TRANSCRIPT
Finger pointing, tense debate and unlikely alliances have left the government's plans to bring on a vote for its housing equity bills thwarted in the Senate.
Leaving Labor Senators, like Foreign Minister Penny Wong, casting blame on the opposition and others in the Senate for stalling progress on dealing with Australia's housing crisis.
"Well, the obstacles, Senator Ghosh, are there and there. That's where the obstacles for, you might not like us pointing, but you do bear responsibility, because you are working with the Australian Greens to prevent a scheme that will enable a plan that will enable more Australians to own their own homes, I mean this is an unholy alliance between the Greens and the Coalition. We know this country has a housing shortage. We need more homes. We need more homes more quickly in more parts of the country, those opposite don't want that to happen. they seem to think that home ownership should be the preserve only of some and and the Australian Greens seem to want to enable and empower Mr Dutton to prevent there being more homes in this country."
As the Greens and the Coalition partnered up to once again delay Labor's housing equity bills, Labor's plans to bring forward a vote has failed after threats of moving for a double dissolution.
The Prime Minister says neither the Greens nor the Coalition have real reasons for voting against the bills.
"We have legislation. We support it. There's no one putting forward a rational argument of why they shouldn't vote for it. In some cases, it's just immaturity and spite from the Greens spokesperson who says he supports more housing but never will vote for it, and in the Liberals and Nationals case, they're just blockers. They've never been very good on housing as the Housing Minister has just pointed out, Minister O'Neil, they didn't have a Housing Minister for a whole lot of their time in government."
For the second time, Labor has failed to pass its Help-to-Buy bill, which offers first-home buyers access to cheaper deposits through a government guarantee.
If, in at least three months from now, the government fails to pass the law through the Senate in another vote, the double dissolution can be invoked.
With a clear lack of support to get the bill passed, many were left asking why the government put it to a vote at all, with speculations about the matters being used to trigger a double dissolution election.
A move Mr Albanese was not ruling out ahead of the vote.
"Well wait and see. We leave... it's up to the. I tell you a way to avoid a double dissolution. It's for the Coalition and the Greens to vote for legislation that they support."
Leading up to the vote, sharp criticism of Labor came from sides of the Senate.
With Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham calling Labor's attempts at moving the bills forward a failure from both directions.
"The Albanese government cannot even execute a strategy to have one of its own bills defeated. It certainly can't manage to get its bill passed, but it's now even managing to find a strategy or a means to have its bill defeated either. The Labor government has so lost control of the way in which its legislative agenda operates that they managed to convince just one, just one non Labor senator to vote with them."
While Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi says the proposed bills are simply not good for most renters.
"You don't have the numbers for anything. You don't have the numbers for anything, because this senate has decided that your bill will actually make things worse for 99.8 per cent of the five and a half million renters that live in this country. So you come in here and you try and bulldoze the will of the senate. You know, as we said yesterday, the Prime Minister wants us all to get out of his way, but we are not getting out of his way to pass a bill that will make things much worse that will increase housing prices."
The help-to-buy scheme would support 40,000 eligible buyers with an equity contribution of up to 40 per cent for new homes, and 30 per cent for existing homes.
Labors other housing legislation, the Build to Rent bill, is also under scrutiny in the Senate.
The build-to-rent scheme aims to incentivise developers to build housing entirely for renting by offering tax concessions.
It will require at least 10 per cent of the dwellings to be affordable housing, priced roughly 25 per cent lower than the market rate.
The Greens demand 100 per cent of the stock built to be affordable and rent rises to be capped at 2 per cent every two years, however, this would affect the financial viability for developers.
Greens leader Adam Bandt says the government is allowing no wriggle room in their negotiations.
"The Prime Minister needs to stop bulldozing and start negotiating with the greens to fix the housing and rental crisis by capping and freezing rents, reining in those tax handouts to wealthy property investors that are denying renters the chance to buy their first home, and building more public housing. Look, it just beggars belief that the Prime Minister would rather see this bill, fail, rather than negotiate an outcome."
He also says the fact Mr Albanese is willing to threaten a double dissolution is a betrayal of the people.
"You know who the losers out of that will be? The losers out of that will be the millions of renters and stressed mortgage holders who are looking to parliament to address the housing and rental crisis, because people are at breaking point, and instead, the prime minister's out threatening early elections with political posturing. Well, no Prime Minister. Stop bulldozing start negotiating."
With the vote now delayed, the future of the bill and the housing crisis in Australia remains unclear as both sides of the aisle seem hesitant to budge.
