‘Get on with it’: Albo hits out at crossbench

Anthony Albanese has lashed out at the senate crossbench, telling the Greens and other senators to “get on with it” as key elements of the government’s plan to tackle housing affordability faces the upper house this week.

The Help to Buy and Build to Rent bills will go before the Senate this week, with the former first up on Monday.

The Greens have said they will not support Help to Buy, which proposes a shared-equity scheme for first-home buyers, because the government has not negotiated with them.

But the Prime Minister told reporters on Monday the legislation was “not complex” and “based on things that is their policy”.

He said if the Greens wanted to debate, they should do so in the Senate and spend less time speaking to media.

“If there are alternatives, you have a chance to move amendments, and people vote on those amendments, and then you vote on the (legislation),” he said.

“They all have that opportunity, but get on with it. Don’t sit back and do what they did with the Housing Australia Future Fund.”

Mr Albanese announced that some 13,700 new homes were in the pipeline funded under the government’s Housing Australia Future Fund Facility and National Housing Accord Facility.

He said those projects could have been announced “six or eight months ago” if the Greens had not “stood in the way”.

“The senate have a week where it’s just them … there’s no distractions here,” Mr Albanese said.

“Can they get anything done? Can they get anything done this week? That’s the question.

“If not, I reckon Australians will question what they are doing because they continually come up with talking to the media, rather than talking in the parliament and moving amendments or coming up with suggestions. They need to get this done.”

If passed, the Help to Buy Bill would allow first-home buyers to purchase a property under a shared equity scheme with the government.

Simply, the government would foot up to 40 per cent of the funds for a new home and 30 per cent for an existing home.

Meanwhile, Build to Rent aims to incentivise the construction of rent-only developments through tax incentives.

The Senate knocked back the legislation earlier this year, sending it to an inquiry for further scrutiny.

But it failed to garner the support of the opposition and the Greens, with the Coalition saying it perpetuated a “rent forever” approach to housing and the Greens saying it would do nothing but give tax handouts to property developers to build homes nobody can afford.

Neither Bill will pass the upper house without support from the Greens, who have asked for action on rent freezes and caps, an end to tax concessions for property developers, and a government-owned property developer that would build homes to sell at just above the cost of construction.