MELBOURNE – Michael Sukkar, the shadow minister for housing, NDIS and social services, described himself as “always pessimistic” in an interview he gave to our publication last week.
Sukkar, a federal MP since 2013, was responding to a question about how confident he was regarding a Coalition victory in the upcoming election, especially given they are currently up in the polls.
“We’re optimistic and we’re confident, but we’re not cocky,” said the representative from Deakin.
“It’s a big mountain to climb - to win from opposition after one term is really hard.
“I think that sort of principled and strong leadership that Peter Dutton has provided helps,” he said.
“Where we’ve agreed with the government, whether it’s the NDIS, whether it’s other things, we’ve supported it.
“But where we disagree … we’ve not been shy about it.”
During his time working to reform the NDIS, Sukkar worked closely with Labor minister Bill Shorten, who recently announced his retirement from Parliament effective next February.
“I congratulated Bill [on his retirement]. We were political opponents but worked well together,” shared Sukkar.
“Bill has been a formidable political opponent, but I’ve enjoyed working with him because we’ve been able, in many areas, to find common ground and try and do the best thing for the country.
The Liberal representative of Lebanese origin (his father came to Australia in the 1960s) touched on various issues during the interview, such as the housing crisis.
“What’s the government doing wrong? Firstly, they’re building fewer homes than ever before,” he said.
“When I was housing minister, we had home building well above 200,000 a year. It’s now down to about 160,000 a year.
“When you’re building fewer homes, the last thing you should do is ramp up migration.
“We’ve seen now well more than a million migrants in the first two years of this government.
“We’re only building 265,000 homes, so you can’t bringing in a million new migrants when you’re only building 265,000 homes.”
On the cost of living, Sukkar claimed the government has fueled inflation with the three budget measures it has introduced so far.
“The government’s not listening to what every single economist says, which is if you want to put downward pressure on inflation, you’ve got to do a couple of things,” he explained.
“You’ve got to either improve productivity, hopefully make the country more productive, and you’ve got to take and not fuel demand in the economy.
“What this government has done is, in their three budgets since being elected, they are spending $315 billion more. So that’s fuel onto the inflation fire.”
Moving on to energy programs, Sukkar reiterated that the Coalition’s plan includes not only nuclear energy but also multiple energy sources to reduce bills such as coal, gas, nuclear and renewables.
He dismissed analyses by CSIRO scientists that claim nuclear is the least economical option and has the longest operational times.
“Those experts told us that our energy bills will be lower now because of renewables,” he said.
“I mean, for years we’ve been hearing from these so-called experts, ‘If we get more renewables, our energy bills will be cheaper’.
“We’ve never had more renewables. Do any of your viewers or listeners have cheaper energy bills now? I mean the proof is in the pudding.”
Regarding conflict in the Middle East, Sukkar’s position aligns with that of the Coalition leader.
“Hamas invaded on October 7 and sadly, they hide amongst the civilian population,” Sukkar said.
“We can’t accept a circumstance where a sovereign nation has 1200 of its citizens slaughtered.
“I can tell you as an Australian Member of Parliament. If 1200 Australians were slaughtered by a foreign invader, I would do everything I had to do to make sure that never happened again.”
With Sukkar holding the record, along with colleague Tony Pasin, for the number of expulsions during parliamentary Question Time, Schirru asked the MP if Parliament really is that aggressive and whether it might benefit from having more women.
“It is a pretty tough environment, as it should be. This is a Parliament, this is not a polite debating society,” he stated.
“This is the place where we decide really critical issues for the future of our country that impact people in their lives.
“I’m in there fighting for my electorate every day and fighting for my country. And that means sometimes you push the envelope a little bit.
“But by and large I find, as a workplace goes, it’s pretty polite. It’s pretty nice.
“[It’s] like going on the football field; you get on the field, you play hard and then you shake hands when you’re off the field. That’s the way I approach it.
“I don’t necessarily think a gender split would change it because I can assure you there’s many female MPs who go pretty hard in Question Time, as they should.”
Former Liberal minister Greg Hunt recently urged the Coalition to nominate more women in winnable seats, but Michael Sukkar categorically ruled out introducing gender quotas in the Liberal ranks.
“I hope not [to go down the path of quotas],” he said.
“I think it’s absolutely a worthy aspiration to have an environment where the best person can be put forward in every seat, and theoretically that should be just as many men as there are women.
“I agree with [Hunt’s] sentiment. But I think you can [achieve gender parity] without quotas.
“We’re very fortunate in the Liberal Party. We’ve got so many outstanding and talented women that will get pre-selected in their own right.”
