Mike O’Loughlin:
Michael Sukkar is the Assistant Treasurer, Minister for Housing and Minister for Homelessness, Social and Community Housing. Good morning to you, Michael.
Minister Sukkar:
Good morning, Mike. Great to be with you.
Mike O’Loughlin:
You’re visiting northern Tasmania today. Whereabouts?
Minister Sukkar:
I’m in Somerset at the moment, Mike and then I’ll be heading to Burnie a little later on. It’s been really wonderful here this morning. I’ve been with Gavin Pearce, the Member for Braddon and he’s doing a wonderful job and we’ve been meeting with a few businesses.
Mike O’Loughlin:
Tell me the Government says HomeBuilder is helping build a stronger Australia in 2021 by delivering effective support to protect the jobs of the million Australians employed in the construction sector. But you probably would have noticed with all of that, we still need more tradies and apprentices, don’t we?
Minister Sukkar:
Yeah, Mike, I must say it’s a good problem to have, the fact that our tradies and apprentices are so busy. I was in Perth just out of Launceston last week and we met with a builder there who has just taken on three new apprentices because the HomeBuilder program has led to so much demand for new housing that they’re literally growing as fast as they possibly can and new houses means more jobs, Mike, and that means the pipeline for apprentices is there. As I said to this builder, by employing three apprentices as a result of the HomeBuilder program, that’s three lives that will be changed forever because they’ll have a trade and a skill now for the rest of their lives.
Mike O’Loughlin:
And you were with Senator Claire Chandler, I believe, and you met with Tas City Building. They had to employ more tradies to keep up with the demand so realistically, we really do need more training, don’t we?
Minister Sukkar:
Yes, I mean, Mike, this time last year we were very worried about a collapse in the residential construction industry, hundreds of thousands of jobs potentially being lost because new home sales literally collapsed overnight. HomeBuilder - a $25,000 grants and now $15,000 grants - has led to huge demand which I think therefore leads to your, I think, self-evident point which is we need to make sure that we have that pipeline of apprentices which is one of the reasons why we’re extending and we’ve put in place the apprentice wage subsidy - a 50 per cent subsidy - to effectively pay half the wage of apprentices to encourage more businesses - whether they be construction businesses or other manufactures - to take on those apprentices because you need that pipeline of highly skilled people coming through the process. If you look at Tasmania’s unemployment rate, it’s the lowest unemployment rate in the country which is wonderful news, but yes that does put pressure on those trades and that’s why we’re making these huge investments into apprentice wage subsidies.
Mike O’Loughlin:
Well the ABS data in for us shows just how effectively HomeBuilder has delivered for Tassie but tell me, is the Government extending it?
Minister Sukkar:
Mike, we extended it to the end of March and that’ll be it, but it has provided - as Tas City Building said last week - probably a pipeline of two years of work. It will see the industry through this very tough period and then at the end of that, when that pipeline of work starts transitioning out in a couple of years’ time, we’re confident that the industry will be in fighting form and be able to stand on its own two feet. We know that it’s a $100 billion industry, five per cent of our entire economy, so crucial to the health and welfare of so many Australians and it will be in a much stronger position after HomeBuilder than it was before, I can assure you.
Mike O’Loughlin:
What about how we don’t seem to have anywhere near enough social housing? Minister, what’s the Government doing for that?
Minister Sukkar:
Well, Mike, we’ve worked very closely with the Gutwein Government to deliver more resources for social and affordable housing. We put in place $30 million in the Hobart city deal, we actually forgave a $230 million historic housing debt to Tasmania the year before last which is now being invested by the State Government into new social and affordable housing. So the Federal Government has given the state the resources to go out and do that and I must say that they are doing a good job. There is an element, Mike, of which there’s always more to be done, you can never pat yourself on the back and say okay, ‘mission accomplished’, but when I look at Tasmania I must say that it is one of the standout states in our country as far as what it’s doing in using the resources that the Federal Government has provided.
Mike O’Loughlin:
Can I say that speaking of the Federal Government, I read that the Morrison Government is strengthening laws to ensure that activist organisations - and we know who we’re talking about here probably - masquerading as charities that promote and engage in unlawful behaviour will no longer be tolerated. So with that, the activist organisations, tell us about the reforms that you’re putting forward for charitable organisations, if you will?
Minister Sukkar:
Yeah, Mike, in essence what we’re doing is saying that charities have a very special status in our law. They get tax breaks, they get a whole lot of great benefits by being charities on the basis that they do good works that improve our community and society. What we don’t want to do is have charities out there trespassing, engaging in criminal conduct, assaulting people, stopping law abiding Tasmanians and Australians from going about their business and trying to get to their job each and every day and if they do that, we’re now saying that the Commissioner of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission will have the ability to revoke their charitable status. So in essence, Mike, if you’re acting more like a criminal organisation and less like a charity, well we will take your charitable status off you which I think most Australians would say makes complete sense.
Mike O’Loughlin:
Because you’re with the Member for Braddon, Gavin Pearce, and he’s said that too many north western Tasmanian workers have been affected by illegal activities that threaten their jobs. He goes onto say that all too often, local workers are impacted - as you’ve mentioned - by the illegal and threatening behaviour of the minority who seek to hide behind the legitimacy of a charity to push their agenda. Have you got an example of this behaviour?
Minister Sukkar:
Mike, if you go and stop a timber worker from being able to go about their business - whether that’s a truck driver loading a truck or anyone in the supply chain of timber, for example by chaining yourself to a tree or criminal damage to any piece of equipment or machinery - all you’re basically doing in that situation is stopping a fellow Tasmanian from going about their business and their job. If you’re talking about holding up projects for weeks and weeks and weeks, what that means is that real Tasmanians, real people who can’t work that day or can’t work that week and that affects them. You’ve got a great, sustainable industry down here in the forest products industry. It is sustainable, it’s the best practice in the world and there are thousands of men and women who work in the industry and we don’t think that their job should be jeopardised by people chaining themselves to equipment or undertaking other criminal damage. There are other examples - farmers having people trespass on their property, farmers having people open gates so that all of their livestock escapes. When did we get to the point where going and damaging a farmers farm was acceptable? I think the fact that these things are being down in the names of charities makes it very clear that they are not undertaking what most Australians would consider to be a charitable enterprise and in that situation, if they’re breaking the law, then they can have that charity status revoked. There’ll be, I think, cause for reflection from many of these so-called charities now before they engage in this sort of conduct going forward, that’s what we hope. We hope that we don’t have to use these laws, Mike, but they’re there in the event that we do.
Mike O’Loughlin:
I tend to think that there’s someone in the spotlight. At present as you said, the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commissioner has enforcement powers to revoke an organisations charity status. Under current rules, charities are prohibited from engaging - as you said - in conduct that may be dealt with as an indictable offence under Australian law. Any change soon?
Minister Sukkar:
Yeah, Mike, we’re consulting at the moment to make sure that we get it right. I think that it will be reasonably imminent, we’re talking in the next couple of months. The rules at the moment as you rightly point out say that indictable offences, effectively offences that are punishable by two years’ of imprisonment, already qualify for being turfed as a charity. We’re actually lowering that threshold now to property damage, to trespass, to assault, which are more summary offences. But if you’re breaking the law, you’re breaking the law, Mike and charities really should be the absolute exemplar of organisations in our society. Australians don’t want their charities engaging in criminal conduct of any description so again, we think that these changes are sensible, they’re proportionate and hopefully we don’t have to use them, Mike. Hopefully charities now realise that you can’t go around breaking the law. You’ve got to follow the rules, I’ve got to follow the rules and so do charities.
Mike O’Loughlin:
Back in April last year, you put in for urgent support for 300 charities and community organisations, immediate $100 million funding. What Tasmanians charities benefited?
Minister Sukkar:
Mike, I’d have to check, I don’t have that list in front of me but it was a fund that was put in place to - as we did throughout the pandemic - make sure that really good organisations didn’t fold because of the pandemic, that we saw them over that bridge of Covid-19. But, Mike, I’d be very happy to come back to you with a detailed list of the Tasmanian charities or the charities that have a Tasmanian presence, who were beneficiaries.
Mike O’Loughlin:
Good news. A change of direction. Their might be help on the horizon for the automotive industry I was reading, with info sharing for mechanics and technicians. Is that correct? Tell me about this?
Minister Sukkar:
Yeah, Mike, we’re very pleased that shortly I’ll be introducing to the Parliament, a mandatory information sharing regime which basically means that, most people who have purchased a new car in recent years will know that they’re almost computers on wheels these days and a lot of the information that you need to repair the car is only available to the dealer from which you bought it from whereas we believe that that information should be there for all mechanics throughout our country like independent repairers. For example I have had the same mechanic for 20 years. No matter which car I buy, I like taking my car to him and I want to make sure that he’s got the information that he needs to repair my car. So in essence, what we’re now requiring is that the car manufactures provide all of that information to your independent mechanics around Australia so that they can basically repair any car that comes into their shop. It is, we think, a very important measure in supporting small, family run businesses, independent mechanics as opposed to the model that some of the manufactures would like to go down which is that you can only get your car repaired at one place, perhaps the dealer that you bought it from. So providing that information means that we’ve all got choices about where we take our cars to be repaired as opposed to being told where we go to get our car repaired.
Mike O’Loughlin:
Well Michael Sukkar - Assistant Treasurer, Federal Minister for Housing and Homelessness, Social and Community Housing - a pleasure to speak with you. Enjoy your stay in Tassie.
Minister Sukkar:
I’m loving it. Thanks so much, Mike.