Prime Minister Anthony Albanese threatens double dissolution amid housing legislation fight

Labor will try and force a second vote on its stalled signature shared equity housing policy after Anthony Albanese left the door open for a double dissolution election.

Labor will try and force a second vote in the senate on its shared equity Help to Buy Bill following a bruising defeat in the Senate.

The first failed 41 to 19, with the government only convincing one non-Labor senator, Tammy Tyrrell to back a vote.

The Manager of Government Business in the Senate Katy Gallagher said it was “time to get a vote on,” with the Bill already lagging in the upper house for 290 days.

However she said the government would “consider our options,” if the Bill fails for a second time.

“We’re committed to a shared equity scheme … we’ll obviously consider our options if the bill goes down, but again, this is us forcing the issue,” she said.

“No longer are we going to be held to ransom by the Greens on this issue, pretending that they’re negotiating … They don’t support this bill and they want to continue to campaign and complain about the government rather than being part of the solution.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has demanded senators pass Labor’s housing bills. Picture: NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

Earlier on Tuesday, Mr Albanese demanded the stalled Bill be passed “today”, with the government facing a similar challenge on its suite of environmental legislation.

Asked whether the blocked reforms could trigger a double dissolution, and whether that would go in Labor’s favour, Mr Albanese answered: “We’ll wait and see.

“I’ll tell you a way to avoid a DD (double dissolution), it’s for the Coalition and Greens to vote for legislation that they support,” he said.

Threats of an early double-dissolution election has been rubbished by the Coalition and Greens.

The Greens will likely continue to block the bill, vowing to move a motion to delay a vote by another two months to allow for further negotiations.

Greens Leader Adam Bandt, who says Labor’s housing policy would push up house prices and increase rents, said a double dissolution would be a “betrayal” to stressed and struggling renters and mortgage holders.

“For the Prime Minister to go to an early election rather than negotiate an outcome … that is just pure political posturing,” he said.

“The losers out of that will be the millions of renters and stressed mortgage holders who are looking to parliament to address the housing and rental crisis.”

Liberal MP Andrew Wallace said Mr Albanese’s comments were unrealistic.

“Bring it on, is all I can say. I have a lot of things to say about the Prime Minister, but I don’t think he’s stupid, and I think that’s a bit of a veiled threat,” Mr Wallace told Sky News.

Mr Wallace, a former builder, also lashed the government for “building zero homes” under the $10bn Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF), which began in November 2023.

The government announced on Sunday that it had approved the first found of 185 grants to construct social and affordable homes that will deliver 13,700 of the promised 40,000 homes.

“I used to be a builder. I’m still a registered builder. I’ve built more homes in Australia than this federal government has,” he said.

“Ten billion dollar infrastructure under the Housing Australia Future Fund, and they have not built a single home.

“Pretty sad to say a regional Queensland builder has built more homes than the federal government, but that’s the reality.”

The Albanese government has faced major roadblocks in passing its signature housing legislation. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Brenton Edwards

As well as roadblocks in its Help to Buy, and Build to Rent bills, the government is also facing a war over its Nature Positive bills, with the Greens demanding a “climate trigger” to veto high-emission producing resource projects.

Mr Albanese has continued to rule out the trigger and said it would be used by the Greens as “an excuse to vote against things”.

On Monday, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young labelled Mr Albanese a “bulldozer,” using the unfavourable moniker given to his predecessor Scott Morrison.

“It is not leadership to bulldoze your way through,” she said.

“Our previous prime minister was a bulldozer, let’s not forget, that didn’t end so well.”

A double dissolution would force both houses to go to an early election and is triggered if the government is unable to pass legislation between the Senate and House of Representatives.

For a double dissolution to occur, it must be held at least six months before July 25, 2025, when the House of Representatives is set to expire.

This means the last possible date the Governor-General could dissolve the Senate would be on January 25.

Mr Albanese previously threatened a double dissolution election over the road-blocked HAFF, which was eventually passed in November after negotiations with the Greens.

Australia has only had seven double dissolutions in the parliament’s history, with the most recent in 2016 under former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.

According to the latest Newspoll survey, Labor is sitting 50/50 against the Coalition on a two-party preferred system, with Mr Albanese leading Opposition Leader Peter Dutton 45 to 37 as preferred prime minister.

Originally published as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese threatens double dissolution amid housing legislation fight