15/02/2023

Labor’s housing package was debated in the House today. The Greens continue to reserve their position while negotiations with the government continue. While Labor has the numbers to push this Bill through the House, it’s likely they will need Greens support to pass their plan through the Senate. 

Greens Party Room has agreed upon a set of key negotiating aims including:

• A minimum of $5 billion invested in social and affordable housing every year (indexed to inflation) and removing the $500 million cap

• A national plan for renters including the Prime Minister putting a national freeze on rent increases on the national cabinet agenda and an immediate doubling of Commonwealth Rent Assistance in the Budget

• $1 billion investment in remote Aboriginal Housing over 5 years

Lines attributable to Max Chandler-Mather MP, Greens spokesperson for housing and homelessness:

It’s disappointing that Labor are ramming through the housing bill while we’re in good faith negotiations to fix a plan that will currently see the housing crisis get worse. 

Labor is trying to say that it’s Labor’s way or the highway, but Labor’s way would see the shortage of social and affordable housing grow, and a real cut in housing funding every year. 

Labor’s way is nothing but a gamble of $10 billion dollars on the stock market, with a very real risk that not a dollar gets spent on housing.

This is a plan that gambles with the lives of people who just desperately need an affordable, secure roof over their heads. This is a plan that gambles housing funding on the same market that broke the housing system in the first place. 

We are standing with the millions of people this bill leaves behind: renters, people in social housing, First Nations people in overcrowded housing, people sleeping rough. These are the people Labor’s bill leaves behind and this is who we’re fighting for.