Labor, Greens reach deal over housing bill

The Greens will end their Senate blockade of the $10bn Housing Australia Future Fund legislation in return for an extra $1bn for public and community housing.

The Greens have agreed to end their Senate blockade of the government’s flagship $10bn Housing Australia Future Fund legislation in return for an extra $1bn that will be spent this year on public and community housing.

Greens Leader Adam said there was now an extra $3bn “going out the door this year that was never on the table when negotiations started” once the $2bn social housing accelerator fund was taken into consideration.

“With $3bn available now to be spent this year ... on public and community housing directly out of government revenue, the Greens are in a position where we will support the government’s housing legislation,” Mr Bandt said. “Having secured that $3bn, the Greens are prepared to support the legislation .... Pressure works.”

Leader of the Australian Greens Adam Bandt and Max Chandler-Mather hold a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The government’s housing legislation is now expected to pass the upper house this week, with Anthony Albanese telling parliament that the HAFF “now has majority support in the Senate.”

Labor says the passage of the bill represents the most significant reforms to housing in a generation and that the returns from the $10bn HAFF will help deliver the government’s commitment of 30,000 new social and affordable rental homes in the fund’s first five years.

Mr Albanese and his Housing Minister Julie Collins said the extra $1bn agreed to in negotiations with the Greens would be invested in the National Housing Infrastructure Facility to support new homes.

Mr Bandt conceded the extra money would not fix the housing crisis and acknowledged the Greens were unsuccessful in pushing for a two year rent freeze.

“The Greens were not able to get the government to shift on rent caps or rent freezes,” he said. “There is a party in parliament for renters and that party is the Greens.”

Mr Bandt said the Greens would now shift focus to “securing rent caps and a rent freeze.”

“There’s legislation still to come during the course of this parliament where the Greens are going to be in the balance of power,” he said. “We will use that same pressure, that same power to push for a rent freeze and rent caps.”