Michael Sukkar MP

Interview with Tom Connell – Sky News Australia

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

TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW WITH TOM CONNELL – SKY NEWS AUSTRALIA

Wednesday 25 September, 2024

TOPICS: Housing, Negative Gearing

E&OE

Tom Connell: Is Labor mulling over changes to the capital gains tax? It clearly was not ruled out by the Prime Minister today, albeit we’ve got that, no plans. Joining me now is Shadow Housing Minister Michael Sukkar. Thank you for your time. Spoken to the Greens today, obviously they welcome this, the Teal MPs or Kate Chaney is saying she’d look at the changes before making up her mind. We don’t know what Labor’s planning. It might be pretty minimal. Would you look at what they’re proposing? First of all.

Michael Sukkar: Well, we know that Labor would love to change the negative gearing settings. They took it to two elections. They were rejected by the Australian people twice and the entire Cabinet has argued in favor of abolishing negative gearing. So it’s not really a huge surprise to hear that they’ve been doing modelling and we’ve suspected this for a while. We don’t support it. We think that the worst thing you can do for Australia’s housing market is tax housing more. If you want less of something, you tax it more, you want people to smoke less, you increase cigarette excises If you want fewer homes built, if you want fewer homes available for renters, if you want less investment in housing, you tax it more, and housing is already one of the most significantly taxed parts of the Australian economy and piling more taxes on Australian mum and dad investors we think would be a terrible outcome for first home buyers, for renters and for anybody aspiring to ever own a home.

Tom Connell: What if the federal government can look at the other taxes and there are lots of them in particular on new homes and find a way to reduce them? Would that would that get your attention?

Michael Sukkar: Well, I think you’ve got to look at what the Labor Party have proposed more broadly and what they have confirmed that they’re looking at, and that is higher taxes on Australian mum and dad investors. And the thing that I find quite remarkable about it all, Tom, is that in front of the Parliament right now we have a bill from this government to reduce taxes on foreign fund managers who would own Australian rental stocks. So, simultaneously they want to reduce taxes, but Blackstone and Vanguard and foreign fund managers to presumably own thousands of Australian rental properties, but they want mum and dad, investors, nurses, teachers and policemen to be paying higher taxes. So, lower taxes for foreign corporates and higher taxes for Australian mum and dad investors. It seems like quite a remarkable dichotomy that they haven’t thought through very well. In the Coalition we want Australian housing stock to be owned by Australians, not by foreign corporates. And if the foreign corporates have somehow been able to jawbone this government into creating preferential tax arrangements for them, the question really here is on who do we want to own our rental stock? A third of Australians rent. Someone’s got to own that rental stock. It’ll either be Australian mum and dad investors or it’ll be foreign fund managers. The Labor Party is seemingly going down the path of saying – we want, less Australian mum and dads owning our rental stock and we want foreign corporates owning that rental stock – we will absolutely oppose that – it would be terrible for Australians and a terrible outcome.

Tom Connell: Well, those sort of foreign corporates would be build to rent. Traditionally in Australia the individual investor wants their own house. They can sell when they want and so not build to rent. What would you say is a flip side to this…

Michael Sukkar: Sorry, the point I’m making here is a third of people rent and I don’t think anyone’s really suggesting that that’s going to drastically change. It’s been that way for quite some time. So, if a third of Australians rent, that means someone’s got to own that housing stock. And so the question we have before us is that housing stock that renters have, is that going to be owned by Australian mum and dad investors, which is largely the situation we’ve got now – or will it be owned by large foreign corporates?

Tom Connell: But mum and dad investors don’t really want to buy a build to rent, do they? Which is what that particular policy is aimed towards.

Michael Sukkar: We’ve already got build to rent in this country. We’ve got Australian businesses who build and rent. I mean the largest build to rent provider in this country is Meriton. That’s an Australian business that’s been doing it for a very long time. They haven’t needed a tax cut to do so. So the Government’s…

Tom Connell: It’s a pretty small segment right now, though. So this is about growing that.

Michael Sukkar: No, but what it’s doing is it’s creating an entirely new tax arrangement for foreign corporates to own our rental stock. And so the question is, do we want Australians owning our rental stock or do we want foreign corporates owning our rental stock?

Tom Connell: I do want to move on. Let me ask you then, do you concede the ground has shifted a little bit in terms of a lot of the polling on this, that the extent to which the housing crisis has grown has led more people, including older Australians, to wonder if some tweaks might be needed here?

Michael Sukkar: Well, who knows, Tom. I think the what the government should do is come out and say that they are going to cease running their world record level migration of a million people over two years. We had the latest data which showed in the last 12 months, 510,000, so they’re still on track for a million over two years, which is what they did in their first two years of government. The best thing that could do to put downward pressure on rents, to improve affordability, is to ensure that the number of houses we’re building is married to and connected to and has reference to our migration program. We’re building fewer homes now than were being built under the former Coalition government, yet we’ve massively dialed up migration. So, if the suggestion is because Labor’s created such a terrible housing crisis that people are willing to look at other options, potentially that’s true. But I think instinctively Australians know the last thing we need is higher taxes on housing.

Tom Connell: Not so you can put it all on Labor – two and a bit years into their term, it’s a pretty long sort of rolling issue. Anyway, we’ll have to leave it there. Michael Sukkar, talk soon, thank you.

Michael Sukkar: Thanks, Tom.

ENDS