Key Points
- Letting first-home buyers purchase properties with smaller deposits won't be a "silver bullet", Clare O'Neil has said.
- "A generations-in-the-making housing crisis" has made improving affordability a serious challenge, the housing minister said.
- The Greens have denied their delay in supporting the two housing bills has kept first-home buyers out of the market.
Plans to let first-home buyers buy a property with a smaller deposit won't be a silver bullet, the housing minister has conceded, as federal parliament moves to pass the reforms.
Labor's Help to Buy and Build to Rent schemes are expected to become law after the Greens agreed to wave the proposals through parliament following months of debate.
The Help to Buy scheme — which passed the Senate on Tuesday — is a shared equity program that will allow 10,000 first-home buyers each year to buy a house with a contribution from the government. It will now go back down to the lower house to be rubber-stamped.
Build to Rent is also expected to be passed by the time parliament rises for the final time this year on Thursday, but Labor still requires the support of three independent senators to get it across the line.
Housing Minister Clare O'Neil welcomed the end of the political stalemate on the reforms but said the laws wouldn't immediately fix problems in the sector.
"This is not a silver bullet, and it was never meant to be," she told Nine's Today program on Tuesday.
"The truth is we've had a generations-in-the-making housing crisis in our country that's been building for more than 30 years and it requires our government to do lots of things differently.
"We're trying to build many more homes in our country. We're trying to get a better deal for renters. We're trying to get more Australians into home ownership. It's a big, complex program, and it's going to take some time."
O'Neil said on Monday she was "glad that the Greens have finally seen the light" and supported the bills, but blamed the party for causing "costly" delays.
"If we had had this bill passed when it was first put to the parliament a year ago 10,000 people would have been in home ownership that are not there today. And the reason for that is Adam Bandt and his unwillingness to work with the government on housing matters," O'Neil told reporters on Monday.
'We got close'
Labor says its Help to Buy scheme will ultimately support 40,000 eligible buyers with an equity contribution of up to 40 per cent for new homes, with a deposit as small as 2 per cent.
The Build to Rent scheme aims to incentivise developers to build housing entirely for renting by offering tax concessions and commits at least 10 per cent of the dwellings to affordable housing.
The Greens had earlier voted with the Coalition to , citing concerns it would further exacerbate the housing crisis.
Greens Leader Adam Bandt denied his party's delay in agreeing to the two housing bills had kept first-home buyers out of the market.
"For over the last two months, we pushed them to go further and do what's needed to really tackle the housing crisis. They've said no," he told ABC TV on Tuesday morning.
"The question that people will ask is, with all of the government's legislation passed, why is it that it's the case that we still have a housing crisis in this country?"
Earlier, Bandt said they'd given the government a "golden opportunity" to address the housing crisis and had got close to a deal.
"Now this housing crisis continues to get worse, fuelled by tax handouts ... and soaring rent increases that are driving people to the brink," he told reporters on Monday afternoon.
"The Greens were hopeful ... that we'd get Labor to change their position on the unfair tax handouts like negative gearing and capital gains tax that is tilting the playing field against first home buyers.
"We got close, we got to the point where they were considering changes to negative gearing reforms in this country."
Chandler-Mather proposed new stance, Bandt says
Bandt also revealed the party's housing spokesperson, Max Chandler-Mather, had proposed waving through the two bills, a suggestion the party "adopted unanimously".
Chandler-Mather said it was a "tragedy" the government had chosen to have a fight with the Greens instead of "doing something meaningful on the housing crisis".
"Only weeks ago we saw Labor cost changes to the tax handouts for property investors, negative gearing, and the capital gains tax discount," he said.
"We were moments away from the most positive, significant changes in housing policy in this country in generations that would have helped hundreds of thousands of renters, but the prime minister blinked, and that's devastating for a lot of people in this country."
The Greens had expressed concern that the Help to Buy bill would drive up house prices, arguing it would give extra money to first-home buyers who will ultimately be outbid by people with more money.
At the 2022 election, the Greens also proposed a shared equity scheme. However, it was part of a larger policy to establish a public property developer that would build more affordable housing.
The minor party continues to advocate for the scrapping of , asking that the saved revenue be set aside for public housing. It is also pushing for a rent freeze and a cap on rents.
Chandler-Mather said the Greens will now have helped pass every piece of Labor's housing agenda and it was up to voters to decide if the government's plan was helping ease the crisis.
