Greens leader Adam Bandt has delivered a dressing down to the Albanese government over its weak policy platform as he unveils a Greens plan sure to sink its housing policy.
Speaking at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Mr Bandt called for more action from Labor, not only on housing but also to force multinational gas companies to begin paying tax on the resources they extract from Australian land.
“This government is increasingly becoming a steady as she goes, tick-a-box government, that just says ‘oh, well, if there’s a housing crisis, here’s our housing policy’, and tick and job done,” he said.
“Saying that we’re a little bit less crap than Scott Morrison [is] not what the country needs right now in the crises we’re facing.”
The government’s affordable housing fund, which would release an estimated $500 million to fund affordable and social housing, is stalled in the Senate.
Mr Bandt named the price of the Greens’ support on Wednesday.
His party instead wants a $5 billion fund for housing, which the Greens says would deliver 200,000 new government homes, and a freeze on rents nationally, which it wants funded through a $4.8 billion transfer to the states.
In all, the measures proposed by the Greens cost about $70 billion.
It is part of a vision laid out by Mr Bandt to make the minor party the main choice for younger Australians, including renters.
“For people under the age of 34 years, the Greens now reportedly poll higher than the Liberals,” he said.
“They survived the pandemic, only to face no real prospect of owning a home, and now even renting near where they work or study is being put out of reach.”
How to pay for these ambitious housing plans?
Mr Bandt had quite a few ideas, starting with the more than $250 billion to be spent on higher-income stage three tax cuts, all the way through to the $368 billion to acquire nuclear-submarine technology the Greens say will expose Australia to the risk of military conflict.
“The stage three tax cuts sit like a black hole at the centre of this budget, sucking everything else into its gravitational pull,” he said.
According to a Parliamentary Budget Office analysis, the Greens’ plans to nix a capital gains tax deduction and negative gearing would return about $75 billion in tax breaks.
“In one year, 27 big gas corporations brought in $73 billion of revenue and paid no tax,” Mr Bandt said.
“When a nurse pays more tax than a multinational, something is wrong in Australia. This is our chance to fix it.
“We’ll be pushing the government to make these big gas corporations pay their fair share of tax.”
Speculation is mounting about whether the Albanese government will use the upcoming federal budget to reverse a Gillard-era decision to lower the age at which single women received a parenting allowance.
“Labor shouldn’t expect an applause for reversing a decision that it should never have made in the first place,” Mr Bandt said.
On Wednesday, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said:
“There will be cost-of-living relief in the budget.
“It will prioritise the most vulnerable and there will be a premium on what’s responsible in the context of all of these pressures on our budget, on our economy and most importantly on people.”
