The Greens are continuing to oppose the Housing Affordability Future Fund (HAFF) in its present form, despite the federal government having agreed to some concessions.
Over the next five years, Labour plans to fund 30,000 additional social and affordable rental homes under the HAFF.
The government intends to put the HAFF bill to a vote in the Senate in coming days, and Housing Minister Julie Collins has urged the Greens to support it.
“Senators can’t say they support more social and affordable housing but oppose this fund”, Collins said.
“This week the Senate has a chance to start rolling out 30,000 new social and affordable rental homes across the country”.
“We know how urgently these homes are needed. Australians who need these homes will be watching closely”.
Should the bill be rejected, the government would be able to put it to another upper house vote after three months; a second rejection would provide the government with a trigger for a double-dissolution of parliament.
Amongst other things, the Greens want the government to spend $5 billion on housing each year, impose a national rent freeze and double its rental assistance payment.
I say bring a double-dissolution election on.
The Albanese Government has deliberately gone against the wishes of voters and engineered the biggest immigration boom in history by:
- Extending the number of hours students can work and the length of time they can stay in Australia after graduation;
- Employing 500 workers to clear the fabricated ‘one million’ visa backlog as rapidly as possible.
- Increasing the annual intake of non-humanitarian permanent migrants to a record high of 195,000 (from 160,000).
Now, the Australian Treasury projects that 715,000 new migrants will land in Australia over the next two years, most of whom will settle in the major capitals.
This immigration boom will obviously make the housing shortage much worse, sending rents into orbit and pushing thousands more Australians into homelessness.
Meanwhile, the Albanese Government’s response to the housing crisis is utterly pathetic.
In the first five years, the HAFF is anticipated to deliver only 30,000 social and affordable homes.
That’s only 6,000 new social and affordable homes a year on a population increase of 400,000 to 500,000 a year over the same period!
Labor’s HAFF represents a ‘drop in the bucket’ and will see Australia’s housing shortage worsen amid the government’s extreme immigration policy.
The Albanese Government has literally engineered a housing and inequality disaster for the nation.
Yes, let’s take it to the polls!
