Greens capitulate, announcing they will ‘wave through’ Labor’s Help to Buy and Build to Rent housing bills
- Written by: Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
The government has stared down the Greens over its Help to Buy and Build to Rent housing legislation, with the minor party announcing late Monday it will “wave through” the legislation in the Senate this week.
The Help to Buy legislation establishes a shared equity program to assist low to middle income earners to purchase new or existing homes. Some 10,000 homes annually, in each of four years, are envisaged. The government would take up to 40% equity.
The Build to Rent bill provides for tax concessions to encourage the construction of properties for rent.
At question time on Monday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese taunted the Greens. “There will be a vote tomorrow in the Senate on the Help to Buy scheme.
‘That will be a test of whether the Greens political party will vote for something that is their policy, that they took to the election, a shared equity scheme.”
The Greens, with the Coalition, had been holding out for months on the Help to Buy and Build to Rent bills. Recently they put a raft of demands to the government for a possible compromise.
But Albanese took a hard line, believing the Greens’ opposition to measures that could help the housing crisis would discredit them at the election. The Greens appear to have come to the same view.
Greens leader Adam Bandt said: “There comes a point where you’ve pushed as far as you can. We tried hard to get Labor to shift on soaring rents and negative gearing, but we couldn’t get there this time.
"We’ll wave the housing bills through and take the fight to the next election, where we’ll keep Peter Dutton out and then push Labor to act on unlimited rent rises and tax handouts to wealthy property investors.”
Greens Housing spokesperson Max Chandler-Mather said last year the Greens had obtained $3 billion for social housing. “We hoped we could secure a similar outcome this time, but the tragedy is Labor decided they’d rather have a fight with the Greens than actually help people.”
Authors: Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
