Anthony Albanese is getting very irritated, as the federal government rages that neither the Greens nor the Coalition will bend to its will within the newest Senate housing standoff. At a press convention in Sydney right this moment, the prime minister and housing minister trotted out the same old traces about Greens “hypocrisy” and “immaturity”, demanding the minor occasion cross their payments within the Senate instantly, with Albanese refusing to rule out a double dissolution in the event that they don’t get their method.
Labor as soon as once more appears satisfied it may blame the Greens for “blocking” its housing agenda, whereas gifting away “nothing” in negotiations, in keeping with the minor occasion, whose asks embody “phasing out tax handouts for buyers, hire caps, and mass funding in public housing.” However is Labor letting its hatred of the Greens, and particularly housing spokesperson Max Chandler-Mather, stand in the best way of political good sense?
This isn’t an unfamiliar dance — the truth is, it’s exasperatingly acquainted to anybody who adopted the Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) standoff (sub out former housing minister Julie Collins for substitute Clare O’Neil, although it’s clear Albanese performs a driving function). After a number of excruciating months, Labor gave just a few inches, insisting it had nothing to do with Greens calls for, at which level the minor occasion agreed to cross the invoice.
Chandler-Mather has been pointing to this end result, telling the ABC this morning that the Greens are “prepared to barter”. “We recognise we received’t get all the things in our negotiation, however proper now they’ve provided nothing, actually no counter-offer,” he mentioned — a declare that traces up with the federal government rhetoric, in keeping with which the Greens ought to “do their jobs and vote this into legislation”.
Assuming Labor actually is refusing to barter with the Greens, who maintain 11 Senate seats to the federal government’s 25, it’s arduous to argue that the minor occasion is the one holding up progress. Believing so ignores fundamental logic, to not point out the 70% of voters who didn’t give their first choice to Labor within the Senate. If the Greens have been being uncooperative, refusing an affordable supply (and that will come), the federal government could be proper to be indignant. However the concept it’s crossbenchers’ “job” to cross this, sans negotiation, is “nonsense”, to parrot the PM’s personal phrases again at him.
You need to marvel: what precisely is stopping Labor from coming to the desk, because it does on different laws, and giving some floor on hire caps, public housing, or tax breaks for buyers? Australia is, as Labor was right this moment wanting to remind us, in a disaster, one which threatens to value the federal government its majority on the subsequent election — and one unlikely to be solved by tinkering across the edges.
The federal government could vehemently disagree with a number of the insurance policies Chandler-Mather is asking for, specifically hire caps. Nevertheless it has good purpose to behave on others, resembling public housing and destructive gearing reform, which now seem to have majority help (to not point out that of the newly unbiased Fatima Payman, whose vote the federal government will doubtless additionally require). Labor is little doubt afraid of being seen to interrupt a promise, after purging destructive gearing from its 2019 platform. And but January’s modifications to the stage three tax cuts, one other subject Labor refused to budge on for months, have turn into the occasion’s value of dwelling calling card — the principle factor voters can title when requested what the federal government has achieved to enhance their lives.
It appears apparent that an enormous a part of this standoff comes all the way down to Labor’s visceral hatred for the Greens, and for Chandler-Mather, a former Labor member who, as final week’s Neglect the Frontbench explored, drives the PM spare. Authorities ministers at instances appear blinded by this fury, satisfied that the Greens, who’ve turn into more and more fashionable amongst renters, are solely in it for votes. And but it by no means appears to happen to them that one of the efficient methods to neutralise this menace could be to co-opt a few of their insurance policies, taking away their most potent traces.
“It’s known as a democracy,” Albanese mentioned right this moment, when requested why Labor was placing its payments to the Senate, regardless of not having the votes. “We’ve laws, we help it, there’s no-one placing ahead a rational argument of why they shouldn’t vote for it.”
That is, certainly, a democracy. And the PM would do properly to recollect how these work, as voters more and more look past the main events to these providing actual assist to these struggling to get by.
Ought to Labor be prepared to barter extra with the Greens, or is the occasion proper to face agency? Tell us your ideas by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please embody your full title to be thought of for publication. We reserve the proper to edit for size and readability.
