Latest news with #MichaelSukkar
Sydney Morning Herald
03-05-2025
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
Liberals left reeling as Victoria delivers knockout blow
Labor entered this federal campaign confronting an electoral reckoning in Melbourne. Instead, it is the Liberal Party facing a historic wipeout in Australia's second-largest city, with no seats gained and its two surviving metropolitan MPs on the brink of losing theirs. While Keith Wolahan in Menzies and Michael Sukkar in Deakin have yet to concede their seats, they were both called for Labor on Saturday night. These likely losses underscore a disastrous campaign for the Liberal Party. Elsewhere in Victoria, the once-safe Liberal seat of Flinders on the Mornington Peninsula and the growth-suburb electorate of Casey were also wobbly at the time of writing. By contrast, the Liberal Party, at the time of Peter Dutton's concession speech, had no chance of wresting any Victorian seats back from Labor. Even Aston, a seat listed as nominally Liberal after a redrawing of its boundaries by the Australian Electoral Commission, stubbornly refused to turn blue. Instead, Labor MP Mary Doyle appears to have picked up a sizeable additional chunk of the primary vote. Liberal-targeted seats such as Chisholm and Dunkley barely got a mention on election night. If Wolahan and Sukkar cannot hold on, they will leave the entire area within Melbourne's metropolitan boundaries devoid of any federal Liberal MPs. It is a cataclysmic result for a party that at the start of the campaign saw Victoria as its path back to power. Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan, a state Labor leader whose face was plastered next to Anthony Albanese's in Liberal campaign ads, climbed a makeshift stage outside Melbourne's Trades Hall Council to acclaim a stunning result. 'We saw that Australians and Victorians had a choice,' she told a crowd of red T-shirted ALP supporters and union members. 'They said no to those blockers. They said yes to the builders. They said yes to the suburban rail loop. They said yes to airport rail. 'These results are not despite what we've done here in Victoria, they are because we have done the all we have.″
The Age
03-05-2025
- Politics
- The Age
Liberals left reeling as Victoria delivers knockout blow
Labor entered this federal campaign confronting an electoral reckoning in Melbourne. Instead, it is the Liberal Party facing a historic wipeout in Australia's second-largest city, with no seats gained and its two surviving metropolitan MPs on the brink of losing theirs. While Keith Wolahan in Menzies and Michael Sukkar in Deakin have yet to concede their seats, they were both called for Labor on Saturday night. These likely losses underscore a disastrous campaign for the Liberal Party. Elsewhere in Victoria, the once-safe Liberal seat of Flinders on the Mornington Peninsula and the growth-suburb electorate of Casey were also wobbly at the time of writing. By contrast, the Liberal Party, at the time of Peter Dutton's concession speech, had no chance of wresting any Victorian seats back from Labor. Even Aston, a seat listed as nominally Liberal after a redrawing of its boundaries by the Australian Electoral Commission, stubbornly refused to turn blue. Instead, Labor MP Mary Doyle appears to have picked up a sizeable additional chunk of the primary vote. Liberal-targeted seats such as Chisholm and Dunkley barely got a mention on election night. If Wolahan and Sukkar cannot hold on, they will leave the entire area within Melbourne's metropolitan boundaries devoid of any federal Liberal MPs. It is a cataclysmic result for a party that at the start of the campaign saw Victoria as its path back to power. Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan, a state Labor leader whose face was plastered next to Anthony Albanese's in Liberal campaign ads, climbed a makeshift stage outside Melbourne's Trades Hall Council to acclaim a stunning result. 'We saw that Australians and Victorians had a choice,' she told a crowd of red T-shirted ALP supporters and union members. 'They said no to those blockers. They said yes to the builders. They said yes to the suburban rail loop. They said yes to airport rail. 'These results are not despite what we've done here in Victoria, they are because we have done the all we have.″
The Guardian
16-04-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
O'Neil says Coalition housing policy a ‘melange of weird things' as data shows Labor behind on building target
The major parties have clashed over housing targets, with Clare O'Neil criticising the opposition's housing policy as 'melange of weird things' as new offical figures reveal Labor's goal of building 1.2m homes in five years is running 30,000 behind schedule after just six months. The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data revealed there were 90,136 dwellings completed in the six months to December, including roughly 57,000 houses and 33,000 apartments. The figures landed amid deep scepticism among construction industry insiders and economists that the government would be able to achieve its Housing Accord goal. In a debate with her opposite number on Wednesday, the housing minister conceded there was more work to be done to reach her government's goals, but defended the 'bold and ambitious' target. The shadow housing minister, Michael Sukkar, refused to commit the Coalition to a homebuilding target were they to returned to power. 'I'm saying we'll get to as many as we possibly can, but I'm certain it will be higher than Labor … What's a target worth if you're not going to get anywhere near it?' Sukkar referred to unaffordable housing as 'one of the most catastrophic policy failures in a generation', tying the jump in migration numbers over the past three years to high home prices and rents. But O'Neil insisted that the ambition of Labor's target was necessary, 'instead of washing our hands of the problem'. 'Michael's talked a little bit about our national housing target, suggesting that they're too high. What he's really saying here is that the answer to this problem is lower the national ambition – and low ambition is what got us here,' she said, later adding that the Coalition's housing policy was a 'melange of weird things that were written on the back of a napkin'. Labor and the Coalition clashed this week over competing visionsfor addressing the issue of chronically unaffordable housing. But a bi-partisan consensus has emerged that boosting supply will be key to boosting home-ownership rates, which have been in steady decline among younger Australians. To reach the target of 1.2m new well-located homes in the five years to mid-2029, an average of 240,000 dwellings need to be completed each year, or 120,000 every six months. Australia has never built 240,000 in any 12-month period in data going back three decades, with the closest the 223,000 dwellings completed in the year to March 2017. Independent property expert Cameron Kusher said, 'Whilst I never believed the target was going to be achievable, we've started off very slowly and are well behind the target already'. 'With interest rates falling in 2025 we should see construction lift, but it remains difficult to see how the Housing Accord target is going to be met.' There were no signs in the statistics of an imminent and rapid lift in building activity: in the six months to December, builders started work on about 86,000 homes. New homebuilding approvals have picked up to more than 16,000 a month, separate ABS data shows. That is still below the theoretical 20,000 monthly average that would, again, be required to achieve the 1.2 million target by mid-2029. The CEO of Master Builders Australia, Denita Wawn, said a lack of supply was the biggest barrier to easing housing costs. Wawn said Labor and the Coalition were 'neck and neck' when it came to policies aimed at making homes more affordable. 'We are far from the finish line. Both have work to do if they want to complete the jigsaw puzzle that is our national housing crisis,' she said. 'Fixing supply constraints, delivering more shovel-ready land, investing in enabling infrastructure and skills, reducing red tape, and supporting innovation across the industry – these are the levers we must pull if we want to meet demand.'
The Guardian
01-04-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Peter Dutton says he will help homebuyers who don't have the bank of mum and dad. But how would his policy work?
The Coalition has pledged to relax home lending rules if it is elected. What exactly is it planning, will it improve housing affordability and are claims that its policies will help young people – especially those without access to the 'bank of mum and dad' – accurate? The Coalition policy is designed to reduce the serviceability buffer overseen by the banking regulator, used to help determine a person's borrowing capacity. A serviceability buffer is the rate on top of the interest rate that the lender adds to test an applicant's ability to make repayments. It was set at 2.5 percentage points above the lending rate before the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (Apra) increased it to three percentage points in late 2021, under the Morrison government. If a bank's interest rate is 6%, for instance, a 3 percentage point serviceability rate means banks would test whether a borrower could still meet repayments if rates increased to 9%. The increase was implemented during a time of ultra low rates, albeit with inflation risks looming on the horizon. The opposition housing spokesman, Michael Sukkar, said on Tuesday the buffer was 'overly cautious'. 'This one-size-fits-all rule is stopping tens of thousands of Australians from getting a home loan – even when they can meet the repayments with a prudent margin against unexpected future rate rises,' Sukkar said. The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, declined to name what rate the buffer should be set at when questioned on Tuesday, saying 'ultimately it's a decision for Apra'. This raises questions over how the plan would be implemented, given it relies on a future Coalition government telling the regulator to reduce the buffer below what Apra believes is prudent, but not by how much. The argument for a reduction in the serviceability rate is that given lending rates are now elevated, it's less likely they will surge another two or three percentage points. While robust buffers are designed to help protect against customers getting into loans they can't repay, the downside is that they can push otherwise prudent households into financial distress by limiting their refinancing options. These borrowers are known as 'mortgage prisoners', and could benefit from a looser serviceability requirement. But there are downsides to easing restrictions. Mortgage stress is already elevated and there are concerns that allowing borrowers to take on more debt could come back to bite them, and the wider economy. A lower buffer would also increase available credit, putting upwards pressure on property prices, pushing home prices even further out of reach for some prospective owners, especially younger generations. Prof Stephen Whelan, from the University of Sydney's school of economics, says 'demand-side measures tend to push prices higher'. 'It may well get some households currently renting into home ownership … but the household is also exposed to increased risk,' he says, referring to rising interest rates or an economic shock, such as the loss of a job. 'The key to getting more people into homes is to increase the supply of housing, rather than simply increasing capacity of households to pay more.' Apra has resisted lowering the serviceability level, arguing in October that as well as interest rate changes 'the buffer also factored in unforeseen changes in a borrower's income or expenses, which we have seen play out recently as cost-of-living pressures mount'. A loosening of lending standards also appears to conflict with moves by the Reserve Bank to guard against measures that could fuel inflation. Banks can already use discretion to give loans to good quality borrowers who do not fit the standard buffer, however a change in the regulator's policy would give lenders freedom to issue more loans. Dutton has framed the Coalition's housing policy as one that will help young people 'achieve the dream of home ownership', especially those without financial support from parents. 'I'm not going to be a prime minister … that is happy with a housing market where only those kids with a bank of mum and dad can buy a home,' he said on Tuesday. A lower serviceability rate could help some younger borrowers meet lending requirements and buy their first home. At the same time, price rises could push home ownership even further away for others. Under the policy, the Coalition would require Apra to 'adjust the capital treatment' of loans backed by lenders mortgage insurance, which typically refers to borrowers who can't raise a 20% deposit. They are often younger borrowers, without access to financial help from their parents, who get charged higher lending rates. The Coalition would need to ensure the policy has restrictions in place to make sure the benefits flowed to younger borrowers, rather than allow wealthier investors to take advantage of any broad loosening of lending standards.
