"You have to be kidding me."
That was the stark message Greens leader Shane Rattenbury had for Labor after talks that ended without the major party committing to building additional social housing in the ACT.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr said substantial progress had been made in talks with the Greens but it was clear the parties had differing views on what could be achieved by the government.
Labor and the Greens agreed to more than 60 policy priorities as part of a deal that will mean the Greens guarantee supply and confidence for the Labor minority government.
Agreements include increases to arts funding, setting an urban growth boundary for the city, prioritising public housing through the planning system and boosting access to bulk billing general practitioners.
But the deal masked serious splits between the two parties on environment, transport and housing policies. The Greens chose not to take up cabinet posts and made a unanimous party room decision to sit on the crossbench.
Mr Rattenbury said Canberra needed housing people could actually afford on the incomes they have, and governments could always find money in the budget for things that really mattered.
"One easy example is that over the forward estimates, we will give $40 million to the horse racing industry. So, there's not money to build one extra single government house in this city?" he said.
"You have to be kidding me."
Mr Barr said there was no way to meet the Greens' ambitions, even though the parties had looked at a range of possible offsets for new expenditure.
He said the Greens wanted commitments in expenditure that would have driven up debt levels, significantly increased interest costs and made it almost impossible for the territory budget to be balanced at any point in the future.
"Yes, you can find millions of dollars of savings, but that's not going to cover new programs that cost hundreds of millions or, in the case of their housing commitment, nearly $10 billion," Mr Barr said.
"There just wasn't a way to meet their ambition in a couple of those areas that was in any way fiscally responsible or practical."
Mr Barr said there had been a very long conversation about who would build the homes and how there was no available workforce.
Mr Rattenbury said: "We are very clear if you don't set a high bar, you definitely will not get there."
The Greens leader also said Labor had also been unwilling to commit a dollar figure to environmental restoration and environmental protection projects, which he said were key issues for the Greens.
Mr Barr said Labor had repeatedly asked for more information about the projects the Greens were seeking funding and his party would not have established a "slush fund for particular projects".
"We wanted to see the detail and the wording that we put back to them was that we were open to considering that through the annual budget process where our business case would be developed for each of those projects," he said.
Mr Barr said it seemed the Greens wanted "budget-level decisions" rather than the statement of principles and direction Labor was seeking to agree.
"We did on a few occasions observe that obviously, the idea that they were bringing forward didn't necessarily garner strong community support," he said.
"Thoroughbred Park was an example. They made a big thing of turning that into a whole new suburb, yet their vote in the Kurrajong electorate went back by the largest amount. There were, you know, observations like that."
Mr Rattenbury said the Greens planned to pull all the levers it knew how to pull as a result of the party's experience in government.
"We intend to make the next four years a contest of ideas, make the case so that the community knows there are better options," he said.
