Put up or shut up: Labor stares down Greens on housing package, warns against election trigger
Anthony Albanese has challenged the Greens to back a multi-billion dollar housing package or risk facing an early election.
Greens member for Griffith Max Chandler-Mather is seeking to expand the party's target audience. (Photo: greens.org.au)
The government will reintroduce its stalled Housing Australia Future Fund when parliament resumes next week in a bid to break a Senate stalemate.
The Greens and coalition pushed back debate of the $10 billion fund to October, but the government will reintroduce the same bill to the lower house.
The resurrected bill could serve as a double dissolution trigger if it’s rejected a second time, allowing the government to call an early election.
The prime minister said an election would not be held this year, but urged opponents of the fund to back the bill.
“The way in which you rule out having a double dissolution election is to have no triggers,” he told reporters in Brisbane on Friday.
“Quite clearly, we have a mandate for this, we want this to be passed.”
The housing fund would aim to build 30,000 homes in five years with $500 million spent on affordable and social housing each year.
However, the Greens have opposed the legislation, saying more money and assistance for renters is needed.
The prime minister said politics needed to be put aside to solve the national housing crisis.
“It should be a no brainer,” Mr Albanese said.
Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather said the Labor government was refusing to budge.
“We’re willing to negotiate but a negotiation takes two to tango and the government’s saying it’s their way or the highway,” he told Sky News.
“When their way is hundreds of thousands more people waiting for public and affordable housing and millions of renters facing financial stress, that’s not a negotiation.”
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles downplayed suggestions the bill could be used as a double dissolution trigger.
“This isn’t about elections, this is about getting more housing,” Mr Marles told ABC Radio.
Acting Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said Labor’s latest move on the housing bill showed arrogance.
“The policy does not stack up and meanwhile their economy-wrecking approach is making it more and more expensive to build a home,” she said.
“What we need now is an urgent plan to tackle inflation, not threats about an early election.”
Earlier this week, the construction union launched a major campaign for a super profits tax on Australia’s richest companies to pay for social housing, which the prime minister quickly ruled out.
