TRANSCRIPT
"The Senate have a week where it's just them, okay, there's no distractions here. Can they get anything done? Can they get anything done this week? That's the question."
A clear call from the Prime Minister.
There's just five sitting weeks left in the year and plenty on Labor's legislative agenda.
This week, the focus is housing.
Two bills will be before the Senate.
The Help to Buy shared equity scheme that would see the government lend up to 40 per cent of the cost of a house to eligible buyers, and the Build to Rent tax concession to incentivise developers to build affordable rentals.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese calling for other parties to get on board with the schemes.
"The Greens and the Coalition increasingly are combining to vote against good legislation, and whether it is housing legislation, environmental legislation, they need to get out of the way and stop coming up with excuses and start voting for solutions."
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young:
"Get out of the way. I'm sorry, Mr Prime Minister, but that's not actually how democracy works, and it's not actually representative of this chamber."
The minor party has an ambitious housing policy platform - scrapping negative gearing, capping and freezing rents, and establishing a publicly owned property developer to increase supply of affordable housing.
Leader Adam Bandt says the party is still open to negotiation.
"We are willing to work with the government to tackle the housing and rental crisis, but Labor's Band Aid answers are making the problem worse, and Labor is refusing to tackle the real forces of the housing costs."
The Prime Minister accusing the Greens of not supporting a policy that was part of their own election platform.
"This is in the Greens policy platform. This is about home ownership. There is no downside to this here. This isn't a compulsory scheme, what this is doing is adding to the options that people have for getting into home ownership."
Something Adam Bandt denies.
"Our position which took to the election was very different. It was a much bigger, government-backed and government-owned scheme where the government would step back in and start building houses like it used to."
Whilst the parties play a game of housing policy chicken, others on the crossbench, including Jacqui Lambie, are urging them to get on with it.
"We either start building houses or we continue to argue and we don't get any more roofs over people's heads. And I will not be stopping people out there and their children from having a roof over their head and having warmth during the winter. I won't be a part of that. I want them to start. Nothing's ever perfect up here. And if the Greens continue to carry on that the way they are, with their stupid bloody demands because they don't want houses built, then let them wear that at the next election."
