The Albanese government is becoming increasingly frustrated with the Greens and the Coalition, who have teamed together to continually block crucial housing legislation.

This frustration comes as new polling shows a majority of voters want Labor’s help-to-buy scheme passed.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government was struggling to pass its “help-to-buy “scheme and Reserve Bank of Australia reforms because the Greens and Coalition are teaming up to block legislation.

“It’s being held up by the Greens party and the Coalition once again, like holding up extra investment in housing,” Albanese said in an interview with the ABC.

“The Senate’s become a bit of a roadblock with what I call the No-alition of the Greens, the Liberals and the Nats.”

Max Chandler-Mather, the Greens housing spokesperson, told The New Daily that the party’s position has always been that the “current bill will make the housing crisis worse”.

“We saw similar polling during the Housing Australia Future Fund,” he said.

“What happened was that people paid more attention to the demands that we were making and realised that they did want the government to take more action.”

The scheme isn’t wide or impactful; it only funds 40,000 places where the government will purchase equity in a new home buyer’s house and allow them to enter the housing market.

Government MPs, including Bill Shorten, have attacked the Greens’ decision to not pass the legislation.

New polling from Essential found that 55 per cent of “likely Greens voters” believe the party should instead pass it through the Senate and argue their differing policies at the next federal election instead.

The HAAF

In the past two weeks, Labor MPs have also accused the Greens of trying to “destroy the Housing Australia Future Fund” after a lengthy and sometimes personally vicious standoff between the two parties.

During those negotiations last year, the Albanese government and crossbenchers again accused the Greens of siding with the Coalition to stop action on Australia’s housing crisis, before eventually capitulating and agreeing to spend an additional $3 billion on social housing.

Chandler-Mather said the party had strengthened and improved the legislation because the Greens were able to negotiate.

He said the suggestion that the Greens had either tried to destroy the HAAF or were siding with the Coalition is “a ridiculous characterisation”.

“What the Liberals effectively want is the status quo and what the Greens have proposed is a phase-out of negative gearing, and capital gains tax, investment in public housing and national rent caps,” he said.

“That framing does a disservice to the public because it doesn’t inform anyone of the two parties’ political or policy positions and frames it entirely with how the government would like.”

Max Chandler-Mather said that the only reason the government is spending any money on social housing in because of the Greens. Photo: AAP

CPRS

The tactics employed by the Greens have drawn comparison to when the party voted against Labor’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) in 2009, helping the LNP opposition defeat it.

Rather than call a double-dissolution election, then-prime minister Kevin Rudd announced that the scheme would be shelved.

Anthony Albanese teased the idea that he could take the opposite path if the legislation is blocked in two months.

“Well, we will wait and see,” Albanese said last week.

“I’ll tell you a way to avoid a DD [double dissolution election], for the Coalition and the Greens to vote for legislation.”

When asked if a commitment to phasing out negative gearing and the capital gains tax would be enough to secure the support of the Greens, Chandler-Mather said the Greens would seriously consider it.

“We never expect to get everything in negotiations,” he said.

“We do expect practical solutions in people’s lives when it comes to the housing crisis.”