An old tweet from Adam Bandt has come back to bite the Greens leader after he refused to back a housing bill without Labor meeting his demands first.
The Greens teamed up with Coalition senators to block the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund on Monday and delay legislation until October 16.
The party is trying to pressure Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to comply with their demands and work with state and federal leaders to introduce a rent freeze.
Senator Bandt did not address the demand with Labor supporters, pointing out that he had previously complained about other parties being unwilling to compromise.
Advertising guru Dee Madigan, who is Creative Director at Labour-backed ad agency Campaign Edge, dredged up on an old tweet from the leader of the Greens on June 18, 2022.
“Tweets that didn’t age well,” she wrote.
Dee Madigan, a staunch Labor supporter and advertising contractor, tried to turn Greens leader Adam Bandt’s words against him
Ms Madigan noted that this tweet from Senator Bandt had not ‘aged well’ in light of the Greens blocking Labour’s main social housing fund
“This is the problem with Labor,” Senator Bandt wrote.
They let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
“If there’s something they don’t like, they tune the whole thing out.
“And they get upset when they are held accountable for having wronged politics and democracy.”
The original tweet was in response to an effort by Labor and the Coalition to limit the number of motions that can be tabled in the Senate each day for the two major parties and the cross bench.
Reaction to Ms Madigan’s tweet was mixed with some agreeing that the Greens were shooting themselves in the foot by blocking the housing bill.
“I’ve always voted Greens, but I’m done with that,” one person wrote.
‘You have to step in and help, because everything is better than on the current housing and rental market.’
The current stalemate has led the Greens to delay approval of the housing fund until October, but threaten that it will not pass unless Labor governments at the federal and state levels enact rent freezes.
“If Labor intervenes on rising rents in the national cabinet, this bill can pass,” said Green senator Sarah Hanson-Young in the upper house.
“But until then we see stubbornness and refusal to act.”
As a sweetener to get the bill passed this week, Mr. Albanese offered an additional $2 billion in direct spending on social and affordable housing, on top of the original $8 billion allocated.
However, Senator Hanson-Young said on Monday it only revealed that after months of being told Labor could do nothing more to ease Australia’s housing crisis, they had found “a little money on the back of the couch”.
Senator Bandt and his Greens have postponed the Albanian government’s social housing fund until October or until Labor takes measures to freeze rents at the state and federal level
Trade minister and veteran Labor senator Don Farrell branded the Greens and Coalition the ‘axis of evil’ for blocking Labour’s social housing fund
Bandt said after the Senate vote that “unlimited rent increases should be illegal.”
“The pressure is now on the Prime Minister and Labor premiers to freeze rents and limit rent increases,” he said.
This is a test for Labour. It’s wall-to-wall labor on the mainland, so rent increases are their responsibility.’
Labor has reacted furiously to the Greens’ intransigence.
Housing Minister Julie Collins said “every day of delay is more than $1.3 million not going to housing for people who need it.”
Senior Labor Senator Don Farrell went so far as to label the Greens and Coalition, which are blocking the legislation for other reasons, as “the axis of evil.”
He said Labor viewed a setback as a ‘failure to pass the bill’, raising the possibility that if it fails a second time, the governing party could trigger a double dissolution election.
This gives the government the ability to send Australians back to the polls much sooner than the normal three-year period between elections.
There have been seven double dissolution elections in Australia’s history, the last of which was provoked in 2016 by the Malcolm Turnbull-led coalition’s frustrated attempt to create the Australian Building and Construction Commission.
After Mr Turnbull’s government returned to power, the bill passed the Senate without the need for a joint sitting of the lower and upper houses, which is the next step in breaking a deadlock.