This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
THE Albanese government has finally won support from the Greens for its $5.5 billion Help to Buy scheme and built-to-rent subsidy bills – which, after a year of haggling, will be put through Parliament without any major amendments – setting the scene for a housing policy battle in the upcoming federal election.
The Help to Buy scheme will allow for lower deposit requirements for up to 40,000 first homebuyers with the help of a government loan guarantee, while the build-to-rent legislation offers tax concessions to developers in the sector, in the hope of encouraging more supply amid a national housing crisis.
The Greens and Coalition had teamed up throughout the year to push back on the bills, defying Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s threat of a double dissolution election in September if the Help to Buy legislation was blocked again by the Senate.
The Greens had demanded freezing and capping rents, “ending tax handouts for property investors that stop renters buying their first home”, and establishing a government-owned property developer that it says would build 610,000 homes to be sold at just above the cost of construction, with rents capped at 25% of income.
“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,” Greens Leader Adam Bandt said.
“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.”
The Greens and Coalition – dubbed the “Noalition” by Albanese – had joined forces in 2023 to stall the government’s $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund initiative, which eventually passed through Parliament. It has now kicked off with the aim of delivering 20,000 social homes and 10,000 affordable homes. The Greens did score a win in the negotiations – with the creation of the Social Housing Accelerator, which saw $2 billion put into the pockets of state governments for 4,000 more social homes.
“Last year the Greens secured $3 billion for social housing, six times what Labor originally planned to spend, and 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,” Greens Housing Spokesperson Max Chandler-Mather said.
“We have pushed as hard as possible to get Labor to do more than tinkering around the edges of this devastating housing crisis in this term of parliament, but in the end we just couldn’t get Labor to care enough.”
Housing Minister Clare O’Neil told ABC’s Radio National that “for two-and-a-half years now, the Australian Greens have done nothing but block and delay the action the government has attempted to take on housing”, adding that the Greens’ proposals were “not a real attempt to negotiate”.
Labor’s win comes as a Roy Morgan poll shows the government has regained the edge over the Coalition on a two-party preferred basis. ALP primary support recovered this week, up 2.5% to 31.5% at the expense of the Coalition, down 2% to 37%.
Support for the Greens dropped 1% to 12.5%.
Roy Morgan’s latest federal voting intention follows Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s trips to the to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and Group of 20 leadership forums in South America, where he met with key leaders US President Joe Biden, Chinese President Xi Jinping and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“The Roy Morgan Poll has observed over many years that leaders often receive a lift in support when meeting with important global leaders – although this effect usually proves short-lived,” said Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine.
When preferences from this week’s survey are allocated based on how Australians voted at the 2022 federal election, the two-party preferred result moves slightly further in favour of the government with the ALP on 51.5%, up 1.5% from a week ago, ahead of the Coalition at 48.5%, down 1.5%.
In what is potentially the last sitting week before a federal election in 2025, Labor is hoping to shove through raft of bills through Parliament, including setting a minimum age limit of 16 for social media, funding at least 100,000 free TAFE places per year from 2027, capping political donations on campaigns, and subsidies for the critical minerals industry.
