Representative Michael Sukkar Contact information

Michael Sven Sukkar is an Australian politician born on 11th September 1981, who served as the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Housing from 2019, and as the Minister for Homelessness, Social and Community Housing from 2020. He was a member of the House of Representatives, representing the Division of Deakin in Victoria for the Liberal Party. Sukkar completed his primary school education at Sacred Heart in Croydon, before attending Aquinas College in Ringwood for secondary education. He later studied at Deakin University, where he completed a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Commerce in 2004, and a Master of Laws at the University of Melbourne in 2010.

Before his political career, Sukkar worked as a taxation consultant at accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2005. He spent seven years working as a tax lawyer with the firm Blake Dawson Waldron, where he was a senior associate. In 2008, Sukkar suffered a cardiac arrest while playing basketball and was treated by a nurse and an anaesthetist who were at the game, as well as an off-duty paramedic who was nearby. This experience motivated him to advocate for defibrillators when he was elected to parliament.

In 2012, Sukkar was endorsed as the Liberal Party candidate for the marginal seat of Deakin. He won the seat in the 2013 election, succeeding Labor MP Mike Symon. Sukkar served on a number of parliamentary committees in this Parliament, such as the Chairman of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. In 2014 Sukkar launched the Deakin 200 Club with other conservative Liberal MPs to fundraise for marginal seats held by conservatives within the party.

In 2016, Sukkar increased his margin by 2.5 points, the Liberal Party’s largest swing in Victoria. In January 2017, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull appointed Sukkar to the ministry as Assistant Minister to the Treasurer. Turnbull gave Sukkar responsibility for addressing housing affordability. In May 2019, after being re-elected for a third term in the May election, Sukkar was given the role of Assistant Treasurer.

Sukkar was accused of branch stacking, of which he was cleared of “serious misuse” of Commonwealth funds when it moved to formal investigation. However, further allegations of branch stacking were aired by 60 Minutes and the Nine newspapers against Sukkar and Marcus Bastiaan, which Sukkar denied. In January 2021, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) was reported to be investigating a donor with ties to Sukkar over foreign interference risks.

Sukkar held his seat by fewer than 500 votes, making it the most marginal Liberal seat in the nation, at the 2022 Australian federal election. Upon the defeat of the Coalition, he was appointed as the Shadow Minister for Social Services by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton in June of that year. Sukkar is a member of the National Right faction of the Liberal Party. In his maiden speech, Sukkar categorised himself as an “economic liberal” and with “strong conservative foundations”. He opposed same-sex marriage during the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey.