CCHQ Media Release

THE HON MICHAEL SUKKAR MP
Shadow Minister for Social Services
Shadow Minister for NDIS
Shadow Minister for Housing
Shadow Minister for Homelessness
Manager of Opposition Business
Federal Member for Deakin

TRANSCRIPT- 3AW Weekend Breakfast; Darren James, Nick McCallum, Heidi Murphy

6 APRIL 2025

E&EO

DARREN JAMES:

Less students here from other countries means more accommodation. That’s what Mr. Dutton said this morning. Michael Sukkar, Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness, joins us. Michael, thanks for thanks for that. Is this a good idea do you think?

MICHAEL SUKKAR:

Well, of course, it is, great to be with you.

NICK McCALLUM:

It would have been a better story if you said no. What a question.

[inaudible]

HEIDI MURPHY:

Let Michael talk.

SUKKAR:

Very good, very good leading question. Thank you, obviously, obviously, we’ve had a period of unprecedented migration. We’ve had more than a million people in two years, and in that time, we’ve been building fewer homes than we built for many years. We’ve had fewer homes completed, fewer homes, started, few approvals. We’ve had less first home buyers. So I think it’s one of the biggest catastrophic errors of government decision making for a number of years.

And so one component of improving the amount of demand for housing is to rebalance and to reduce our migration intake. We’ll still have a decent migration intake, but it won’t be the world record, 1 million over two years, and one important part in doing that is to reduce the number of international students. We’ve had international students increase by 65%.

To give you a scary statistic, for every single purpose built student accommodation, that’s been proved, we’ve had 42 international students arrive. That’s 42 international students for every purpose built student accommodation, dwelling approved. So and it’s totally out of wack.

McCALLUM:

Ok, and another scary statistic coming from the other side that each foreign student is worth about $72,000 to the economy in Victoria in particular, because, as you know, Victoria is a very high foreign student state.

SUKKAR:

Well look, there’s no doubt that the big universities, particularly the University of Melbourne and University of Sydney, have made billions and billions of dollars. I don’t, I absolutely don’t question that.

MURPHY:

The state, states economies have made billions.

SUKKAR:

They have made a lot of money. However, our interest has to also be about Australians having a home of their own, and I don’t think we can give up on the Australian dream of home ownership. I think this government’s waved the white flag on home ownership. I don’t think it’s acceptable. And in addition to the people who are locked out of ever owning a home because the demand for housing so outweighs supply, is that rents are up by nearly 20% so if you can imagine, if you’re a young single or young couple trying to save that deposit, it’s that much harder because your rents gone up by 20% and we know that the majority of foreign students enter the private rental market, so they’re competing against other renters.

Just look at the analysis of Alan Kohler, who just a few days ago, it was pretty telling. His analysis shows that there’s twice the amount of demand for homes as there is supply, and I just don’t think we can continue on that vein.

MURPHY:

Do you think the Great Aussie dream of home ownership is a little international student apartment in the middle of a metropolitan city, though? Because, I mean, that’s what most of the students are staying in, right, little studios near the university campuses. It’s not the same as something that an Aussie, the Great Aussie dream of a, you know, a backyard and a fence and whatever else. They’re not the same dream. They’re not the same target, are they?

SUKKAR:

Well, Heidi, no, that’s not actually the case. So that we have an extraordinarily low number of purpose built student accommodation. Whether it’s that typical studio type of dwelling that you’re talking about, we’ve got a really low number of those available for international students. So what actually ends up happening is that international students enter a private rental market throughout Melbourne, not just in our CBD, but throughout Melbourne. And I think every suburb in in in greater Melbourne would have international students, because they have been pushed further out. And the housing market is a spectrum, and it cascades up and down the spectrum, and where you’ve got higher rents that that extends throughout Melbourne, and it’s a pretty simple equation here. If you’ve got twice the number of people wanting the available properties that are there, it pushes up the prices.

And this announcement builds on other things we’ve announced. We’re going to ban foreign purchases and temporary residents from buying homes in Australia, because we don’t think Australians should have to compete against foreigners to do so, we’re going to allow first home buyers to access up to $50,000 of their own super to add towards their other savings for a deposit. We going to fund and bring forward 500,000 new homes in estates like the one of that today in Donnybrook, funding the critical infrastructure that gets those projects going. So there’s a lot that needs to be done. There isn’t one solution to it all, but having a 65% increase in foreign students, which has occurred under Anthony Albanese watch, is certainly not assisting.

JAMES:

And would you agree Michael in Victoria anyway, what makes the problem even worse is that the average investor are selling off their investment properties because of land tax, and that the skew towards the tenant is more viable than the landlord, and people are selling their properties, which means less places available again.

SUKKAR:

Well, this is where Anthony Albanese and Jacinta Alan are on a unity ticket. They both like higher taxes, and if we accept that about a third of people rent, then there needs to be a third of landlords out there willing to own a property that someone can rent. And you know, I think we often over complicate politics and we often over complicate economics, but if you want people to do less of something, you tax it more if you want them to smoke less, put taxes higher taxes on cigarettes. If you want them to build their homes and invest less in housing. You tax housing more. And that’s precisely what Labor has done in Victoria and Anthony Albanese has absolutely supported that the whole way.

McCALLUM:

And out the regions they have do have a shortage of workers, particularly in the hospitality area. I know this particular policy you’re talking about with the foreign students is aimed at Sydney and Melbourne. Is there a way though of maintaining the numbers, and forcing those extra numbers out into the regions, your Ballarat, your Bendigo.

JAMES:

Get them in your rural areas.

McCALLUM:

Where there are good institutions of education.

MURPHY:

Not a lot of renters though.

McCALLUM:

Yeah, but they’ve also desperately short of staff.

JAMES:

Put them on a dairy farm.

SUKKAR:

No, it’s a great point, and one that I neglected to mention. One of the things that has been happening is the foreign students are overwhelmingly going into the G8 University, Sydney and Melbourne and others. So they’re really big universities, and they’ve not been encouraged to go to our regional universities. So as part of this plan, we will be also through mechanisms that will be agreed and will be negotiated, trying to get as many of those international students, the lower number that we are going to have, but as many of those into those regional areas, because you’re right, they do offer additional benefits of short labour shortages.

McCALLUM:

Just let me pick up on agreed. Do you mean the students are going to agree, or the unis are going to agree? Or are you going to force them to agree? And just say, if you come to Australia, you must go out into the regions.

SUKKAR:

Oh no, it’d be a condition of your visa where you’re going to study, obviously. But when I say agree, I mean agreement with the region…

McCALLUM:

You mean agree in a political way during a campaign?

Well, look, I think in the end we what we’re going to do is we’re going to reduce the number of international students by quite a big number, 80,000 and that’s going to upset some people, but I think our obligation is to stand up for young Australians who want to own a home one day, want to be able to find a rental without feeling the stress of, you know, 50 people in the queue when you go to an open for inspection. And so if we can do it by cooperation with the university is great, but if we have to do it in other ways, I can assure you, we are determined to make sure that we don’t have, we don’t have this unsustainable level of migration a million people in two years. I mean, I don’t, I have not come across a single person who thinks that a million people in two years is the right number for this country, and Anthony Albanese is going to continue it if he’s re elected.

MURPHY:

Now, I know you’re saying 80,000 and it’s, it’s a big number, and that and that you’re going to going to be your commitment, isn’t it just one of those mines bigger than yours, aren’t they already dropping it by 50? And couldn’t you have backed that last year?

SUKKAR:

Well, no, they pulled their legislation, because it was a complete shemozzle.

MURPHY:

Because you wouldn’t back it.

McCALLUM:

No, they couldn’t get it through…[inaudible].

SUKKAR:

They didn’t even bring it forward, because it was a complete disaster. What it did was, it did the exact opposite of what we were just discussing. So what, what it essentially did was, was funnel all the international students into Sydney and Melbourne and the big universities and starve regional universities. So we were never going to agree to that.

McCALLUM:

But it wasn’t capped at 270 as distinct, and what’s that? 30,000 more than yours? So that’s, that’s the raw figure, isn’t it? Their policy is 30,000 more than yours?

SUKKAR:

Theirs is significantly higher than ours, but they didn’t deliver it. And I think, you know, look, I think we’re all, we’re all prone to being cynical as we get older. But I think the electorate…

McCALLUM:

No, in politics, you’re kidding me.

SUKKAR:

I think the electorate cynical because I and I really do mean it here. You just can’t look at what this government says. You’ve got to look at what they do. Every single time they have published a migration target, they miss it by hundreds of thousands, and that’s why we’ve ended up with a million people in two years. They never went for the last election saying we believe in a big Australia, and we believe in bringing 500,000 people per year. They never got the approval of the Australian people to do that. Why? Because the Australian people would never have given that approval. They’ve just done it once they got there. And I think if you look at every projection they’ve published, and this is not hyperbole, every projection they published, they end up overshooting it by hundreds of thousands of people. So I don’t really believe any of the so called targets they put forward. I look at what they actually deliver.

MURPHY:

First week, done and dusted. Now, Michael, who’s won it? Do you reckon your lot or their lot?

McCALLUM:

Why don’t we just give it a nice little easy handball?

MURPHY:

I’m just asking the question. Can we listen to his answer.

MCCALLUM:

I would love you to say the other team won.

JAMES:

I’m on Heidi’s side I asked a similar question at the start.

McCALLUM:

It’s a soft question.

MURPHY:

I don’t think it’s been a great week for Dutton’s team.

SUKKAR:

Heidi, I don’t know if you can hear but I’m, I’ve snuck out of the campaign to watch my son’s first game of under eights. Still a quarter to go, and I’m not willing to call the winner yet of the Blackburn under eights versus Mitcham under eights. I’m not calling the election outcome yet, but we’re confident about what we’re bringing to the Australian people, and there’s a long way to go.

JAMES:

Blackburn still wearing the vertical black and black and red stripes?

SUKKAR:

Oh, well done. They absolutely are.

JAMES:

Thank you.

SUKKAR:

And my boy, has got his matching mouth guard, so he’s all decked out, and he’s he’s feeling really on brand.

McCALLUM:

And Michael, can I just ask you, on a much more serious note, is it time we’ve got a Victorian Prime Minister? Because every time Mr. Dutton, Mr. Morrison, goes near a football game, they virtually kill something. We need a Victorian who can actually kick and tackle properly.

SUKKAR:

I think if we all survive these campaigns, that’s like the win in itself. Well, I must say I thought Peter Dutton’s kick for a Queenslander was reasonable.

McCALLUM:

Accept he almost killed a cameraman.

SUKKAR:

I caught up with Ghaith this morning, the cameraman involved, and he had a bit of a bandage on his head, but he was in good spirit.

McCALLUM:

He’s alright yeah? They didn’t muck around with the bandage, it was a very small cut.

MURPHY:

It’s not something you want to skimp on.

SUKKAR:

It was a thorough, thorough job.

JAMES:

Although we did get an email from Bruno, you know Bruno…