Michael Sukkar MP

Constituency Statement: Housing

Yesterday at the National Press Club, I made it very clear to Australians that the coalition, unlike the Labor government, won’t accept a generation of Australians not having the same opportunities for home ownership that previous generations of Australians have enjoyed. Based on the track record of this government, we know that first home buyers are not a priority of this government. We know that not enough houses have been built, and there are falling rates of completions, approvals and, of course, first home buyers. On every single metric, housing has gone backwards under the Albanese government, compared to under the coalition government. Meanwhile, while we are building, completing and approving fewer homes and there are fewer first home buyers, Labor has run the biggest migration program in a generation, with more than 1.4 million overseas arrivals and the government having absolutely no idea where those people will live.

We’ve also made it very clear that we understand that the deposit hurdle is just too high for many people trying to break into the housing market. So it begs the question as to why on earth the Labor Party would be trenchantly standing in the way of first home buyers getting access to a portion of their own money in superannuation, which they could put towards a deposit to get into a new home and then put it back into their super at the end, ensuring that their money is working for them to help them get into a new home.

Under this government, access to finance has also become even harder. A big four bank CEO has stated publicly that if you’re not wealthy, it’s very difficult to get finance in this country. Yet we’ve seen nothing from this government. But what did we see this week? We finally saw the Labor Party prioritising foreign corporate landlords over Australian mums and dads owning Australian housing stock. We have the government now, in their alliance with the Greens, inviting foreign corporate funds, vulture funds and private equity to come to Australia with the most advantageous tax rates possible—better than any Australian could get—in order to own tens of thousands of homes in this country.

The coalition does not want the failed US corporate model here. We want Australians to own Australian homes. That’s why this unholy alliance between the Greens and the Labor Party is leaving Australians behind. Let’s not mention the fact that construction costs that are borne by first home buyers at the end have been exacerbated by the Labor Party buckling to the CFMEU. The criminal CFMEU has pushed up the costs of first home buyers, who are ultimately the ones who wear those extra costs.

Click here for a PDF of the Hansard extract for this speech.