The Greens and Liberals Joined Forces to Block Labor's Housing Bill. What Now?

In May 2022, a fledging Federal Labor Government promised action on housing: more social homes for Australia’s most vulnerable people and better affordability for future generations.

But, 13 months on, Australia’s housing crisis has gone catatonic and shows little signs of bouncing back without drastic, immediate intervention.

That’s what the Australian Greens have been gunning for all year, siding with the Coalition and rejecting Labor’s $10 billion housing policy on Monday.

Labor’s Housing Australia Future Fund bill was a centrepiece of its election campaign. It sought to establish a $10 billion fund for social and affordable housing in investments, with at least $500m a year over five years to be spent on building social homes. 

But it’s faced criticism, most vocally from the Greens who say it’s not good enough. 

The government estimated the fund would help build 30,000 affordable homes over five years. The builds wouldn’t have been scheduled to begin until 2025.

The Greens say Australia needs at least double this number of properties, today, to even begin to address the backlog of need.

And because the Greens hold the balance of power in the Senate, they came to the table earlier in the year with a list of demands to make the bill closer to something they’d actually vote for.

Those demands started out with increasing the $500 million a year spend to $5 billion a year, plus an extra $1.6 billion a year to go to state government housing programs, as well as a 2.5-year freeze on rent increases nationwide and capped increases after.

After a months-long stalemate, the Greens wound back their demands earlier this month and said they’d pass the bill if Labor agreed to a compromise of a $2.5 billion annual spend on housing and a one-year of rent freeze.

On Saturday, the Federal Government came back and announced it would spend an additional, one-off $2 billion, not part of its original budget, to go towards expanding and renovating existing social housing stock, but with no targets attached to building new properties. That money would be divided between the states based on need and population and handed out in the next fortnight.

The Greens took this as a win and called it proof that their pressure on the government was paying off.

“Pressure works,” Max Chandler Mather, the Greens’ housing and homelessness spokesperson, said.

“To everyone who told us to pass the HAFF six months ago, I say look at the events of the weekend. When we hold the line, we get outcomes, and we need to see outcomes for renters.”

So the Greens pushed it one step further and voted the bill down on Monday (they argue that they haven't rejected the bill, just deferred it) with the hopes of negotiating better legislation, for renters, in particular.

Greens leader Adam Bandt said they would continue to push the government to introduce a rent freeze and commit more money to building social and affordable homes.

“For months we have been calling for two things: real money on housing now, not after the next election, and action to limit soaring rents,” Bandt said.

“For months, Labor has said this was impossible. Over the weekend, Labor found an extra $2b to start going out the door in two weeks’ time, but they still won’t act on rents.

“We shouldn’t have to fight this hard to get Labor to limit rent increases during this rental and housing crisis.”

After all, scrapping the stage three tax cuts could pay for everything.

If you’re not up to speed, here’s our quick breakdown of just how much money the Stage Three tax cuts are going to cost Australia:

Watch more enlightening daily news at VICE Australia Today on TikTok.

Aleksandra Bliszczyk is a Senior Reporter for VICE Australia. Follow her on Instagram, or on Twitter.