Housing Minister Clare O’Neil has some home truths for the Greens

Housing Minister Clare O’Neil will take on the Greens over the minor party’s campaign on soaring rents, declaring immediate cost-of-living relief and building more homes will be the best ways forward.

Newly installed Housing Minister Clare O’Neil in her office at Parliament House. Picture: Martin Ollman

Housing Minister Clare O’Neil will take on the Greens over the minor party’s campaign on soaring rents, declaring immediate cost-of-living relief and building more homes – rather than rent freezes or tax changes – will be the best ways forward.

While admitting she had not been “completely sure” of Anthony Albanese’s plans for her ahead of last month’s cabinet reshuffle, Ms O’Neil said she was “genuinely so happy” to be shifted from the troubled home affairs portfolio to housing.

“I got into politics to make a difference and this housing crisis we’re in is profoundly affecting the lives of millions of Australians,” she said in a wide-ranging interview.

“And to have the opportunity to make a difference to that is … exactly why I got into politics. I feel very, very motivated.”

Following Ms O’Neil’s appointment, Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather wrote to the minister urging her to accept the minor party’s conditions and work together to pass Labor’s stalled pieces of housing legislation.

“Minister, your appointment in the middle of this crisis represents a historic opportunity to take bold action … There is broad popular support for phasing out tax handouts for investors, rent caps, and mass investment in public housing,” he wrote in a letter to Ms O’Neil. “I urge you to seize this opportunity to reopen negotiations with the Greens.”

Ms O’Neil hit back against proposals such as rent freezes, which she said “would not work” and only exacerbate the problem.

“We’re focused on building more homes and providing real relief to renters right now. Renters doing it tough have $1000 more per year in their pocket since we came into government through our increases to rent assistance,” she said.

“Rent freezes sound nice, but all the experts have told us that it would tank supply, drive up rents and make more people homeless.

“The opposition and the Greens are more interested in a debate in Parliament House than houses for Australians.”

Ms O’Neil also ruled out changes to negative gearing, declaring reforms for such tax breaks were “not on the table”.

Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The 44-year-old was appointed to the home affairs portfolio after the 2022 election, where she oversaw a number of major cyber ­security incidents and the High Court’s controversial NZYQ decision that led to the release of 149 immigration detainees – several of whom later committed serious criminal offences in the community, including assault.

The NZYQ scandal prompted questions over the future of Ms O’Neil and the junior minister responsible for immigration, Andrew Giles, who was also moved to a new portfolio.

Many Labor MPs told The Weekend Australian ahead of the reshuffle that Ms O’Neil could be well-suited to the housing portfolio because she was more “retail” than former minister Julie Collins, who some government sources said had not performed particularly well in the portfolio.

In comments foreshadowing the significance of housing policies for Labor and its rivals at the next election, Ms O’Neil said housing had become “a life-defining issue for millions of people around our country”.

“Of course that affects how they think about politics,” she said. “Labor has announced record spending and investment to address the housing crisis – $32bn. That is how serious we are about this. I have to make sure that that money is properly invested, that it’s properly delivered, that those programs are actioned upon.

“We’ve done an absolute mountain of policy work on this. I now have to turn that into outcomes on the ground and that’s my first focus.”

However, Labor faces a series of housing challenges ahead of the next election, including the blockade of key pieces of legislation – the help to buy scheme and build to rent program – in the face of a growing housing affordability crisis and ballooning rents.

According to data in July, house rents have risen by 11.1 per cent over the past year, while units have grown by 8.6 per cent.

Despite the opposition of the Greens and Coalition to the government’s two pieces of housing legislation, Ms O’Neil said she was not contemplating whether Labor would take those same policies to the next election.

Instead, she said the government would pass them in this term, though she did not indicate which party she was banking on supporting the bills.

“We’ve got two really good and important pieces of the puzzle before the parliament at the moment and other parties in the parliament need to come and help us solve this crisis and stop standing in the way,” she said.

“We’re trying to build. They’re trying to block. We’re not going to get progress unless they come with us and try to focus on the problem instead of the politics.”

Ms O’Neil also hosed down concerns around data released this month showing that Labor was on track to miss its target of building 1.2 million homes by the end of the decade, pointing out “we’re only two months into five year plan”.

She confirmed that she had met with “almost all state housing ministers” over the past 10 days, but warned that governments now needed to “redouble efforts” to address the national housing crisis.