Greens vow to ‘keep fighting’ on housing as party takes aim at Labor’s help to buy scheme

Labor’s “Help to Buy” shared equity scheme will be the next housing bill in the Greens’ sights in the minor party’s push for a cap or freeze on rent increases.

The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, has vowed to “keep fighting” despite the minor party agreeing to pass Labor’s $10bn housing Australia future fund (Haff) bill in return for a further $1bn for public and community housing.

On Tuesday the Greens party room met to discuss the next phase of their campaign, including future housing legislation in which the party is in the balance of power and an electoral campaign targeting Labor-held seats including Macnamara and Richmond.

At Labor’s national conference the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, announced that the help to buy scheme will be up and running in 2024. The scheme would help 10,000 prospective buyers a year by taking equity of 30% (for an existing build) or 40% (of a new-build) in their homes, meaning smaller deposits and loans for the owner’s share.

But the scheme requires legislation at both the state and federal level, and has been identified by the Greens as the next housing bill to agitate the rent cap issue.

“The Greens will be in the balance of power on a number of bills in the rest of this parliament,” Bandt told Guardian Australia.

“We’re going to keep fighting for a cap and freeze on rents. We’ll use every opportunity to push for a cap and freeze on rents. This fight is only just beginning.”

Bandt said the Greens would make a final decision “if and when” the help to buy bill was introduced to parliament. “But we’re making the broad point that in balance of power, we’re going to use our power to continue to push for a cap and freeze on rent increases.”

Labor opposes rent caps due to concerns they would reduce rental supply, and because of the opposition of the state and territory governments, which have constitutional authority for housing.

On Tuesday the Senate voted to reorder its business to allow the Haff bill to come to a final vote on Wednesday.

In question time, the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, argued that renters were “paying the price for the wasted decade of missed opportunities” under the Coalition. The housing minister, Julie Collins, said the Haff would provide “a pipeline of funding to help build social and affordable housing right across the country”.

Advocates for renters and people experiencing homelessness praised the Haff deal, but also encouraged the Greens to continue to push Labor.

Maiy Azize, spokesperson for the Everybody’s Home campaign, said the total of $3bn in direct spending on housing showed “pressure works” and “renters and people who need housing are more powerful” than previously thought.

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Asked about the Greens using the help to buy scheme as further leverage, Azize said: “We should take every opportunity to get as much as we can for social housing and better outcomes for renters.”

Leo Patterson Ross, the chief executive officer of the NSW Tenants’ Union, said the government was “going to have to take renters issues more seriously”.

He said it was “appropriate to consider” whether the help to buy scheme was the most appropriate support or “better relief for the rental sector is a better use of resources”.

“The focus on home ownership leads to higher prices, and a worse renting experience for those who can’t afford to buy – so we should be questioning [support for buyers].”

In August the national cabinet agreed to limit rent increases to once a year, but the Greens’ housing spokesperson, Max Chandler-Mather, continued to warn that Labor was failing renters and allowing increases of unlimited size.

On Tuesday, Chandler-Mather acknowledged that while the party wasn’t “able to convince Labor to care about the one-third of this country who rents, I don’t think anyone could accuse us of not fighting as hard as we possibly could”.

Chandler-Mather told Radio National the Greens hoped to force Labor to adopt rent caps but “if it takes maybe going to the next election and losing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of votes to renters, because Labor refuse to come to the table … then so be it”.

“That’s sort of how our democracy works.”