Editor’s view: Greens must bend on housing crisis

If the Greens want to be taken seriously as a political force, they will have to come to the table to help fix the housing crisis, writes the editor.

Anthony Albanese should think long and hard before he pushes the button on the nuclear option to get his plan to address the housing crisis before parliament.

And the Greens must work with the government to address the issue now, as more men, women and children struggle to find a safe place to sleep.

The Prime Minister has again raised the prospect of a double dissolution – asking the governor-general to dismiss both the House of Representatives and the Senate – if the Greens continue to oppose his proposed Housing Australian Future Fund.

The political standoff has been going on for some months now, with an increasingly frustrated Prime Minister now threatening to send us all back to the polls unless the Greens come to the table.

Trouble is, such drastic measures have had a tendency to backfire. Just ask former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.

In 2016, Mr Turnbull seized a double dissolution trigger, the Senate blocking a proposal to re-establish the Australian Building Construction Commission, to wipe the slate clean in a bid to get a less unruly Senate.

What he got was a reduced majority, as well as four Pauline Hanson’s One Nation senators, the Jacqui Lambie Network, the Derryn Hinch Justice Party and three Senators from the Nick Xenophon Team.

It is something Mr Albanese would have to consider carefully, given he currently commands a slim majority of three MPs and has lost WA Premier Mark McGowan which could see Labor’s support in the western state fall.

More importantly, it won’t do anything to fix the housing crisis sooner.

That said, the Prime Minister has indicated even if the Greens block the HAFF legislations twice, which would give him the double dissolution trigger, he is unlikely to call an election this year.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

He does not want to distract from the referendum on the Voice to Parliament, which is widely tipped to be called for mid-October.

At the moment he is using the threat to pressure the Greens into supporting the laws, which would see 30,000 social and affordable houses built over five years.

The Greens are demanding a national rental price cap in return for the vote, despite it being up to state governments to implement.

It is a demand Labor is rejecting and one that economists warned could end up restricting supply and making the housing crisis worse.

Queensland Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon even admitted the state government’s rushed laws to limit rental increases to once a year had unintended consequences, including landlords ending leases with tenants in order to increase rents more frequently.

Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon. Picture: Liam Kidston

The Greens are loudly crowing that they are standing up for renters, but it is hard to take them seriously when they restrict supply by opposing housing developments in their own electorates.

Their fellow crossbencher Tammy Tyrrell put it succinctly when she congratulated the Greens for fighting for more housing, but said they had to “realise you can’t get more homes by voting against more homes”.

If the Greens want to be taken seriously as a political force, at some point they will have to come to the table.

Wake-up call needed on state crime wave

Queenslanders across the state will wake up this morning to their homes broken into, their cars and valuables missing and their sense of safety stolen.

There will be hundreds of them by the end of the week, thousands by the end of the month.

By the end of 2023, if the shocking figures we revealed today from 2022 are mirrored, there will be tens of thousands of victims across Queensland.

A growing list of victims should have been able to go to bed at night after locking their home knowing they would wake up to their castle not being invaded. Now they are living with a sense of dread, waiting for it to happen again.

In 2022 alone there were 2759 victims of robbery, 47,277 unlawful entry victims, and more than 18,000 people were victims of their cars being stolen, according to the ABS.

Opposition Leader David Crisafulli said the crime crisis was affecting our way of life.

“More than ever, Queensland communities are being torn apart by crime and the government is still refusing to admit we’re in the grip of a crisis of their own making,” he said.

Police Minister Mark Ryan reassured Queenslanders the state government was working hard to “hold perpetrators to account”.

Mr Ryan will more than likely be grilled on the deepening crime crisis in Queensland over coming weeks as the government heads into the annual budget estimates.

And Queensland victims deserve answers.