New minister Clare O’Neil urged to ‘reset housing agenda’

Newly appointed Housing Minister Clare O’Neil is being urged to ‘reset’ the government’s agenda on housing and bring together industry to canvas the best ways to unlock supply,

Housing Minister Clare O'Neil. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Newly appointed Housing Minister Clare O’Neil is being urged to “reset” the government’s agenda on housing and bring together industry to canvas the best ways to unlock supply, as Labor continues to face opposition from the Greens and the Coalition on two key pieces of housing legislation.

The call comes as Ms O’Neil faces criticism for pointing to Treasury modelling showing Labor’s build-to-rent scheme would create an extra 160,000 rental units, when Treasury officials revealed a week before they had done no such modelling.

Ms O’Neil quickly admitted she had made a mistake in attributing the data to Treasury rather than the Property Council, and apologised for the error.

However, opposition housing spokesman Michael Sukkar said: “Clare O’Neil made a major blunder, showing she’s not yet across her brief and responsibilities as housing minister.”

Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather lashed Ms O’Neil for “misleading the public” over the build-to-rent scheme, declaring the Property Council had not provided the 160,000 figure in relation to Labor’s build-to-rent bill.

He also slammed Ms O’Neil for refusing to re-engage in negotiations over the legislation with the minor party.

Despite not yet having responded to a letter from Mr Chandler-Mather signed after she was shifted from home affairs to the housing portfolio, Ms O’Neil is understood to be intending to meet with the Greens, Coalition and stakeholders in coming weeks to discuss the build-to-rent and help-to-buy proposals.

The Housing Industry Association demanded the government stop putting so much of its focus on social and affordable housing when such issues “make up only a small part of the big picture that is housing in Australia”.

“Social and affordable housing play a key role is supporting those who are unable to get into home ownership, and we are supportive of boosting its supply across the country,” HIA managing director, Jocelyn Martin said. “The majority of the government’s 1.2 million homes target will need to be homes for the private market.

“This is crucial to bring house prices and rentals down.”

Ms Martin said the more new homes in the private market were built, “the more social housing is freed up”.