s our candidate in Monash, Mary Aldred. We’ve got a number of outstanding candidates and Amelia is just another one who’s going to fly the flag and work really hard for her community, a community she’s grown up in, that she’s passionate about and that I’m very hopeful will represent in our parliament.

Andrew Clennell: Michael Sukkar, thanks so much for your time this morning.

Michael Sukkar: Thank you, Andrew.

ENDS