Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Well, here we are: another day; another political stunt from the Labor Party. The Labor Party knows—

You can laugh, but there are millions of people out there suffering because you won't act on the housing and rental crisis the way it needs to be acted on. You come in here and you don't have the numbers for anything because the Senate has decided that your bill will actually make things worse for 99.8 per cent of the 5½ million renters that live in this country. You come in here and try and bulldoze the will of the Senate.

As we said yesterday, the Prime Minister wants us all to get out of his way, but we are not getting out of his way to pass a bill that will make things much worse and will increase housing prices. You come in here and try and spread misinformation and mistruths about the Greens and our policies. Well, we're not going to let you get away that easily. Read our Greens policies. They are very different to what your bill says. We are here to negotiate with the government. We have told you this for more than a year. Our door is open.

But rather than trying to negotiate with the Greens to make things better for the millions of people who are suffering and struggling under the housing and rental crisis—the people for whom it's become impossible to put food on the table, to pay their bills, to go to the dentist and to visit a doctor; the young people who are one rent away from being evicted—rather than coming to the table with the Greens to negotiate something much better, which is capping rent and freezing rent increases, as well as phasing out the negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts which have turbocharged house prices for years and years now, and rather than talking to the Greens about a public developer, what you do is come in here and try and ram your bill through, throwing political stunts and tantrums. For what? To get this Mickey Mouse bill through, which might help 0.2 per cent of renters while making life harder for the 99.8 per cent of people renting in this country. We are not going to let you do that.

We have just circulated a motion which asks you to delay this bill for a couple of months and come and talk to the Greens. All that is going to do is make things better. Under your current bill, millions of people will lose out. That is going to be the outcome of the bill that you're trying to ram through. Come to the table with the Greens. Stop these political shenanigans. Be serious about this.

You have talked about the housing crisis as if it is a serious issue, and it is the most serious issue in this country. When we knock on doors every weekend, that is the first thing we hear about. People are so worried about their rents and about the unlimited increases in rents that landlords can now impose on them without any restrictions. Every single day, we are hearing about how people are struggling and suffering, but you are so stubborn that you somehow want to attack the Greens, whatever your reasons might be for that.

Stop being like children. Come to the table. Stop throwing these tantrums every day. Talk to us. We are willing and ready to negotiate with you—what more do you want?—but you have completely disregarded any of the Greens asks that we have put on the table. The vast majority of people are saying they want a freeze on rent increases. Communities are telling us this. We are listening to them. That's why we are fighting in here, like people are fighting out there, to do something and act on this housing crisis as if it were a serious thing.

The ball is in your court now. Come and talk to the Greens. We have two more months, if we get this motion through, but then—