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| THE HON MICHAEL SUKKAR MP: "I'm pretty confident that we'll have a much better budget bottom line than the Labor Party..." |
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I'm pretty confident that we'll have a much better budget bottom line than the Labor Party, and that will be provided in the usual way before the election.
16/04/2025
(See translation in Arabic section)
Sydney-Middle East Times Int'l:
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
TODAY SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
Newschat - Michael Sukkar, Sarah Abo & Heidi Murphy
E&EO
SARAH ABO:
Welcome back. Well, Labor's signature health policy is in the spotlight this morning. Doctors warning free GP visits for all are mere fantasy. Joining us to discuss today's headlines is Shadow Minister for housing, NDIS and social services, Michael Sukkar and 3AW and Nine news reporter Heidi Murphy, good morning to you both. Michael, let's start with you. So the Coalition has pledged to match Labor on that policy. Does this mean you're blindly following them without doing your due diligence?
MICHAEL SUKKAR:
I think what today highlights Sarah is just how much the Prime Minister is lying to Australians. He keeps standing up in front of Australians at press conferences and looking them in the eye and telling them that all you need to do is pull out your Medicare card and you don't need anything else in order to get to see a doctor in this country, and I think most Australians have…..
SARAH ABO:
Aren't you reinforcing that lie, though, by matching them?
MICHAEL SUKKAR:
Well, I think if you look at our history, Sarah, when we're in government, bulk billing rates were at 88% they're now down to 77% so they've dropped really quite dramatically in three years under this prime minister. I'm confident that if we're re elected, that we'll be able to do what we did in government, and that is, get bulk billing rates higher. But we're not going to insult the intelligence of Australians by blatantly lying to them, as Anthony Albanese seems to be doing every day.
SARAH ABO:
I mean, look, this does feel like you're taking us for mugs, right? Heidi. I mean, it makes you wonder whether the government's even listening to the experts, the doctors themselves, the way, they're the ones who see patients every day. They're the ones motivated by patients' needs, as opposed to votes.
HEIDI MURPHY:
And they are the ones saying it is not feasible. It is not going to happen. Every clinic is not going to be able to become a bulk billing clinic, and there's not enough money in it. They're, in fact, also pointing to urgent care clinics, and the cost per visit to one of those compared to the cost of a GP in terms of government subsidies today. So I think there's a lot of questions in this space. It is the most whipped out prop of this election campaign, the Medicare second only to the petrol bowser pump in Peter Dutton’s hands, yeah, you need your props. But somewhere out there, people know they don't just use a Medicare card at a GP clinic.
SARAH ABO:
I mean, doctors are saying it's a step in the right direction, but the last thing we want is to try and fool these most vulnerable in the community who do rely on GPs on a regular basis. So Michael, hopefully we all look at that before it comes into play in November. Well, in another cost of living, blow the RBA is pouring cold water on interest rate relief, insisting mortgage holders are managing just fine. Michael, what do you reckon is that the case?
MICHAEL SUKKAR:
Well, I think mortgage holders have been absolutely crushed under this government. We've seen people with an average mortgage spending $50,000 more on mortgage repayments than they were at the beginning of this government's term. So I think sadly though, for the RBA, their hands are, to some extent, are tied, because the government continues to increase their spending. We've had inflation here higher……
HEIDI MURPHY:
Hang on a minute Michael, aren't you also increasing spending or offering to increase spending? Aren't we seeing an election campaign that is so out of control with spending that the RBA is probably getting pretty nervous about which?
MICHAEL SUKKAR:
Heidi, I'm pretty confident that we'll have a much better budget bottom line than the Labor Party, and that will be provided in the usual way before the election. But we have seen, we have seen really elevated spending this term, $425 billion of more spending. I think that's tied the hands of the RBA, and that's why mortgage holders have paid so much more for their mortgages than they were previously.
SARAH ABO:
I think Heidi's point is a good one, though, Michael, but that both of you are spending beyond your means, it would seem, and that we don't know when this debt will ever be paid back. I mean, this puts pressure on your housing policy. Both parties major house housing policies, and unfortunately for you guys, voters are siding with Labors it would seem, you're trailing them at every turn, not just on housing, but also on tax.
MICHAEL SUKKAR:
Well, we're very confident with our housing policy, because the only new thing that the Labor Party announced on the weekend was that somehow they're going to build 100,000 homes, and that they've found some magic formula to be able to build homes for $100,000 each. They've put aside $10 billion and literally told Australians that they can use ten billion to build 100,000 homes. Now, I was out with Burbank yesterday, some big volume builders here in in Victoria, and I can tell you right now you can't build a home for $100,000 so that's the only new thing they announced. And I think in time it'll become very clear that, just like the housing crisis, we've suffered under Labor for three years. A re-elected Albanese government will be three years of the same.
SARAH ABO:
There's just not enough time to Is there enough time left to convince people of your arguments? Michael, can Are there enough early voting starts? Watt, Tuesday,
MICHAEL SUKKAR:
Well, absolutely, there's time. I mean, there's a couple of weeks until Election Day. And we'll keep talking about our plan, and we've been speaking about first home buyers for this whole term. The Labor government seems to have just discovered them five minutes before an election.
SARAH ABO:
Well, you are one of the chief architects of the Coalition's policy, so let's hope it does pay off for you, very ambitious indeed, with just a couple of weeks left, guys, thank you so much for joining me this morning.
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