The Greens will back Labor’s Help to Buy and Build to Rent bills after a months-long stalemate on housing.
The Help to Buy scheme would see the federal government contribute up to 40 per cent of the cost of a new home, while Build to Rent would incentivise the development of tens of thousands of new rental properties.
The bills had been met by opposition from the Greens, who demanded the tightening of tax concessions for property investors and greater protections for renters, including rent caps.
But in a joint statement today, Greens leader Adam Bandt and Greens housing spokesperson Max Chandler-Mather backed down, saying the party would “wave through” the legislation despite failing to win concessions from the government.
“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,” 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.”
Chandler-Mather said the party “pushed as hard as possible” to reach a deal but said it couldn’t “get Labor to care enough”.
“We got close. Labor costed changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount,” Chandler-Mather said.
“We were inches away from the most significant changes to housing policy in a generation that would have helped hundreds of thousands of renters, but the Prime Minister blinked and that is deeply disappointing.”
The Greens vowed to pursue the policies if the party wins balance of power in a minority Parliament at next year’s election.
Housing Minister Clare O’Neil said she was “relieved” by the decision but savaged the minor party for holding things up.
“Because the Greens delayed the legislation for almost 12 months, 10,000 people who could be in their own home by now are not,” she said.
“It’s not good enough and the Greens need to be accountable for that.”
