This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
THE Greens are looking to block the Albanese government’s signature Help to Buy housing scheme in an effort to see investment property tax breaks wound back.
While Labor’s housing scheme would help 40,000 home buyers with an equity contribution of up to 40% for new homes and 30% for existing homes, the Green’s want to see property investment levels mitigated and market prices back under control.
The scheme would apply to 10,000 houses per annum and buyers would have to live in the home.
According to the Greens, the Help to Buy scheme would only support a 0.2% of eligible home buyers each year.
“You shouldn’t have to win a lottery to have a secure home,” said Max Chandler-Mather, Greens spokesperson for housing and homelessness.
“The rental crisis is breaking people. This hard-to-get scheme will push house prices up for 99.8% of renters and first home buyers and make it even less affordable than it is now.”
The minor party want to see revenue raised from changes to the capital gains tax and limits to negative gearing injected into more public housing.
The Greens have also committed to continuing their push for a rent freeze and cap in their negotiations with Labor.
“We have a property investor prime minister who is refusing to phase out billions of dollars in tax concessions for property investors that are denying millions of renters the chance of ever buying a home,” said Chandler-Mather to Sky News.
“Over 90 per cent of all property investor purchases are on existing dwellings. That means they’re not actually adding to supply. What they’re doing is hoarding homes that could have been used by a first home buyer.”
The legislation has been referred to the senate, with the scheme will be debated in the House this week and the Senate Economics Legislation Committee inquiry into the bill is due to report on 16 April.
As it stands, the scheme may not make it through the upper house, with the Opposition refusing support and Labor needing both the Greens and two further crossbenchers backing.
The Greens have also been pushing for changes to negative gearing and capital gains but Treasurer Jim Chalmers ruled out such changes on Sunday.
“Pressure works. Labor changed their position on stage-three tax cuts and now they need to change their position on negative gearing and capital gains tax,” added Chandler-Mather.
