Lisa Millar:
Well back home now and while the HomeBuilder and New Home Guarantee schemes have been extended, renters look to be among the losers in this year’s Federal Budget. The Housing Minister and Assistant Treasurer, Michael Sukkar, joins us from Canberra. Good morning to you.
Minister Sukkar:
Good morning.
Lisa Millar:
Can I just start actually with this news coming out of America on Moderna? What difference is that going to make to the vaccine rollout in Australia?
Minister Sukkar:
Well Lisa it’s another step in the plank of ensuring that all Australians are vaccinated. It’s obviously diversifying the sources of the vaccinations. 10 million vaccinations and 15 million boosters in addition to what we’ve been able to secure through Pfizer, obviously through AstraZeneca and out sovereign capability with respect to manufacture as well. So it’s diversifying, it’s another step along the road of keeping Australians safe and ensuring that, in the end, we are able to offer Australians the opportunity to be vaccinated.
Lisa Millar:
Can you clear up some confusion over this, the messages over the last couple of days? We had the Treasurer saying that everyone would have two doses by the end of the year. That was on Tuesday. Then last night, the PM admitting ‘well, it’s a general assumption and the budget is not dependent on the rollout. Predictions could be a couple of months either way’. Are Australians going to have two doses of the vaccine by the end of the year?
Minister Sukkar:
Well, Lisa, I would just echo the Prime Minister’s remarks. In the end, yes, there are assumptions that are made as part of the budget, that’s how we put budgets together. For example, we have an assumption in the budget of when international travel resumes in mid‑’22. That’s not a government objective, it’s not a policy, it’s an assumption that underpins a range of aspects to the budget and the same can be said for the vaccine rollout. So assumptions in the budget don’t necessarily reflect a policy decision, they are a broad assumption. There are also differences in timing that the Health Minister spoke about yesterday between when you receive your first and second vaccine. I would just echo the Prime Minister’s remarks in that respect. We want to get all Australians vaccinated as soon as possible and offer that opportunity to Australians as soon as possible. There are so many ways in which the rollout is impacted by global factors, amongst others, very well known to you and your viewers, but we are working tirelessly to try and deliver that as soon as possible and assumptions in the budget are just that – they are assumptions of Treasury.
Lisa Millar:
Yeah but you know, there are assumptions of Treasury and the Prime Minister said that it won’t have a material impact on the budget, but what does it say to voters who have been watching this rollout of vaccines, handled so ineptly?
Minister Sukkar:
Well that’s a very loaded question, Lisa. I think that voters look at Australia on virtually any metric – whether you look at the health metrics, whether you look at the economic metrics – and we’re top of the leader board in virtually any way you measure our response to Covid‑19. So I don’t think Australians look at that with anything other than a sense of pride, pride in themselves first and foremost, for rising to the occasion throughout Covid‑19. I don’t think anybody could use the word ‘inept’ when describing Australia’s response to Covid‑19, Lisa. I’m very surprised you’d use that language…interrupted.
Lisa Millar:
I didn’t use it about the response to Covid‑19. There’s a general view that the vaccine rollout has not been handled well.
Minister Sukkar:
Lisa, we are at the top of the leader board virtually in any metric that you can describe. We’re working very hard to make sure Australians are able to access a vaccine as soon as possible, we’re seeing that ramp‑up. The Health Minister has been speaking about just the way in which that has ramped‑up and today’s announcement is another step along that plan of diversifying the places upon which we are able to source vaccines which, in the end, I think will – as we’ve done in our response to date – mean Australia can remain at the top of the leader board when it comes to the response to Covid‑19.
Lisa Millar:
Minister, can we turn to housing and a concern from some people that we’re still not making housing more affordable? The Grattan Institute in particular said that you’re tinkering at the edges here and that it’s not going to shift the needle, which needs to be done. Are you confident that what you’ve announced in this budget will actually help housing affordability for people?
Minister Sukkar:
We’re very proud of the announcements we made in the budget and I must say we’ve had an extraordinary reaction to our Family Home Guarantee, a policy that will now recognise the difficulties for single parents and will now allow them to purchase a home with a deposit of as little as two per cent because what we know for parents who are paying rent and trying to raise children is that it is very, very hard to get that deposit together. So jumping that deposit hurdle is the primary problem for them in getting into home ownership. Now with the Family Home Guarantee, it will allow them to purchase that home with a two per cent deposit. We’ve got first home buyers at their highest level for nearly 15 years. We’ve got owner‑occupiers who represent three quarters of the market which is an extraordinary difference to just a couple of years ago when investors were a much larger part of the market. We have, over a period of time, whether it’s the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme, the HomeBuilder program which has supported a million jobs in the residential construction industry, we have been building the planks necessary to help first home buyers in the market and that’s why…interrupted.
Lisa Millar:
But there’s a real problem out there isn’t there, Minister? There’s a huge shortage of supply of social housing and you’ve got, in regional Australia, 20 to 30 people who are turning up for an inspection on a rental property. There is a problem out there, isn’t there?
Minister Sukkar:
Well let me just complete what I was saying. So those planks that we’ve put together mean now that we’ve got first home buyers at really elevated levels which is good news. What the Government does in relation to rentals, we provide over $8 billion a year – not one‑off spending, $8 billion every year – of recurrent spending, $5.5 billion of Commonwealth Rental Assistance which helps people in social and affordable housing by giving them a payment towards their rent. We’ve also established the National Housing Finance Investment Corporation which partners with community housing providers who operate in all of our major cities, in all of our regional centres, in many country towns, who build social and affordable housing. Through our measures, through the bond aggregator, we’ve been able to support the construction of 2,500 new dwellings, we’ve supported another 6,500 dwellings. These are primarily responsibilities of states and territories but we’re very happy to support them and to help them meet their obligations. And I might add, in the budget, we also announced an additional $125 million to support states and territories in meeting those obligations and helping them increase their stock of social and affordable housing. So we’re supporting states and territories in meeting their obligations but the states and territories I think will need to do more work to meet some of the needs that you’re talking about.
Lisa Millar:
Just finally, you talk about all of that money, the debt of almost a trillion dollars in four years. How comfortable do you think that as a Liberal Party member that has railed against debt and deficits, how comfortable do you think your colleagues are going to be with that amount of money in debt?
Minister Sukkar:
Well we are always very concerned about the quality of the spend. I think when you look at the quality of the spend – whether it’s the JobKeeper program which supported 3.5 million employees, has kept tens of thousands of businesses alive, whether you look at the JobSeeker coronavirus supplement payments which supported 1.5 million people in a 1 in 100 Covid‑19 recession, whether you look at the HomeBuilder program, $2.5 billion to support a million jobs in the residential construction industry, help 130,000 people get into a home…interrupted.
Lisa Millar:
So you’re comfortable with that debt?
Minister Sukkar:
…it’s the quality of the spend, Lisa and I think by any measure, the quality of our spend has supported Australians, supported households, supported businesses, and in that respect, very comfortable.
Lisa Millar:
Minister, thanks for your time this morning.
Minister Sukkar:
Thanks Lisa.