Housing Minister Clare O’Neil calls on Greens, Coalition to pass key housing Bill

Housing Minister Clare O’Neil is accusing the Greens of having an “abstract political debate” over housing when 40,000 lives could be “transformed”.

Housing Minister Clare O’Neil is calling on the Greens and Coalition to back the federal government’s signature housing co-ownership Bill stalled in the Senate, saying the lives of 40,000 Australians could be “transformed”.

The government will reintroduce its Help To Buy Bill in the House of Representatives on Tuesday when parliament resumes for a three-day sitting week.

Two attempts to force a vote in the Senate in September were thwarted, with the Greens pushing back the next vote until November 26 in order to continue negotiations.

Ms O’Neil said on Tuesday there was no “silver bullet” for the housing crisis and accused the Greens of wanting to “fight” instead of “making real progress for real people”.

Housing Minister Clare O’Neil is calling on the Coalition and the Greens to support a key housing Bill. Picture: NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

“We’ve had a number of attempts to get to a position of reaching agreement about this so we can get the help to people who need it, but … the distinct impression I get is that Greens, in particular, don’t really want to see this Bill pass the parliament,” she told the ABC.

She said the proposed legislation was “not an abstract political debate”.

“This is 40,000 actual people, actual childcare workers, actual aged care workers, whose lives will be transformed if we’re able to get this Bill through the parliament,” Ms O’Neil said.

A poll last month found a majority of Greens voters wanted parliamentarians to pass the Bill, but the minor party has argued the scheme would not help those it was aiming to.

Analysis by the Parliamentary Library found registered nurses and paramedics on average would earn above the income test, while a childcare worker on an average full-time salary of $67,430 a year would be in mortgage stress if they bought in Sydney, Brisbane or Melbourne.

The Greens have also said the policy would drive up prices of homes below the maximum price cap of $950,000 for NSW buyers in Sydney and regional centres.

The Greens say the government’s Help to Buy Bill will not help the housing crisis. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Instead, the minor party, which holds the balance of power in the Senate, has demanded the government strip back negative gearing and capital gains tax concession for investors – both policies Ms O’Neil again dismissed on Tuesday.

The Greens have also called on the government to invest in a government-owned property developer that would be tasked with building affordable homes that could be funded through cutbacks to the investor tax concessions.

But the government has repeatedly called on the Greens to test their ideas through amendments rather than holding its agenda hostage.

“We’ve got a housing crisis that has been boiling away here for about 30 years,” Ms O’Neil said.

“There is not a single silver bullet to this crisis and anyone who is proposing that there is, treat them with caution.”