Opposition, Greens and Senate crossbench reject government’s attempt to pass Help to Buy housing scheme

Anthony Albanese has failed to ram Help to Buy through parliament and faces a broader Senate blockade of legislation, triggering claims the government has ‘lost control’ of its agenda.

Anthony Albanese’s housing agenda, proposed environmental watchdog and Future Made in Australia plan are stalled in the Senate. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Anthony Albanese has failed to ram one of his signature housing bills through parliament and faces a broader Senate blockade of his legislation, triggering opposition claims the government has “lost control” of its agenda.

After the Prime Minister declared Labor “builders” and “reformers”, and accused the opposition and Greens of being blockers, the Coalition, Greens and every Senate crossbencher present in the chamber except Tammy Tyrrell rejected the government’s attempt on Tuesday to guillotine debate on its Help to Buy scheme and put it to a vote.

“The Albanese government cannot even execute a strategy to have one of its own bills defeated. It certainly can’t manage to get its bill passed,” opposition Senate leader Simon Birmingham said.

“The Labor government has so lost control of the way in which its legislative agenda operates that they managed to convince … just one non-Labor senator to vote with them.”

Help to Buy, Labor’s joint equity housing scheme and a 2022 election promise, would allow 40,000 low- and middle-income earners to purchase a home with a minimum 2 per cent deposit.

The government would own up to 40 per cent of the home and recoup its funding, plus its share of capital gain, when the property is sold.

The Greens argue it would help just 0.2 per cent of Australia’s 5.5 million renters and push up housing prices for those who can’t access the program.

“The Prime Minister wants us all to get out of his way, but we are not getting out of his way to pass a bill that will make things much worse, that will increase housing prices,” Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi said.

“You can laugh, but there are millions of people out there suffering, suffering because you won’t act on the housing and rental crisis the way it needs to be acted on.”

Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt said the extreme right and left of Australian politics had paired up “to stop young people being able to buy a home”, while Mr Albanese blasted the Greens for being immature and spiteful.

“There’s three pieces of legislation before the Senate. There is the housing legislation, there’s environmental legislation and there’s legislation on the Future Made in Australia,” he said.

“On all of those three things the Greens and the Coalition are blocking. Labor is the builders, we’re the reformers, we’re the political party that’s getting things done. If the Greens and the Liberals and the Nationals in their new no-alition want to continue to vote against legislation, that will be a matter for them.”

The Prime Minister said “we’ll wait and see” when asked if he could go to a double-dissolution election.

If the government manages to put its Help to Buy bill to a vote in the Senate this week and it’s rejected, Labor would then need to wait three months before putting the bill to a second vote in the upper house.

That would mean the Prime Minister would have to recall parliament in the week before Christmas.

Assuming the bill is knocked back again, he would then need to call a double-dissolution election by January 25, at least six months before the term of the House of Representatives ends.

The government could also have a double-dissolution trigger up its sleeve if the Help to Buy legislation was voted down in the October sitting and the Senate was recalled in mid-January and rejected it a second time.