The federal government is likely to progress one of its key pieces of housing legislation when it goes to a vote in parliament today after months of delay. The Greens will vote for Labor’s 'Help to Buy' and 'Build to Rent' housing bills, after previously blocking the legislation, handing the government a win and ending a lengthy stand-off on housing policy.
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TVTranscript
00:00Well, they've said they've pushed as hard as they can on Labor to get more for housing,
00:06to fix the housing crisis, but that Labor won't budge.
00:09So they decided to just let this legislation go through.
00:12That includes the Help to Buy Bill, which will be back in the Senate today and with
00:16the Greens' support will easily be passed now.
00:19Now Help to Buy is a scheme trying to get first home buyers, around 40,000 of them,
00:23into the market.
00:24It's a shared equity scheme where the federal government will contribute up to $40,000 for
00:29the cost of a home.
00:31There's also a second housing bill, which the Greens had been stalling but will now
00:35also support.
00:36That is Build to Rent.
00:38It's a scheme which has tax incentives for developers to build more affordable housing
00:43and it would see properties rented out below market rate.
00:47So the two bills that the Greens had been stalling for months, they will now support.
00:52It's quite an about-face from the Greens, who had been trying to get more out of the
00:56government.
00:57They were looking for changes on negative gearing.
00:59They were looking for more social housing to be built, but they've now had that knocked
01:03back.
01:04Labor has stood firm.
01:05But the Greens say they're not giving up on those policies.
01:08They say they will take them to the next election and they believe if a minority government
01:12has to be formed with Labor, that they may be able to get them in the next term.
01:17Here's what the Greens' leader Adam Ban had to say.
01:20I think there's some in the government who get that this is a big issue.
01:24It's a big generational issue.
01:25There were some changes that say they were costing changes to negative gearing.
01:29I'm hopeful that in the next parliament, if we keep Peter Dutton out, we can push the
01:34government to make some much-needed reforms.