Bill Shorten has accused the Greens of blocking home ownership policies out of “political expediency” as the government increases scrutiny on the minor party’s MPs’ advocacy to oppose or modify local housing projects.
The minister for government services labelled the Greens a “formidable and destructive political part of Australian life” on Friday, accusing them of forming an “unholy alliance” with the Coalition to delay Labor’s Help to Buy scheme.
The Greens housing spokesperson, Max Chandler-Mather, responded: “My message to Labor is simple: This doesn’t have to be a fight.”
“The Greens accept we won’t get everything we want, but perhaps Labor can try and understand why we won’t just accept a scheme that leaves behind 99.8% of renters and drives up house prices in the middle of a massive housing crisis destroying millions of lives.”
Following Tuesday’s Senate vote refusing to allow the government’s shared equity scheme to proceed, Labor’s employment minister, Murray Watt, said in addition to blocking the bill the Greens also “continue to campaign against new housing in their own electorates”.
Watt told the Senate that Stephen Bates, the member for Brisbane, had opposed “a development that would turn an empty sand and gravel factory into 381 residential apartments, because there would be too many car parks”.
Watt also said Bates was “opposing a build-to-rent project in his electorate that would create 349 new apartments” on a site that is currently an empty lot, 200 metres from a major train station and walking distance to the Brisbane CBD.
Bates told Guardian Australia that he wanted the two developments – 17 and 27 Skyring Terrace and 20 Walsh Street – “to have more public, social and affordable housing so our city doesn’t become the exclusive purview of the rich”.
In a submission to Brisbane city council on 10 October 2023, Bates objected to the first development citing lack of green space and “excessive height”; he opposed the second on 29 January 2024, on the basis of lack of detail about how the developer would mitigate against possible flooding.
“Brisbane residents are fed up with developers claiming they are addressing the housing crisis by ‘increasing supply’ with endless approvals of developments that fail to follow planning requirements, only to sit on those approvals for a decade while the land value skyrockets,” Bates wrote.
The Greens have claimed Labor is cherry-picking projects and ignoring that Labor politicians had also raised concerns.
“I look forward to hearing the senator’s next speech condemning the ‘inner-city’ Labor minister for state development, Grace Grace, and state Labor MP Jonty Bush for opposing these developments,” Bates said.
Watt also cited the Greens MP for Ryan, Elizabeth Watson-Brown, who he said was “campaigning against” development in the suburb of Mitchelton.
“In December last year, the member wrote to the Brisbane city council, complaining the project … would ‘diminish the natural character of the site,’ because it’s much more important to have a disused chicken farm than it is to have 91 new homes, which, on the other hand, the Greens say that they want to do.”
Watson-Brown said: “When I’ve asked locals their thoughts, just 2% of people support the application in its current form, but 92% support the site being brought into public ownership.”
“We’re calling on the federal government to step in and buy this site for well-designed public homes, not million-dollar houses. Any new housing in the area should also be accompanied by investment in public transport and green space.”
On Friday, Shorten dismissed the Greens’ concerns that 40,000 places in the Help to Buy scheme wouldn’t make a difference to housing supply, accusing them of “living in a parallel universe”.
Shorten told Radio National that Labor and the Coalition each sought to form government and “actually … get things done”. He said the Greens were a party of protest or “an outrage factory so they can [be all] things to all people”, because they never had to implement their policies.
Chandler-Mather said that “unlike the Greens, Labor wants to keep the tax handouts for property investors driving up house prices, spend less on public housing and leave rents completely unregulated”.
“But I urge Labor, come to the table and let’s find a middle ground.”
