Alan Jones:
Minister, Good Morning and Good Luck.
Michael Sukkar:
Good morning, Alan. Great to be with you.
Alan Jones:
Thank you. Well, on the one hand, you've got things like Opal Tower in Sydney but these are only manifestations of a wider issue. Mascot Towers, engineers who oversee the work on our homes, apartments and bridges, roads and rail and so on, are said to not have the appropriate qualifications. We had a building boom, we attract all these engineers. No one seems to know now the quality of the building project. Now, I know it's not a Commonwealth responsibility but this is a national issue, isn't it? The prospect that people are buying property and they can't live in it and they can't sell it. What do you do?
Michael Sukkar:
Well Alan, of course, any issue that effects large numbers of people is something that we concern ourselves with as a Federal Government even though we don't have direct responsibility. Sadly, one of the vexed issues of housing in our country is that we have three levels of Government predominately at a state and local level, where there's responsibility obviously for planning and zoning and overseeing work. At a federal level, we control some levers but you don't have any single level of Government that is almost a one-stop-shop and that's the vexed issue.
Alan Jones:
You're right that's the problem. It is. I mean, and then you've got the cladding issue. You've got Chris Stoltz, the Victorian President of Engineers Australia, said chillingly last year "I wouldn't be surprised if there were scores of buildings in each capital city, and maybe in some of the regional cities, that are made of this flammable material". My God.
Michael Sukkar:
Well, Alan, there's no doubt that it's a significant issue. I know there were many in the industry who sounded the alarm bells when all of a sudden the costs of cladding was coming down dramatically and they were making the point-how could those costs in some cases have halved or less without it having some impact on quality? This has been an issue that has been around for many years. I'm not going to be gratuitously critical of state governments but they do collect many, many billions of dollars from the property industry which is not collected from the industry, it is in the end, collected from people who buy homes. Those sorts of issues, I think, our view was, should have been dealt with in a more…interrupted.
Alan Jones:
I know but let me ask you a simple question. Supposing you're married – I'm not talking about you but any person out there listening to you now. Married, got children, and their big ambition is to own a property. They bought one and they paid stamp duty, very significant amounts of stamp duty. Tens of thousands of dollars. They're now told they can't live there. They equally know they can't sell it. But they've got to continue to pay a mortgage because they owe the bank and they've got to find rent. And they can't do it. What nationally – you're the Housing Minister, it's not your responsibility but as you said, we're our brother's keeper – what do you say to these people?
Michael Sukkar:
Well obviously those sorts of circumstances are personally devastating for those people. They've done the right thing…interrupted.
Alan Jones:
And they think that no one cares. No one's doing anything for them.
Michael Sukkar:
Well, I mean, my view is, and the Government's view is quite clearly from the roundtable that Minister Karen Andrews had with her state counterparts last week, is that the states really need to step up to the plate here and for those people in those instances and those circumstances who have done nothing but abide by every rule, my view is if governments – particularly state governments – aren't there to protect them then…interrupted.
Alan Jones:
I know. But Michael my point to you is this. The mortgage has got to be paid tomorrow. On a property they can't live in or can't sell. Then they've got to find rent. They've got to put food on the table, clothe their kids. I mean, why shouldn't we know, how many buildings across the country contain structural weaknesses or flammable components? We don't know. Are you living in one? I don't know. Am I? I don't know. They reckon this building I'm broadcasting from has got a flammable problem? I don't know. Isn't that government's job to tell us these things?
Michael Sukkar:
I couldn't disagree with you, Alan. As much as I might try, I can't disagree with your assessment of course. The full extent of this I don't think is completely understood by state governments, no doubt. I know they're doing a lot of catch-up work to make sure that they are appraising themselves of the full set of consequences not just in flammable cladding but other structural issues. I think my point would be, Alan, of the available evidence in front of us, the vast majority of these types of projects are very sound, are very safe. There is a group that don't fall into that category and of course, we're encouraging our state counterparts to do everything they can to make those people whole because they are the innocent victims in all of this.
Alan Jones:
I know you're right but you see, governments take the stamp duty but now they don't take the responsibility. Shouldn't we at least, if someone's being told to get out of your property, give them back the stamp duty? I mean, they can't live there, they can't sell it. They've got to find money to pay for rent. I find it unbelievable. I mean, you buy a toaster at Harvey Norman and it doesn't work, you take the toaster back and you get another one.
Michael Sukkar:
Alan, it's not just stamp duty. They have development approvals, they have land tax, a range of, I mean, it's into the many, many billions of dollars. And this is an issue, particularly the cladding issue, that has been reasonably well understood for at least the last five or six years. So, you know, you would've expected that government's at a state level…interrupted.
Alan Jones:
But aren't you going to pull these people together. I mean, Michael, do we have a national building code, which amongst other things, tells us who's liable when there's unsafe cladding or there's rectification that has to occur on buildings when structural damage has to be repaired. Surely some code spells out liability? And if not, why not?
Michael Sukkar:
Well look, it does, Alan. I mean the issue in all these circumstances as you're well aware is that often the horse has bolted by that stage. I mean, a much better process is to ensure that these projects are built properly to start with because often, the offending individuals or the offending organisations don't have any money to, in the end, deal with the problems they've created. So it's much better to have a set of circumstances that ensures that projects are done properly.
Alan Jones:
I know but we don't have that, do we.
Michael Sukkar:
We're not in that situation.
Alan Jones:
No, we're not. Now look, I've run out of time here but I want to get you back on next week or later this week to talk about, not that, but the positive side. The first home salary sacrifice plans and others given the current interest rate structure. So we'll make time for you to come on in the next couple of days.
Michael Sukkar:
That would be great, Alan.
Alan Jones:
Thank you for your time. That's the Federal Housing Minister.