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The shared equity housing bill has been reintroduced to the lower house in the hopes of passing, but the Greens are still opposing it.
The Albanese government’s Help to Buy legislation has been reintroduced to Parliament in a second attempt to either try and pass it or trigger a double dissolution.
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This marks the second time the bill has been introduced following an unsuccessful attempt to pass the bill in September. However, doubts remain as to whether the result will be different this time around.
The bill has struggled to gain support across the bench. The Australian Greens Party and the Coalition recently voted to postpone voting on the bill until November.
The prospect of the bill reaching yet another standstill has led some to speculate about the possibility of a double dissolution election, where all seats in both houses are contested, which can be called when there is a deadlock between the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Earlier this month, Minister for Housing Clare O’Neil said a double dissolution should be considered a “serious proposition” in talking about the need for a “circuit breaker” in the debate.
However, when reintroducing the bill on Tuesday (8 October), she encouraged the Greens and the Coalition to vote the scheme through.
“I really call on others in the Parliament to come forward and support this bill. There is no public policy reason to stand in the path of 40,000 people who need and deserve the government’s help,” Minister O’Neil said.
“We deal with a lot of legislation in this Parliament. We face few opportunities that are as clear as this one to, in one move, be able to change the lives of 40,000 people around our country, and I urge the Liberals and the Greens to work with the government to take it.”
Greens say scheme ‘inaccessible’
However, Greens housing spokesperson Max Chandler-Mather MP has again criticised Help to Buy in its current format, saying the scheme would likely be inaccessible to the very professions it’s supposed to help, such as nurses, childcare workers, teachers, and paramedics.
The party released an analysis completed by research service Parliamentary Library showing the current full-time earning limit for a single person ($90,000) would render registered nurses and paramedics ineligible, based on their average full-time earnings ($112,900 and $127,000, respectively).
The analysis also showed that while a childcare worker would meet the income test based on average full-time earnings ($67,430), participating in the scheme would place them under severe mortgage stress in areas such as Sydney, Brisbane, or Melbourne.
Chandler-Mather has said the party is willing to negotiate with the Albanese government, but there was no wiggle room on the party’s demands such as phasing out negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount.
He said: “It is cruel and deeply dishonest for Labor to suggest their dodgy scheme will help teachers, childcare workers or nurses when the reality is they will either be completely ineligible or otherwise unable to afford the mortgage repayments under the scheme.
“Like so many Labor and Liberal housing schemes that have come before it, Help to Buy is designed only to look like the government is doing something to help when in fact it will just drive up house prices for everyone.
“The Greens are ready to negotiate on a plan that actually helps people buy a home, but we will not just rubber stamp a bill that will drive up house prices and force people into severe mortgage stress.
“As long as the Federal Government keeps dishing out billions of dollars in tax handouts to property speculators through negative gearing and the capital gains discount, then property investors will keep beating first home buyers at auctions and bidding up the price of housing.”
Calls for compromise
Meanwhile, the Property Council of Australia has joined calls for parliamentarians to work together to pass the legislation.
Mike Zorbas, CEO of the property industry advocate, said Australia is falling well short of the 240,000 homes required to hit the target of 1.2 million new homes by 2029, outlined in the National Housing Accord.
“These last few sitting weeks of the year are the right time to sideline entrenched political views and pass legislation to build more homes and get more Australians onto the property ladder,” Zorbas said.
He said it shouldn’t take a double dissolution election to get the legislation passed, noting that the nation was “decades behind” in supplying the housing Australia needs.
“We need bipartisan support to fix the legislation before the Senate and unlock massive additional investment in rental housing at a time when the supply of new apartments is at half of 2017 levels,” he said.
What is the Help to Buy scheme?
First announced in 2022, the shared equity scheme would see the government contribute up to 40 per cent of the purchase price for new homes or 30 per cent of existing homes for eligible borrowers.
Under Help to Buy, eligible low- to middle-income earners would only need a 2 per cent deposit to qualify for a standard loan with participating lenders and wouldn’t be required to pay lenders mortgage insurance (LMI).
Labor has claimed Help to Buy would support 40,000 households to purchase or build a home.
[Related: Help to Buy legislation set for parliamentary return]
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