The Greens say their support for two housing bills stuck in the Senate is not contingent on their demands to curb the capital gains tax exemption and negative gearing deductions for investors, as they urged new housing minister Clare O’Neil to talk to them.

After Ms O’Neil told The Australian Financial Review the Greens were treating the housing crisis as a political plaything, and she would not be distracted by them, Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather wrote to her on Thursday offering to negotiate.