Chris Kenny:
Let’s cross to Canberra and catch up with the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Housing, Michael Sukkar. Thanks for joining us, Michael.
First up, I just want to ask you, you announced a program on the weekend, its additional assistance for single parents looking to get into the housing market. This housing affordability issue is a big one at the moment. Just talking to people on the weekend about the way prices keep going up. Of course those people who are in the houses can’t believe the bonanza they’re getting but so many people are struggling to get into the market. Is this a problem of too much government support in the housing sector rather than putting more into it?
Minister Sukkar:
Well Chris we’ve certainly come a long way in twelve months. It was just twelve months ago that we had economists at the big four banks suggesting and forecasting that property prices could fall by 30 per cent. Along with the effective economic response of the Government, we’ve seen the housing market stabilise. We of course put in place, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the HomeBuilder program to support first home buyers, to support people who wanted to purchase a new home and of course to support the million people who work in the residential construction industry. It’s been an enormous success, it’s ignited the residential construction industry. Around the country, every big city, every regional centre, every small town, is now busier post-pandemic than they were pre-pandemic. What that has also done means that first home buyers are at their highest levels for nearly 15 years and what we did on the weekend - building on the very successful First Home Loan Deposit Scheme - we wanted to put in place extra measures to help people get over that deposit hurdle. The biggest announcement on the weekend was the particular assistance that we’re putting in place for single parents with the Family Home Guarantee, enabling single parents with dependent children to purchase a home with a deposit of as little as 2 per cent. We know, Chris, with interest rates where they are there are a lot of people renting, particularly single parents right now renting, who will be able to take advantage of the Family Home Guarantee and end up owning their own home with mortgage repayments that are about the same as what they’re paying in rent. So a really monumental announcement on the weekend. We also announced the New Home Guarantee - an additional 10,000 places for first home buyers to purchase a new home, further stimulus for the residential construction industry, and of course the expansion of the First Home Super Saver scheme .
Chris Kenny:
I notice with these schemes Labor’s only criticism is that they’re not bigger, they don’t help more people, they kind of like what’s happening which brings us to the big budget picture really and that is, have we lost the ideological divide when it comes to economic management because we’ve got high spending, big deficits, mounting debt from both sides, additional government spending, both sides of politics are down that path now? The idea of being fiscal conservatives seems to have been surrendered by you and Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg?
Minister Sukkar:
Well Chris don’t take the Labor Party’s surrender on these issues as a sign that this is bad policy. The Labor Party roundly criticised the HomeBuilder program. The Leader of the Opposition said it would be funding pearl taps and gold baths and what we know is that it is helping young, first home buyers get into the market. What you’ve seen with the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme, these are not huge outlays of money, they are wisely and sensibly using the government’s balance sheet to help people get into their own homes and that does not have a huge price tag attached as opposed to the Labor Party’s answer to all these things which is more and more government spending. So they’ve got maximum impact, these programs, but they don’t cost what you’re suggesting in your question, they’re very measured policies with a big impact.
Chris Kenny:
Just finally and quickly, Minister, if I may. Your former Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, is now campaigning against a Coalition candidate in a state by-election. Can he remain in the Liberal Party?
Minister Sukkar:
Chris, I’m focussed on the budget tomorrow, big 24 hours. I’m not really engaged in those sorts of things. Those are always matters for state divisions and I won’t weigh into it.
Chris Kenny:
Very well dodged. Good luck tomorrow.
Minister Sukkar:
Thanks so much, Chris.