Michael Sukkar MP

Interview with Peta Credlin – Sky News

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

TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW WITH PETA CREDLIN – SKY NEWS

Wednesday, 16 August 2023

TOPICS: National Cabinet, Housing, Vic Labor, The War on Drugs

E&OE

Peta Credlin: Joining me to discuss this and more, Shadow Minister for Housing, the Federal Member for Deakin in Victoria, Michael Sukkar. Michael, thank you for your time. PM announced a plan today or set targets to build 1.5 million homes (this figure is actually 1.2 million). He says over the next five years there was talk about rent reforms. Of course, a lot of experts say they’ll only worsen supply challenges. Where do you think we landed today?

Michael Sukkar: Well, it was a complete fizzer, Peta, I mean – never has a meeting promised so much and delivered so little. There was nothing in what the Prime Minister spoke about today that will help people struggling with rising rent will help potential first home buyers trying to save that deposit to get into their first home. Or indeed for the millions of Australians with a mortgage who are struggling under skyrocketing mortgage repayments. There was nothing in there and what could not be spoken about by the Prime Minister today was his plan to bring in 1.5 million people over five years with absolutely no idea where they’re going to live. And as you rightly point out, they outlined their aspiration to build 1.2 million homes over five years. Well, it was only in October last year that they announced a target of 1 million homes over five years. And every single housing organisation has confirmed they’re going to fall short of that 1 million target because because the housing industry’s fallen off a cliff. In 2021 under the government, we had nearly 150,000 detached homes being built. Next year. The HIA expects that to be 94,000. So a more than 50% reduction. There’s absolutely no way that they will meet any of these targets and the problem, sadly for Australians, is going to get worse, not better, because the Labor Government’s intent on bringing in 1.5 million people – a city the size of Adelaide over that period of time.

Peta Credlin: You touch on a point there, I think that’s really powerful and that’s about the impact of ever higher migration because the Government liked to let you think at home that this is about a housing shortage issue, not enough houses being built. They’re not addressing the elephant in the room, which is population. But if you look at OECD data for Australian dwelling completions are very high on historical and international measures and our construction sector as a percentage of workforce workers is much, much higher than the rest of the OECD. So we’ve got the workers, we’re finishing the homes, but we’re not keeping pace with the number of people coming into Australia. Surely we’ve got to have a rational conversation and I’m asking the Coalition -you’ve got to lead it because Labor won’t. Surely we’ve got to have a rational conversation not about are we for or against migration, but what’s the optimal level for Australia given the housing crisis we’ve got?

Michael Sukkar: Well this is why today’s meeting was a fizzer. If you’re not willing to speak about record high levels of migration that the Labor Government is putting in place, then you’re not fair dinkum. I’m the product of migration, so I’m a great supporter of migration to this country, but it’s got to be planned migration and it’s got to be in the best interest of Australians that live here now. And this idea that a government can just say we’re going to open the door to 1.5 million people, with absolutely no clue where they are going to live is preposterous. And you’re right. By international standards, we do have a high proportion of homes built. Sadly, that’s going backwards, though, under this government’s watch, right at the time that they’re ramping up migration. So, again, I make the point whether you’re a renter, whether you’re trying to stay through that first home or whether you’ve got a mortgage, things are going to get worse over the next 12 to 18 months, not better. And nothing that the Prime Minister announced today is going to change any of that. He’s not held the states to account. He’s not requiring them to do anything. They’ve got these aspirational targets, to be frank, that they’ve all made before. Countless times they don’t meet them. And I suspect 12 months time, 18 months time, two years time, we’ll look back and we’ll see that none of these targets were met again, because today was not about getting outcomes – It was about trying to deal with a political problem for the Prime Minister because people are genuinely struggling with no leadership on housing from this government.

Peta Credlin: Right, a couple of local issues before I let you go. I know you keep a close eye on what’s happening in Victoria with Daniel Andrews. How is it that that Adam Somyurek on Labor’s right gets sacked for branch stacking but Lily D’Ambrosio in the Premier’s own faction survives? In fact, he’s back here in hard. She’s still in the cabinet, even though there’s examples of dead people having their signatures forged to stack branches in her electorate.

Michael Sukkar: Well, look, Daniel Andrews, he has cynically destroyed all of his internal opponents and done so in whichever way you can. That’s why he runs the Victorian Labor Party a bit like an emperor. Everything goes through him because he did use that as a pretext to destroy the natural balance of the Labor Party with those right leaders and it’s very clear that there’s one standard for his internal opponents and there’s another standard for his friends internally. We’ve seen it time and time again. This man does not have standards. There’s not a rule book or a series of ethics that he lives by he will ruthlessly exploit any situation for his own benefit. Victorians have seen it and I’ve got lots of friends in the Labor Party, Peta, and that’s their view of this man too. He just will ruthlessly exploit any situation for his own benefit and I think the Victorian Labor Party and the people there who are allowing him to do this, not just to our state but also to their party, are equally culpable because good people in the Labor Party need to stand up against this guy. And you know, if there was any consistency, he would have marched Lily D’Ambrosio out of the door as fast as he did the other ministers.

Peta Credlin: Alright, just quickly before we go, I know you’re supportive of a new book that’s just been launched about the scourge of street drugs written by the co-founder and patron of the Drug Advisory Council of Australia. Look, the left want to say we’ve lost the war on drugs, you know, to roll over and decriminalise it all. But I’d argue we haven’t even fought the war in recent years . We’ve gone soft on possession. And if you live in Victoria, the only answer seems to be just more and more injecting rooms.

Michael Sukkar: Well, great credit to Elaine Walters and the Drug Advisory Council of Australia and a great leader there, Jan Kronberg, who are doing good work here. The most devastate thing that we could do is take us off approach on drugs . And we’ve seen it in states in America, a number of states that have taken this very liberal approach to drugs. It destroys lives, it destroys families and Elaine Walters very eloquently outlines why the failed approaches in some jurisdictions of going easy on drugs is the absolute opposite to the path we need to take in Australia. I think fortunately in Australia we’ve got a lot of sensible people on both sides of politics who understand we need to be tough on illegal drugs and you know, long may that continue because the lives that I see destroy as a local member of Parliament, it is heartbreaking and the last thing we want to do is take the worst lessons of some other parts of the world and bring them to Australia.

Peta Credlin: Michael Sukkar, thank you.

Ends