Michael Sukkar MP

Matter of Public Importance: Housing

As we’ve seen this week, there are a litany of failures from this government. All you need to do to know that is listen to some of the questions from earlier today on the increased costs, whether it’s food, whether it’s gas, whether it’s electricity—indeed, every form of energy—or whether it’s insurance. And we highlighted today, though the Treasurer seemed a bit hazy on the numbers, that rents are up significantly, by 17 per cent. You wonder what on earth has occurred over the last couple of years, or indeed what hasn’t happened over the last three years of this Labor government, to lead us to this position.

I think the most stark statistic, the most stark data point, to highlight just how hopeless this government has been on housing is the question: how many homes have been built in this country as a direct result of an Albanese government policy or program? They’ve been in government for 990 days. They’re onto their second minister, who ruined the Home Affairs portfolio and has continued that form in the Housing portfolio. It’s been 990 days. We hear in question time and in press conferences, with hard hats and hi-vis, that the Albanese government wants to build more homes. How many homes is that after 990 days? To put it into some context: Australia needs to build a home every few minutes just to keep up with the more than one million migrants that have come into Australia as a result of this government jacking up our immigration program to levels we’ve never seen before. We need to build homes every few minutes. So, 990 days later, what would you think? How many thousands have been built? There must be tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. After 990 days, this government is responsible for zero homes being built in this country. Not one home has been built in Australia as the result of a policy implemented or put forward by this government.

The days of the Labor Party and their flowery words—’We want to build more homes. We want to get rents down’—mean nothing when the outcome is what it is. We’ve seen rents up 17 per cent. Again—surprise, surprise—when you bring in more than half a million migrants each year, competing for a dwindling supply of stock, what’s that going to do? It’s going to jack up prices. That’s what we saw: rents up 17 per cent. We’ve seen the Labor Party commit to 1.2 million homes over five years. I thought Utopia put an end to these sorts of things, to the very Rudd-esque grand proclamations of ambition, but, on the ambition of building 1.2 million homes, how are they tracking? Where are they on the journey to 1.2 million homes? I think most fair-minded people would say, if you’re around the mark, you might be 20,000, 30,000 or 40,000 homes short. That’s okay. We will give you points for trying. At least you’re getting close to the so-called target of 1.2 million homes. A startling piece of information was released recently which shows that, according to the Master Builders Association, the Labor Party is not going to miss their target of 1.2 million homes by a smidge. They’re not going to miss by a few thousand homes or tens of thousands of homes. They’re going to miss it by 375,000 homes. They’re going to be lucky to build 800,000 homes in five years.

To put that into some context, in the last five years of the coalition government, more than a million homes were built. In fact, Australia has regularly built more than a million homes in a five-year period. Not only does this government have the audacity to have the worst record on homebuilding, pushing into the ground of 800,000 homes, they still are going along and perpetuating this idea that their 1.2 million homes guarantee or promise is alive. It’s not alive; it’s dead in the water. They’re going to miss it by nearly 400,000 homes. With rents up, with fewer homes being built, with immigration at levels we have not seen at any time in Australia’s history in raw terms—and I say that as the product of migrants. I come from a migrant family. We in the coalition are the stewards of a planned migration program in this country. But you cannot bring in more than 500,000 migrants with absolutely no idea of where they’re going to live. That is what has happened under this government.

Now we see no discussion from the government on first home buyers at all. They have completely waved the white flag on homeownership. They are utterly unconcerned with a generation of Australians who quite rightly expect that they will have the same opportunities for homeownership that their parents had, their grandparents had and so on and so forth.

We hear nothing out of the government on homeownership, although we do see something from the government on support for first home buyers. We see on a regular basis the Minister for Housing spruiking this little program called the Home Guarantee Scheme, which allows first home buyers to get into their first home with a deposit of as little as five per cent. It’s a fantastic policy, because, without a policy like that, first home buyers would be required to save a full 20 per cent deposit before they are able to get into a home. We are massive supporters of that policy, because—guess what? It’s our policy; we legislated it. The only policy the Minister for Housing is running around the country spruiking is a policy we took to the 2019 election that those opposite called ‘socialism’, which was an interesting critique coming from them! They were critical of the Home Guarantee Scheme to start with and now are running around the country trying to own it as their own. We’re very flattered that the government is enthusiastically adopting the Home Guarantee Scheme, which I was very proud to legislate, implement and put together as housing minister. Success does have many fathers and mothers!

Every time the housing minister spruiks that program, it’s a proud coalition achievement, because the coalition is the party of homeownership in this country. She is accepting that, quite frankly, if Australians want support for first home buyers, the coalition is the only place to go. We will continue to be the place to go, including by allowing first home buyers to get access to apportion up to $50,000 of their own superannuation to put towards that deposit. We know the deposit hurdle is one of the hardest things any prospective first home buyer faces. There’s nothing that kills them more when they’re struggling to pay their rent and bills, live through this cost-of-living crisis from the Labor Party and save a bit of money for that deposit than looking at their super balance and seeing that a portion of it could be put towards their deposit. We’ll continue to support first home buyers, whether by allowing them access to a portion of their super—which then has to go back into their super at the end to protect their retirement savings—or whether it includes our housing infrastructure program, which will build 500,000 homes around Australia by investing in enabling infrastructure.

Of course, we reaffirm our commitment that, in the end, on this side of the House, we believe every single Australian should have an opportunity for homeownership. This government has betrayed those young Australians. This government has given up on those Australians, and I can assure young Australians who want to get into their own home: we have your back, and we’ll be supporting you every day between now and the election.

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