A Labor scheme that aims to attract foreign investors to build more affordable rental housing stock is likely to have the opposite effect and repel them, and should be overhauled, a parliamentary inquiry has been told.

The Albanese government’s legislation to provide new tax incentives for foreign investors in the nascent build-to-rent sector is stuck in the Senate. Along with legislation for Labor’s Help to Buy scheme, the plan is caught up in the heated pre-election politics of housing policy and lacks support from the Greens and Coalition.