By siding with the right the Greens are in a race to the bottom

By siding this week with the Coalition and One Nation to delay a vote on the government’s Help To Buy legislation, the Greens have joined the right-wing parties in a populist race to the bottom, abusing Senate processes in pursuit of their own electoral fortune. It is a betrayal of voters who put their trust in the minor party to secure stronger social justice and environmental policy outcomes from the Albanese government.

The Greens do not really have a problem with the Help To Buy scheme. They complain it’s not a sufficient response to the housing crisis, but no-one said it was: it’s aimed at helping a specific cohort of first home buyers, without family wealth, into the housing market. It’s one of several housing policies pursued by this government, all of which have been subjected to political games by Greens leader Adam Bandt, apparently under orders from his housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather.

Max Chandler-Mather, Greens spokesperson for housing and homelessness, and Greens leader Adam Bandt.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

For almost five years, I was an adviser to the deputy leader of the government in the Senate for the last federal Labor government. I was involved in many negotiations on legislation with the crossbench, on often contested policies. Mostly, these negotiations were undertaken in good faith by all parties, especially the Greens under the leadership of Bob Brown, and led to outcomes that improved legislation.

I have observed this past senate-only sitting week with growing anger. Because what the Greens are doing under Bandt and Chandler-Mather, is not negotiation; it’s horse-trading.

If the Greens wanted to negotiate changes to this bill, they would have moved amendments. They did not. They simply pushed the vote back to November, allowing Chandler-Mather to declare that the government now has “…two months to negotiate with the Greens”.

What the first-term MP and former professional campaigner wants is for the majority Labor government to adopt Greens party policies, including “freezing and capping rents”, creating a public housing developer and “phasing out” negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions. That’s not negotiation, it’s blackmail, and Labor must not give in to it.

The Greens have been told repeatedly, by every expert who engaged with their inquiries into the government’s housing bills, that a rent freeze would be disastrous for low-income renters, removing lower cost homes from the rental market and making it unaffordable to properly maintain those that remain; and that any rent caps would need to be designed carefully, and implemented according to the demands of different regional markets by state and territory governments. They don’t care. The concept of a “rent freeze” is superficially appealing to Chandler-Mather’s personal constituency of young, middle-class, inner-city renters, so the devastating impact it would have on the poorest households is, apparently, collateral damage in his campaign for more seats.

Chandler-Mather’s “public developer” proposal was dismissed by anyone with a basic understanding of policy and federalism within days of its announcement as unworkable due to its sidelining of the social housing sector and the creation of a new government-funded asset class out of the reach of first home buyers, and was almost certainly unconstitutional. Again, it was just a flashy way of saying “build more social housing”, which is something every expert does agree is essential.

That the Albanese government is investing more in social housing than any federal government in 30 years is a spike in the wheels of the Greens’ campaign machine. Labor is working effectively with states and territories, social housing providers and local planning authorities to increase the proportion of non-market housing in our system. After three decades of neglect, it will take time to restore sufficient social housing, requiring difficult, collaborative work over many years, as opposed to posturing on TikTok.

But the most egregiously selfish and dangerously populist demand by the Greens is that the government should let its political opponents design significant changes to the tax system in return for their support for a bill that has nothing to do with the tax system.

Again, there are sound policy reasons and growing public support for changing the tax treatment of investment properties, which has undoubtedly led to rampant speculation on residential property and massively distorted the housing market. But to do so in isolation, at the demand of a minor party, would be disastrous and lead to all sorts of unintended outcomes. Can you imagine the Greens’ outrage if Scott Morrison had done a deal with One Nation to change a tax that affects over a million Australian households without taking it to the electorate?

Our tax and transfer system needs serious reform, across the board. We rely too much on taxing income from working people while they are trying to build a life, and tax wealth far too lightly. Labor must grasp the mettle and begin a serious conversation with the Australian people about wholesale tax reform in the next term of government. That conversation would become impossible if Labor was seen to allow the Greens to set tax policy from the crossbench.

Apparently, Chandler-Mather has a plan for the Greens to form government by 2040. If he pulls it off, then he can implement his preferred housing policies, however ill-considered and too late they may be to actually help anyone. Until then, the Greens should respect our Parliament and work with the first federal government in 30 years that has shown a real interest in fixing housing affordability. If they don’t, it will be clear that they don’t want solutions – they want an ongoing crisis on which to campaign.

Emma Dawson is executive director or Per Capita and its Centre for Equitable Housing.

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