Prime Minister Anthony Albanese steps up fight with Greens over housing crisis

Anthony Albanese has upped the ante in his ongoing fight with the Greens to get legislation passed through the Senate, telling the minor party to just get out of the way on housing policy.

The Prime Minister’s frustrations with the Greens and Coalition boiled over on Monday at the start of a Senate-only week where the Government wants to push through a series of legislation despite not being able to win backing from the left or right flanks.

Independent senator David Pocock also showed his frustration, urging Senate colleagues to put aside political imperatives for the good of Australians trying to find homes.

But strategists say the only winners from the stoush are likely to be the Greens, with voters marking down a government that can’t produce results.

Mr Albanese and Housing Minister Clare O’Neil announced the first release of money from the Government’s signature Housing Australia Future Fund and deal with the States and Territories on Monday, which is expected to cover the construction of more than 13,700 social and affordable homes, with about 5500 expected to have sods turned by June.

But Mr Albanese said if the Greens and Coalition had not held up passage of the HAFF legislation, people could already be moving into new homes and Monday’s announcement could have been for the second round of funding.

The Government was gearing up for another fight over its shared equity scheme, known as Help to Buy, and build to rent tax breaks for developers in the Senate this week.

Senators spent several hours debating Help to Buy on Monday and the government wants to get it to a vote this week.

“The Senate have a week where it’s just them, okay, there’s no distractions here ... Can they get anything done this week? That’s the question,” Mr Albanese said.

“Get on with it. Don’t sit back and do what they did with the Housing Australia Future Fund. We’re announcing 13,700 new homes today. We could have been announcing 13,700 new homes six or eight months ago had they not stood in the way of the legislation, and today we could have been announcing round two rather than round one.

“The key is the no-alition getting out of the way. They say they support this, this is in the Greens’ policy platform. This is about home ownership. There is no downside to this here.”

With an election due in the next eight months, the Coalition increasingly sees little political advantage in compromising to help the Government pass signature policies.

At the same time, Labor would prefer to deal with the Coalition than be pulled to the left by the Greens.

Redbridge director Tony Barry, a former Liberal strategist, said the resulting policy paralysis was not good for any incumbent government because they were the ones voters marked down, not the opposition.

“The problem the Government has is the Greens. The Greens see Labor as their natural opponents, they see their base, the Labor base vote, as the opportunity to grow their own vote,” he told the West.

“It’s not the first time the Greens have effectively damaged an incumbent Labor government before, and probably won’t be the last.”

Senator Pocock said the Government’s housing plan was not ambitious enough but urged senators to work constructively.

He likened housing affordability to the way the climate debate had been politicised.

“We know that all that happened was a delay to the actions we so desperately needed,” he said.

“I’m worried that politics are standing in the way of delivering measures that, while not perfect and certainly not the whole solution, can and will help.”