Greens threaten housing brawl over help to buy scheme

The Greens have set up a new showdown with the Albanese government over housing, announcing they will vote against Labor's shared equity scheme, help to buy, in the House and launching into wide-ranging negotiations for its Senate votes.

Greens leader Adam Bandt describes help to buy, which is up for debate in the House this week, as a "housing lottery" and has opened negotiations by insisting on changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax "handouts" with billions of dollars. Treasurer Jim Chalmers has said there's no plans to change and there's no change in position on negative gearing and capital gains tax.

The Greens also want to introduce caps on rent increases, a move that has been previously ruled out by the federal government.

It comes after protracted and heated negotiations with the Greens, particularly the Greens housing spokesperson Max Chandler-Mather, over Labor's election promise of the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund. It even came down to a threatened double dissolution trigger from Anthony Albanese.

"The ball is in Labor's court," Mr Bandt told reporters in Canberra.

"Unless we see movement on the things that are pushing house prices out of reach of millions of renters across the country and a fix to negative gearing and capital gains tax handouts, capping of rents and building public housing, we vote against it in the House, we will reserve our position in the Senate.

"It's what is needed to ensure that house prices and rents don't keep going up and up and up and that the housing crisis doesn't keep breaking people."

Help to buy is a shared equity scheme to help aspiring home owners get into the housing market with as little as a two per cent deposit and the added bonus of lower ongoing repayments. Labor claims it will assist 40,000 homes over five years, limiting applicants to 10,000 a year. There are also price caps on eligible properties.

Under the plan, the government would contribute up to 40 per cent of the value of a home for a new property or 30 per cent for an existing one. Once passed in Federal Parliament, states will need to pass their own complimentary legislation, but it is expected to start automatically in the ACT and the Northern Territory.

The government needs the Greens and the progressive crossbench in the Senate as the Coalition has again indicated it will vote against the government's housing policy.

Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said it was a "pathetic policy, a year and a half late."

"Do people really want the government to take an equity stake in their home with all the rules and regulations surrounding that?" she told Sky News.

"For you to actually be eligible in Sydney, the house price has to be $950,000.

"I was in the west of Sydney in some very ordinary battler neighbourhoods where they told me house prices were $1.2 million."

Housing Minister Julie Collins chose to attack the opposition in question time on Monday rather than the Greens.

"They claim they support home ownership, but they're voting against more homes for Australians. They're voting against getting more Australians into home ownership, " she told Parliament.

The Greens claim that help to buy will drive up house prices and only help 0.2 per cent of buyers. They say they are focusing all their housing claims onto this government housing bill as they expect there will not be another one before the next federal election.

"Labor has said this is it. This is Labor's answer to the housing crisis. A bill that makes life worse for 99.8 per cent of renters who might be looking for their own home. Labor said this is it," Mr Bandt said.