Anthony Albanese seeks to retake the political initiative with a win over the Greens’ on housing
Having threatened a double dissolution over the government’s stalled $10bn housing policy, the Prime Minister called the Greens’ bluff over its demands for a rent freeze.
It worked. The minor party buckled and has walked away from its threshold demands.
But it didn’t come without a cost.
Having flown into Canberra early Monday morning, after attending the G20 in India, the Prime Minister threw more money on the table and secured a deal within hours.
The Greens’ price tag for lifting its legislative blockade of the policy in the Senate will cost taxpayers another $1bn.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ acknowledged the significance of the win for the government as it faces uncomfortable and unfamiliar political pressure across multiple fronts.
The noise around the Qatar decision isn’t going away. And the politics of the referendum is sharpening.
“This is not just a big win for the government, much more importantly than that, it is a big win for Australians who desperately need more homes to be built,” he told question time.
“To put it bluntly, there are not enough homes and rents are too high. That is why the government is focused on a broad and ambitious housing agenda and why the passage of the Housing Australia Future Fund is absolutely critical,” he said.
For Albanese, securing passage of the Housing Australia Future Fund, signs off on the last of his big- ticket election pledges.
He is framing it as a cost-of-living measure that will ease the inflationary impact of high rents through more supply.
It came with rare praise from Master Builders Australia, which is at war with the government over industrial relations laws.
More importantly for Albanese, it comes at a time when his caucus will be looking to him for reassurance that he has a forward plan to deal with the issues the government is confronted with.
Labor, for the first time since being elected, is under pressure.
How serious this is will depend on the opposition’s ability to capitalise on it.
It’s not danger territory yet. But it could be headed that way if the political momentum isn’t arrested.
The victory on the Housing Australia Future Fund will help Albanese steady the ship and ease internal concerns that the government is in a state of political drift.
The Greens claim that they haven’t walked away from their demands on rent freezes or caps and will try to resurrect the demands when the government seeks to dust off and legislate its first-home buyers’ policy.
However, it is not the first time it has abandoned a line in the sand on legislation.
Greens leader Adam Bandt says this was about the Greens being “pragmatic” and a demonstration that it has real power to deliver policy.
But the message it has just sent to Labor is that its threats are hollow.
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Anthony Albanese has secured an important victory as he seeks to retake the political initiative, with the voice and cost-of-living pressures eroding support for the government.