Housing Minister Clare O’Neil hints at double dissolution threat, calls on Greens, Coalition to pass key housing Bill

Housing Minister Clare O’Neil has left the door open for a double dissolution, as the government makes another attempt to pass its co-ownership housing Bill, which remains barricaded by the Greens in the Senate. Ms O’Neil said Labor’s decision to reintroduce its Help To Buy Bill in the House of Representatives on Tuesday could give Prime Minister Anthony Albanese a trigger to call a double dissolution election, if the Bill is voted down for a second time. “It’s true that this bill would represent a double dissolution trigger if the parliament does decide not to work with us to make a difference to the lives of these people,” she told ABC radio on Tuesday. Mr Albanese has previously teased the threat of a double dissolution election, however the Bill would need to fail twice in three months to be considered a trigger. To satisfy the time constraints before the standard 2025 federal election, Mr Albanese would also need to call a double dissolution election before Australia Day next year. Ms O’Neil stressed on Tuesday it wasn’t the government’s “focus” and called on the Greens to put their politics aside. “Just set aside all the double dissolution, the political parties and all the rest of it; there’s 40,000 people who we can help today, and we should go into the parliament and do it,” she said. “The double dissolution stuff is secondary. Our main focus right now is getting this bill through the parliament, and I’m really hopeful we’re going to be able to do that.” The loose threat follows Labor’s two attempts to force a vote on the Bill in September, with the Greens pushing back the next vote until November 26 in order to continue negotiations. While Ms O’Neil said there was “no “silver bullet” for the housing crisis, she accused the Greens of wanting to “fight” instead of “making real progress for real people”. “We’ve had a number of attempts to get to a position of reaching agreement about this so we can get the help to people who need it, but … the distinct impression I get is that Greens, in particular, don’t really want to see this Bill pass the parliament,” she told the ABC in an “This is 40,000 actual people, actual childcare workers, actual aged care workers, whose lives will be transformed if we’re able to get this Bill through the parliament.” A poll last month found a majority of Greens voters wanted parliamentarians to pass the Bill, but the minor party has argued the scheme would not help those it was aiming to. Analysis by the Parliamentary Library found registered nurses and paramedics on average would earn above the income test, while a childcare worker on an average full-time salary of $67,430 a year would be in mortgage stress if they bought in Sydney, Brisbane or Melbourne. The Greens have also said the policy would drive up prices of homes below the maximum price cap of $950,000 for NSW buyers in Sydney and regional centres. Instead, the minor party, which holds the balance of power in the Senate, has demanded the government strip back negative gearing and capital gains tax concession for investors – both policies Ms O’Neil again dismissed on Tuesday. The Greens have also called on the government to invest in a government-owned property developer that would be tasked with building affordable homes that could be funded through cutbacks to the investor tax concessions. But the government has repeatedly called on the Greens to test their ideas through amendments rather than holding its agenda hostage. “We’ve got a housing crisis that has been boiling away here for about 30 years,” Ms O’Neil said. “There is not a single silver bullet to this crisis and anyone who is proposing that there is, treat them with caution.”