Michael Sukkar MP

Interview with Thomas Oriti –  ABC NewsRadio

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

TRANSCRIPT

 INTERVIEW WITH THOMAS ORITI –  ABC NEWSRADIO

Thursday, 22 June 2023

TOPICS: Housing Australia Future Fund, The Voice

E&OE

Thomas Oriti: They may not be able to agree on a final housing policy, but there’s no dispute between the major parties that Australia is tied up in a very complex housing crisis. The cost of rent, not to mention buying a place to tie rental vacancies are at all time lows. There’s little land zoned and ready to be built on, planning Processes can be slow and increased migration, many would argue, is tightening the squeeze as well. That dogfight of trying to secure a safe and affordable rental has burst through the perimeters of major cities, reaching deep into some of the most vulnerable regional communities as well. The Labor Government’s signature policy to provide $500 million a year for social and affordable housing has this week been blocked by both sides of the aisle, by both the Greens and the Coalition in the Senate? The Greens want more. They want a freeze on rent prices. The Coalition, however, has blocked the bill for different reasons. We wanted to get the Coalition stance on this today. Joining us now is the Shadow Housing Minister, Michael Sukkar. Good morning. Thank you very much for your time.

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

Thomas Oriti: So why I must admit, we’ve spoken to the Greens quite a lot about their stance on it. We had the Housing Minister on earlier this week, but I’m interested to hear from you. Why is the Coalition blocking the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill?

Michael Sukkar: Well, we’ve never supported this announcement from the Labor Party. It’s a fairly dodgy money-go-round. It’s a fund that’s set up $10 billion of borrowings, which we estimate will cost Australian taxpayers about $500 million a year in interest in management fees. And it’s the returns on that $10 billion, if there are returns, that may or may not be there in the future for social and affordable housing. So it relies on positive investment returns out of the Future Fund. Last year, for example, the Future Fund lost money. So not only would a fund like that not have delivered any money for social and affordable housing, Australian taxpayers would have paid hundreds of millions of dollars for the borrowing and not had $0.01 to show for it in social and affordable housing. So our message to the government has been if you want to invest in social and affordable housing as the former Coalition did, you’ve got to do it from your budget. The reality is here they’ve tried to set up this fund for one exclusive purpose, and that’s to make sure it doesn’t hit the budget bottom line. And that’s not a good enough reason to have such doubt over whether there would ever be any money for social housing.

Thomas Oriti: Hang on, didn’t they come to a compromise with the Greens recently about putting more money upfront each year?

Michael Sukkar: They’ve certainly compromised on indexation and other things. But the basic point here is you’ve got to fund with the investment returns fueling the spend on social and affordable housing, that does not change.

Thomas Oriti: Okay, you’re saying it’s dodgy and it’s a gamble. So what would you do then? You say the money’s coming from the budget. Give us a figure then. How much would you have invested in social?

Michael Sukkar: You’ve got to invest directly. When I was housing minister, we set up the National Housing Finance Investment Corporation, the single biggest investment into social and affordable housing from a federal government in this country, took a lot of work to establish an entirely new Commonwealth body to support community housing providers to funnel more than $5 billion through our bond aggregator into community housing providers. Another billion dollars set aside for the enabling infrastructure for projects around social and affordable housing. But let’s not get caught up just in the Government’s vortex here, Tom. They’re bringing in one and a half million people over five years and a serious answer to the Australian people is, oh, well, we’ll build 30,000 homes over that period in order to house those one and a half million people. It is preposterous.

Thomas Oriti: Sorry, back to my question, sorry to be rude, but what would you have done just to clarify, the Coalition’s position. What would you have done if the government was elected?

Michael Sukkar: I just outlined to you what I did do. What I did do as a Minister, which is which is far superior to what someone would hypothetically do, I’ve told you what I did do.

Thomas Oriti: Yeah.

Michael Sukkar: And what I did do was direct budget spending. That’s what you do. Could you imagine if I came to the ABC and said, we’ll fund the ABC next year, but will put $10 billion into a fund if there are returns from that fund, all of the ABC staff get paid, If there’s no return next year though, I’m sorry, you won’t get a pay packet. You can’t fund programs like that. We wouldn’t accept any area of public policy being funded in that way. That’s being described by this government.

Thomas Oriti: Is it my understanding that we are indeed far from direct investment, though? Wasn’t there a concentration on superannuation, that sort of thing as well? Just remind us, you know, more than a year after the election, remind us what you would have gone into the election doing. That’s what I’m trying to get my head around. There was a concentration on the use of super, for example, to buy a home.

Michael Sukkar: Well, that’s a very separate issue. Yes, we are very focused on people who are trying to get over the deposit hurdle of buying their own home. But let’s remember this social and affordable housing fund does not help anybody in the private rental market, doesn’t help anybody trying to save for a first home. These are social and affordable homes that will potentially, if they’re ever built, which I think there’s big questions over, would help with public housing and state housing waiting lists. So, the policy we took to the election was very different and we are very focused. We have not given up on the Australian dream of owning your own home. The Labor Party does not talk about home ownership. They talk about building social and affordable and public homes that the vast majority of Australians would never get an opportunity to live in. So yes, to the election we took a policy to enable first home buyers to access a portion of their super to put towards a deposit to buy their own home, because we think Australians should have a realistic prospect of owning their own home. Not that you would ever hear that come out of the woods of a Labor Minister.

Thomas Oriti: Can I just ask you then about because rent caps have come into the discussion here. Now I know that’s a view of the Greens, but, but can I just ask you what your position is on rent caps? The Greens want to see that in in the States in order to support this bill. Do you have a view on that?

Michael Sukkar: No, rent caps don’t work. I mean, rent caps are trying to address the symptoms and not the problem. The problem here is the lack of supply. We’ve got wall to wall Labor governments now and we see supply going backwards, we say approvals down. We see dwelling starts down, we see first home buyers down, we see rents up, we see mortgages up. This is what we’ve seen after 12 months of the federal Labor government working with State Labor governments in my home state of Victoria, for example, the state Labor government just put a new tax on which will add $65,000 to the average lot of a first home buyer home, a small 400 made a square block with a humble home. They’ve added $65,000 in additional taxes. So the the Labor Government in Canberra says one thing, but working in cahoots with their counterparts in the States are doing something drastically different that is driving down supply. We’ve got a new home dwellings down to their lowest level since the Gillard government and at the same time we have this bizarre situation where the Government says yes, we’re bringing in one and a half million people over five years with absolutely no clue where those people will live.

Thomas Oriti: But no one’s arguing that it’s a challenging scenario. Can I just ask you about the political risk though? I mean, is there a risk for the Coalition in blocking this bill if it were to lead? And that’s the speculation, of course, to the Senate being dissolved and reelected.

Michael Sukkar: Oh, look, everyone will have their views on the politics. I’d be very happy to go to an election with Labor’s housing failure as the centerpiece of that election. I think that would be a very heroic position for the Labor Party to take. As I said, these are not my figures. New homes dwellings are down at lows we have not seen for over ten years. First home buyers are down, new home starts are down, rents are drastically up, mortgages are up. If the Labor Party want to go to an election defending that record, we’d be very happy to do so.

Thomas Oriti: What do you mean? You just mentioned first home buyers, though the use of super. I mean, is there a risk that’s further entrenching people into debt and welfare dependency later in life?

Michael Sukkar: Absolutely not.

Thomas Oriti: That’s money intended for their retirement.

Michael Sukkar: Tom, It’s the exact opposite. So if you enter retirement, owning your home, your retirement outcomes are infinitely better. If you’re into retirement, not owning your home, your retirement income outcomes are infinitely worse. That is an undisputed fact. And in the end, our policy, Tom, gives you the option. You get to choose. You can leave it in super for the next 40 years, or you can use a portion of it to buy a home. Now, it’s your choice. And we think people should have the ability to choose how they spend their own money and super is your money. It’s not somebody else’s money. It’s your money.

Thomas Oriti: And as you say, look, obviously, you know, a key distinction between social and affordable housing and buying your own home. I just want to while I’ve got you there, just another matter, the indigenous voice to parliament, if you don’t mind. The Coalition is reportedly we’re reading in the Australian accusing the Government of trying to retrofit its narrative around the proposal after the Prime Minister tried to assure Australians there’d be no legal limits imposed on the scope of the voice. Can I just ask you about that? I mean, isn’t changing or amending things as you go when you learn new things from experts in the area potentially a responsible move?

Michael Sukkar: Look, that’s a very charitable way of putting it, Tom. We’ve got we’ve got the Yes campaign, including the prime minister. Now. They refuse to say the word voice. All they want to talk about is recognition. Everybody supports recognition, but the voice is is not purely recognition. We also have a situation where the Prime Minister’s saying different things to different audiences. When he goes out and does a press conference, he says to Australians, This is a very modest request, this is a very modest change. Then when he addresses other audience, he says we’re not going to limit ourselves to modest change, that, you know, this is ambitious. Then we see people on the referendum working group like Thomas Mayo, who make a whole lot of really outlandish statements about what they think the voice will do, which is, in their view, radically alter the Constitution. I happen to agree with Thomas May in that respect that he’s a radical, the most radical change to our Constitution and, you know, the prime minister needs to be honest and give people information. I’m sure you hear it, Tom, on ABC. I do ABC radio all the time and I listen to the talk back. People are yearning for information and they’re very skeptical because the government and the Yes campaign is going out of their way to hide so much detail and so much information in a sense saying to people, vote for the referendum on the Saturday, and then we’ll start giving you that detail on the Monday. Well most Australians, I don’t think, will accept that.

Thomas Oriti: We could talk about this for hours but afraid we’re out of time, Michael Sukkar, thank you very much for joining us. Appreciate it.

Michael Sukkar: Good on you, Tom. Thanks so much.

Ends