The Greens have scaled back their demands on housing, offering to pass Labor’s future fund bill in return for $2.5bn a year of direct spending and action on soaring rents.
The Greens and Albanese government are still locked in negotiations over the $10bn housing Australia future fund, with the latest offer from the minor party designed to allow the Senate to pass the bill in the June sitting.
Previously the Greens had demanded $5bn of direct spending on housing every year and a $1.6bn-a-year fund to incentivise states to freeze rents for two years and limit increases thereafter. The Greens announced on Sunday the party will settle for half as much direct spending, and $1bn a year to incentivise the rent freeze.
The party’s housing spokesperson, Max Chandler-Mather, argues direct spending, rather than waiting for disbursements of up to $500m a year from the future fund, could be directed towards purchasing affordable rental homes exiting the national rental affordability scheme, off-the-plan homes or to purchase otherwise vacant unused housing.
Labor has won support from state and territory housing ministers, the Jacqui Lambie Network and senator David Pocock for the bill, despite Pocock, the construction union and some housing groups backing calls for it to lift its ambition. With the Coalition opposed, the Greens’ 11 Senate votes are pivotal for the bill’s success.
In budget week in May the Albanese government failed to win Coalition and Greens support to put the bill to a vote, forcing it back to the negotiating table to pass the bill in the June sitting.
The Albanese government has put renters’ rights on the agenda at national cabinet but continues to be pushed by the Greens for a rental freeze, a measure that won 60% support in the latest Guardian Essential poll.
Adam Bandt, the Greens leader, said “the Greens have shifted, and it is time for Labor to do the same”.
“If Labor backs a rent freeze and guarantees real money for more housing, the Greens will pass Labor’s bill.”
“The Greens have shown we can negotiate with Labor and get significant outcomes for people and the climate,” Bandt said, citing improvements to the safeguard mechanism bill. “We’re now trying to fix the broken [housing] bill, but Labor has to shift.”
Chandler-Mather said “the Greens are more than willing to negotiate, and we’ve halved our initial demand of the government, but our message remains crystal clear”.
“Labor is leaving renters behind. Renters need action now, not after the next election, and we need real cash on the table for public housing.”
But federal government sources said there was significant evidence that rent freezes did not work. They said rental tenancies were the legal domain of states and territories, and a number of states had recently ruled out a rent freeze.
On Sunday the federal housing minister, Julie Collins, said the government would work “constructively across the parliament” to try to secure passage of the housing bill.
“Australia desperately needs the 30,000 new social and affordable rental homes the fund will deliver in its first five years,” Collins said in a statement.
“What we don’t need are proposals that won’t work, are not backed by evidence and would only make our housing challenges worse.”
Collins said senators who proclaimed their support for more social and affordable homes “need to stop the delays and pass the bill”.
In recent months Labor has stepped up pressure on the Greens over the bill, with treasurer Jim Chalmers lambasting the “coalition of weirdos” in the Senate refusing to pass it and arguing it “beggars belief” that parliament could block it at a time of “incredibly low vacancy rates [and] incredibly high rents”.
Collins told the Property Council on Wednesday that the government had “heard all kinds of arguments from those opposing the fund”.
“It’s too much. It’s too little. It’s too soon. It’s not soon enough.”
In comments indirectly targeting Chandler-Mather’s opposition to some housing developments in Brisbane, Collins said “the very same excuses get trotted out in local councils across the country to stop the development of more housing”.
“And no one is louder than representatives from the Greens political party.”
