Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Higgins, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This house is for grown-ups, not for children who throw tantrums in isle nine of the supermarket, demanding fancy chocolates rather than the Freddo Frog. After their drumming in Queensland and the ACT, and in council elections across New South Wales and Victoria, the Greens, in a rare moment of clarity, have admitted that they need to do some soul-searching. Their extremism, militancy and sheer bloody-mindedness has cost them votes. But the cost to Australians wanting to rent or buy is even higher.

The best time to pass Labor's housing bills, particularly our shared equity scheme, would have been 339 days ago, but the next best time is now. This scheme replaces the bank of mum and dad with the government, who stumps up 30 to 40 per cent of the price of a home, enabling Aussies on modest incomes to get a foot in the housing market. At 40,000 spots, it's not going to fix the housing crisis—and we never claimed it would—because there is no silver bullet. We know that. This is why we need multifaceted solutions like our build to rent reforms, which will deliver 160,000 homes in the next 10 years. But, again, this has been held up by the Greens and the Libs.

I don't expect the Libs to put the national interest above politics, but I do expect more from the Greens. The good news is that children grow up. There is hope for the Greens. They could take a swig from the cup of pragmatism and actually pass our bills, and I urge them to do so this week.

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