Despite the Greens’ call for a counteroffer to resolve the housing crisis, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese remains unwilling to amend the government’s proposed housing bills.
Labor has been trying to pass two bills—Help to Buy and Build to Rent—but has failed to receive the support of the Greens and Coalition.
The Help to Buy Bill proposes a shared equity scheme to help low-income individuals and families enter the housing market. The government would pay up to 30 percent of the purchase price for existing homes and 40 percent for new homes.
Albanese questioned the rationale behind the Greens’ opposition to the proposed bills, saying, “The Greens’ position is that they’re blocking the build-to-rent scheme because if you have medium-density housing built, it’ll be built by developers.”
“I’m not sure who they think builds houses,” Albanese said to media in Tasmania on Sept. 25.
Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather has renewed calls for the government to negotiate on Australia’s housing crisis.
“All we expect is a negotiation and some counteroffer in these areas of concern for us,” he said on Sept. 24.
“We’re not saying it’s our way or the highway, but up until this point, the government has still made no counteroffer.”
The bill fell through in the Senate, with both the Greens and the Coalition opposing it. Greens’ Senator Mehreen Faruqi also called their proposal “juvenile” and urged them to negotiate.
“Rather than trying to negotiate with the Greens to make things better for the millions of people who are suffering and struggling under the housing crisis, you come in here and try to ram your bill through,” she said.
Without going into the details, Albanese emphasised the government’s commitment to increasing the housing supply, stating “Our focus as a government is on supply.”
He expressed frustration over the current blockage of key housing policies in the Senate, noting that a coalition of the Liberals, Nationals, and Greens is standing in the way of progress.
The Greens have argued that a scheme similar to the Help to Buy Bill has failed before.
“A similar scheme in New South Wales failed after two years and is now under scrutiny,” Chandler-Mather said.
He said that the Bill does little to alleviate Australia’s housing crisis, as it fails to create new homes and instead drives up prices in the existing private market.
He argued that it causes people to pay more for properties than they normally would, acting as a demand-side subsidy without boosting the housing supply.
