‘Out of touch’: Max causes housing row with average-salary claim

An argument about the average salary has inflamed a federal row over a $5.5 billion scheme to help workers buy their first homes, with Labor accusing the Greens of misleading voters about who can qualify for the financial help.

Housing Minister Clare O’Neil escalated the dispute by writing to Greens leader Adam Bandt to denounce the party’s claim that Australians would end up in “severe mortgage stress” under the home-buyer scheme.

The Greens’ housing spokesman, Max Chandler-Mather, and Housing Minister Clare O’Neil.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The move challenged Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather at the same time his followers on social media questioned whether he was making false claims about the salaries of teachers, childcare workers and others who qualify for the help.

Chandler-Mather stepped back from some of his demands on Tuesday, no longer insisting on a national rent freeze or a publicly owned housing agency to ensure the Greens’ support for the stymied government bill.

In a move that sets up a potential trigger for an early election, the government will reintroduce its draft law to set up the Help to Buy housing scheme after the Greens and the Coalition joined forces last month to halt the bill.

Chandler-Mather called for concessions from the government on Tuesday to reach a deal in the Senate but told his followers on Instagram the Labor policy would force people into mortgage stress.

But the government rejected the Greens’ assumption that a worker on $67,000 a year would buy an average home in Sydney or Melbourne and commit to mortgage payments that would make up two-thirds of their salary.

Labor promised the Help to Buy scheme at the last election with an estimate that it would help 10,000 people a year by letting the government take some of the equity in their home, making it easier for them to buy the property and cover the repayments.

The scheme is limited to workers earning up to $90,000 a year and couples on up to $120,000 a year, while it also caps the values of the properties they can buy under the policy – up to $950,000 in Sydney, $850,000 in Melbourne and $700,000 in Brisbane.

Chandler-Mather denounced the financial limits on Sunday and said Labor was wrong to claim it would help nurses, teachers and childcare workers to buy their first homes, claiming that a registered nurse would earn $112,900 and would not qualify.

That drew scorn from some of his followers on Instagram after he posted his claims about the policy, with one teacher saying his numbers were wrong.

“I’m an average teacher and would love to be earning at least that average wage,” she said.

O’Neil told Bandt the complaints were flawed because 70 per cent of workers earned less than $90,000 a year, showing that many would qualify for the policy.

“To assert that this scheme will not help this hard-working group of Australians shows that the Greens party are profoundly out of touch,” she wrote.

The median salary for an Australian worker is about $67,000 a year, while the average salary for a full-time adult worker is about $100,000 a year.

O’Neil also rejected the Greens’ claim about mortgage stress, arguing a worker earning $80,000 could buy an apartment worth $480,000 with a 10 per cent deposit and save at least $1000 a month on their mortgage under the policy.

The average purchase price under the government’s existing Home Guarantee Scheme – a separate housing policy – is $480,000.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has acknowledged the government has legal advice that a vote in the Senate to stall a bill can be interpreted as a failure to pass, and therefore set up a potential trigger for a double-dissolution election, but he has not released the advice.

While Liberal deputy leader Sussan Ley told the Coalition party room on Tuesday morning that an early election was a possibility, Labor ministers privately play down the prospect because a standard election is due by May.

Chandler-Mather said he did not expect the government to agree to two of his demands for concessions on the Help to Buy impasse – a pledge to impose national rent control and a plan to set up a large federal agency to build public housing. But he added the Greens would be willing to negotiate if Labor softened its stance on any one of his demands.

“For our part, we do not expect to get everything, but it seems like the prime minister has decided to let his version of perfect be the enemy of the good.”

Previously, Chandler-Mather has said the Greens wanted a rent freeze and caps on rent increases, phasing out negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions, and establishing a taxpayer-owned construction company.

But on Tuesday morning, Chandler-Mather softened his position, opening the door to a repeat of the arrangement last year when the Greens backed Labor’s $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund after the government pledged $2 billion for public housing.

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