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The shared equity Help to Buy scheme will likely pass this week after the Green Party of Australia said it would “wave the housing bills through”.
Following long delays to the Albanese government’s proposed housing bills – including shared equity scheme Help to Buy – the legislation will likely pass this week (the final sitting week) after the Greens stood down from its blockade.
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While the party had been pushing Labor to negotiate on the government’s housing bills – particularly by making tax changes for investors, such as removing negative gearing, and commitments to fund the 25,000 dwellings that were proposed in projects put forward for the first round of the Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF), but were not greenlit – the Greens have now said they have decided to “wave the legislation through” to focus on campaigning for renters and against Peter Dutton at the next election (expected before May 2025).
Greens Leader Adam Bandt MP said on Monday (25 November): “There comes a point where you’ve pushed as far as you can. We tried hard to get Labor to shift on soaring rents and negative gearing, but we couldn’t get there this time.
“We’ll wave the housing bills through and take the fight to the next election, where we’ll keep Peter Dutton out and then push Labor to act on unlimited rent rises and tax handouts to wealthy property investors.”
Greens Housing spokesperson Max Chandler-Mather MP said: “The Greens are waving through Labor’s housing bills after accepting Labor doesn’t care enough about renters to actually do anything meaningful for them, and that is deeply, deeply disappointing.
“Last year the Greens secured $3 billion for social housing, six times what Labor originally planned to spend, and we hoped we could secure a similar outcome this time, but the tragedy is Labor decided they’d rather have a fight with the Greens than actually help people.
“We have pushed as hard as possible to get Labor to do more than tinkering around the edges of this devastating housing crisis in this term of parliament, but in the end we just couldn’t get Labor to care enough.”
Chandler-Mather said that the Greens had gotten “close” to changes, noting that Labor costed changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount.
“We were inches away from the most significant changes to housing policy in a generation that would have helped hundreds of thousands of renters, but the Prime Minister blinked and that is deeply disappointing,” he said.
“It’s now over to the people of Australia at the next election. If you want to keep out Dutton, and push Labor to cap rent increases, phase out negative gearing and establish a public developer to build affordable homes, then vote Greens.”
What is Help to Buy?
Labor’s Help to Buy scheme, which was first announced by the Albanese government in 2022 as part of the Safer and more affordable housing measure, aims to support up to 40,000 Australian households to purchase a home of their own.
Under Help to Buy, low- to middle-income earners would only be required to have a deposit of 2 per cent (or more) to qualify for a standard home loan with a participating lender without needing to pay lenders mortgage insurance (LMI).
The Commonwealth would provide an equity contribution to eligible participants for up to 40 per cent of the purchase price for new homes and up to 30 per cent for existing homes, which will be recognised as a second mortgage (or other right secured against the property).
The scheme – which will be administered by Housing Australia – will be means-tested (income limits are $90,000 for singles and $120,000 for couples) with property price caps for each city and region.
However, some estimates have suggested that certain borrowers could be worse off under the Help to Buy scheme, as other - more generous - state-based schemes would likely be wound down.
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