Ben Fordham:
Michael Sukkar, the Housing Minister and Assistant Treasurer, is on the line. Michael, good morning to you.
Minister Sukkar:
Good morning, Ben. Great to be with you.
Ben Fordham:
Nice to be with you. Many builders say that the timeframe of HomeBuilder is too narrow because you must enter into a contract by December 31. The builder has to start work within three months and builders argue that it’s too hard to get a contract signed and shovels in the ground in that timeframe. What do you say?
Minister Sukkar:
Well obviously, a lot of consultation with the industry went into this. Effectively, what is going to happen in about late August, early September is that a lot of the pipeline of work will end so what we’re really trying to do is bring forward as much work as we possibly can for the second half of this year. That requires you to create a sense of urgency and some pretty strict timelines on getting work done and as you rightly pointed out, there are a whole lot of people looking to buy that new house-and-land package, that new first home or apartment or to undertake a major rebuild of their existing home, who put it all on ice when coronavirus hit. This is targeted to be the catalyst for them to say, ‘you know what? Let’s press the button on it, we pulled back, we were going to do it’, and that’s what the building industry has said has happened, that so much of that work that was going to – for want of a better term – enter the pipeline, stopped. This program brings that forward, makes people make those decisions and as we’ve seen over the weekend, over $200,000 people have visited the website, we’ve had over 12,000 registrations, we think that this is going to do exactly what we thought, which is to be the catalyst for people buying their first home, upgrading a home, or – as you say – undertaking a major rebuild of an existing home.
Ben Fordham:
Okay, $150,000 is a lot of money to spend on a renovation which is why I said that it’s probably not suited to people who are renovating, and people are wondering why that is the minimum amount that you have to spend. Is it aimed at trying to rort-proof the scheme so that only serious applicant need-apply?
Minister Sukkar:
Well partly, Ben. The way that we looked at this is, how do we keep tradies working for the second half of this year? From our perspective – whether that’s on a new house-and-land package greenfield site or whether that’s on a major rebuild or renovation in the suburbs – to us, a job is a job. So, we wanted to extend it to those major sorts of projects, not tiny renovations but really big projects and rebuilds because to us, a job is a job. But you’re right, what we didn’t want was pink batts 2.0 where dodgy brothers go door-to-door getting people to sign up for a free kitchen or bathroom, you could just imagine where that would go, not just from a rorting perspective but some of the dangers from the pink batts scheme. So, here, this requires people to have skin in the game, it’s got to be a big project that employs a lot of trades. Again, we don’t want a program where basically people are installing flat-pack kitchens from Ikea funded by the taxpayer. That doesn’t create jobs in Australia. We want tradies on-site, big projects, big re-builds but, as you rightly say, 80 per cent of this program will be for people who buy your typical house-and-land package in the outer suburbs or regional areas. That’s where the overwhelming number of people will be and of that group, the majority will be first homebuyers, so we thought that this was a great opportunity to keep tradies in work but also help first homebuyers get into the market as well.
Ben Fordham:
Just a few more quick ones. To be eligible, you have to have an income of less than $125,000 or $200,000 for couples but people on higher incomes are more likely to have money to spend. Why are they banned from this stimulus scheme if the aim is to kick-start the economy, who cares where the money is coming from?
Minister Sukkar:
It’s a fair point, Ben. I suppose when you start moving those parameters, obviously the cost of the scheme gets much larger. We also think that it’s fair to target these things to the people where the $25,000 is likely to be the greatest catalyst. Obviously the higher your income, the higher the house prices that you’re looking to buy, the less likely that $25,000 is to be that catalyst. Now of course, again, if there was an inexhaustible amount of funds, you could do that but $200,000 for a couple covers 80 per cent of our population, 80 per cent of Australians fall into that category. So, we think pegged at that level, and I might also say, for example, that in New South Wales, this complements existing schemes. So, there’s a $10,000 first homebuyers grant in New South Wales, there house price cap is $750,000, as ours is. So, a first homebuyer in New South Wales, with our $25,000, will get $35,000. So, we’ve tried to align some of those parameters – both income and house price caps – to a lot of the state-based schemes, so that they work hand-in-glove.
Ben Fordham:
Yes or no. Can you access the grant to build a granny flat?
Minister Sukkar:
No, you can’t. It’s got to be attached to your home; it cannot be detached. It can’t be a swimming pool or a tennis court or a spa, it’s got to be something that improves the primary residence itself.
Ben Fordham:
And another quick one. The Government’s free childcare program is ending early on July 12. Are you going to pull the pin on JobKeeper early too?
Minister Sukkar:
As Dan Tehan said…interrupted.
Ben Fordham:
JobKeeper? Yes or no?
Minister Sukkar:
There’s a review into JobKeeper…interrupted.
Ben Fordham:
So, you could pull the pin on it early?
Minister Sukkar:
Oh no, no. Look, there’s a review being undertaken by Treasurer at the moment and what we’ve said is that – and I think that it was very reasonable at the beginning – let’s assess this really large scheme halfway through, that’s what we’re going to do. The childcare sector is a unique example obviously because we put in place free childcare for a period of time, but the industry now wants to get back to a level of business-as-usual. As for JobKeeper more broadly, I don’t want to get in front of what the review is going to ultimately say but I think that we can all see that ongoing supports, to some degree, are going to be required.
Ben Fordham:
We appreciate your time and we’ll talk to you again.
Minister Sukkar:
Good on you, Ben. Thanks so much.