Michael Sukkar MP

Interview with Stephen Cenatiempo – 2CC Talking Canberra

SHADOW MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES, NDIS, HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS AND MANAGER OF OPPOSITION BUSINESS

TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW WITH STEPHEN CENATIEMPO – 2CC TALKING CANBERRA

Tuesday 11 March, 2025

TOPICS: Housing Australia Future Fund, Election

E&OE

Stephen Cenatiempo: The Housing Australia Future Fund has been a key pillar of this government’s policy on, well, getting housing crisis under control, but it now has been debunked in Senate estimates, claims that it is actually building new homes. It’s been revealed that they’ve been fudging the books on this, they bought 340 homes rather than built any new ones. To talk to us more about this, we’re joined by the Shadow Minister for housing and homelessness, Michael Sukkar. Michael, Good Morning.

Michael Sukkar: Morning, Stephen. Good to be with you.

Stephen Cenatiempo: Correct me if I’m wrong, but this was all about increasing our supply of housing stock, not just moving it from one column to the other

Michael Sukkar: Well, correct, and after three years of the Labor government, we now know that they’ve built precisely zero homes since the last election. So not a single home has been built, not only under the Housing Australia Future Fund, but not a single home has been built under any policy put forward by this Labor government, and they tried to fudge the numbers by claiming that they built 300-odd houses. And it took us about one hour to debunk the entire story from the Sydney Morning Herald, who had clearly been fed these lines and had not done any research of their own to find out that they had bought homes and put them in the HAFF. Now all you’re doing is displacing housing that’s already there. The whole point, as you say, Stephen was for this Fund to provide finance to build new homes. And surprise, surprise, after three years of the Labor government, they’ve been able to precisely build zero.

Stephen Cenatiempo: So how do you turn this around, though, where I will defend the government on this, and I’ve been saying this since the very beginning, is that it’s been more than 50 years since a federal government actually build built houses themselves. You’re relying on state and territory governments to actually do the heavy lifting here. How does a coalition government do things differently?

Michael Sukkar: Well, I mean, firstly, the answer can’t be in government. I mean, if anyone thinks that the answer is in government building homes, then they’re going to be sorely disappointed. Just like a whole lot of people are sorely disappointed at the moment that we have the worst housing crisis on record. I mean, you have to create an environment where people actually are able to afford to build their own homes now, through a range of decisions from this government, including their cozy relationship with the CFMEU, who makes it 30 per cent more expensive to build a house than would otherwise be, these projects don’t stack up. You can’t build them. No developer, no builder, can make the numbers work, and that’s why homes are not being built. So you know, there’s no answers from this government. We’ve got fewer first home starts, fewer first home completions, fewer first home buyers, fewer approvals now and meanwhile, while we’re building fewer homes at record low levels, the government decided to ramp up migration and bring in more than 500,000 people per year. I mean, that’s the precise thing you wouldn’t do in a housing crisis. Bring in more than 500,000 people per annum with absolutely no idea where they’re going to live.

Stephen Cenatiempo: But Michael, why not think outside the square here, and I’m literally just making this up on the run, the federal government has access to a considerable amount of land that it could release for housing. It could circumvent the states and local government altogether and just build its own housing developments sell them at cost to first home buyers with conditions that say they’ve got to stay there for 10 years, or five years, or whatever it might be. And, you know, go back to some of those programs that we had during the sort of the 50s and 60s in Australia, and solve the problem yourselves, rather than rely on everybody else to do it.

Michael Sukkar: The truth is, the Commonwealth just doesn’t own enough land. I mean, most of most land is owned by states and territories.

Stephen Cenatiempo: But every little bit helps.

Michael Sukkar: Well, we do have a little bit of land holdings, but typically, I mean, trust me, Stephen, I looked into this very closely when I was Housing Minister. Most of the land we hold is former Defense land, which is very badly contaminated with, you know, every substance under the sun, because often they were munitions factories, or they were shooting ranges, and the rectification on most of those, and there aren’t many, by the way, around the country, are pretty small. I mean, what the government, what the federal government, can do, is ensure that the environment is in place, that it actually makes sense for people to build again. It actually makes sense for people to undertake developments again. States have the vast majority of the land, and they need to improve the amount of land that they release. They continue, and quite frankly, the ACT government is the worst offender here. They continue. You with this one-track policy of just thinking everyone wants to live in an apartment. Now, apartments will be there for some people who want them, but a lot of people still subscribe to The Great Australian Dream of their own little patch of dirt somewhere, and that’s why I think you’re right. Land releases are going to be a really important part of it, but Labor governments have this ideological opposition to house and land, and they want everyone to live in an apartment. And we know that people tend to vote with their feet. I mean, we see, whenever there’s a land release in the ACT region, you know, people are sleeping out in these queues, queues for miles. So I agree with your basic point, more land must be released. One of the things we’ve done is announce a $5 billion housing infrastructure program, which will basically do the job that the states should be doing, and that is to fund the critical infrastructure that actually makes those new land releases possible. So the water, the sewerage, the roads, the telecommunications. By wearing that cost, we just remove one extra barrier from those sorts of land releases, and we estimate that it will unlock about 500,000 homes around the country in hundreds of Greenfield sites where we’ve got land that is ready to be released, but there’s just no money for that infrastructure. So we’re attacking the problem that you’ve described, Stephen. in a slightly different way, but to achieve the same outcome,

Stephen Cenatiempo: Michael, the Prime Minister’s plan of holding an election on the 12th of April has now been scuppered by cyclone Alfred. It looks like we’ll go either May 3 or May 10. Is the Coalition ready for this? I mean, the government’s already out of the blocks. They’ve hit the ground running, albeit with a bunch of cash splashing. But it seems to me like you guys are dragging your feet a bit.

Michael Sukkar: No, no, we’re ready to go. I mean, the truth is that the Prime Minister’s been campaigning since the third of January. He’s not been governing. He’s been campaigning. The government has abjectly failed because they’ve been campaigning rather than governing. We’re ready to go. I mean, the truth is, Stephen, you know, the government decides when they shoot the firing gun and when the election in earnest starts. I promise you, by the end of the campaign you and all Australians will see a very significant suite of policies that we think will resonate with the Australian public, and there’s going to be plenty of time between now and the election to do it, had we listened to all the commentators and, you know, released all of our policies last year, well, there wouldn’t be that much to talk about on the eve of an election. So, you know, in good time before the election, we will outline a very significant suite of policies in virtually every area, which will highlight to Australians, the way in which we’re going to get Australia back on track after three very miserable years under this government,

Stephen Cenatiempo: The Latest News poll says that Australians don’t think you’re ready to govern yet. Have you got enough time to convince them?

Michael Sukkar: Well, I mean, I think the Australian public have rendered their judgment on this government, and I think, you know, that’s what election campaigns are all about. I mean, election campaigns will be there to test these things. And I think let’s take, let’s take these polls at the end of the campaign and after election day, rather than before. I understand why journalists get pretty antsy about these things, and they want everything now, but you know, you do have to have some things to talk about during an election campaign, Stephen, that’s been the tradition of Australian politics. And as much as I suspect the media would love us just to drop every election policy on day one, there are some things that, you know, we want to be able to talk to people when they’re focusing and one time when Australians are focusing on elections is during the campaign, and it’s at that time when you’ve got their attention that I think it’s an opportune time for oppositions to actually outline their alternative vision for the country.

Stephen Cenatiempo: I’d put it to you that when, when you’re sick of saying something, that’s when people you’re starting to get cut through, which is why, if you release them early and keep hammering them and hammering them, hammering them for the whole time, you’ll actually get them into people’s psyche. But I like to think a little bit outside the square when it comes to political campaigning, the traditionalists haven’t realised that times have changed, Michael.

Michael Sukkar: Well, look, I think we’ve spoken ad nauseum about our plan for our energy system, about massively reducing migration, a range of policies to help people buy first home, accessing up to $50,000 of their super, $5 billion to unlock 500,000 homes. As I said, the nuclear policy as part of a whole energy mix to provide base load power for this country, more affordable, cheaper power for this country. I’m pretty shocked that anyone who, if I had told you three years ago that we would outline early on in the piece, access to super for first home buyers, nuclear power for Australia, that anyone could seriously claim that the opposition has not put some pretty big policy out there. I’d be happy to compare our policy suite with any opposition in recent time.

Stephen Cenatiempo: Michael, good to talk to you. I appreciate your time.

Michael Sukkar: Thanks, Stephen.

ENDS