Anthony Albanese’s Greens nemesis Max Chandler-Mather delivers a brutal assessment of the Prime Minister over hypocritical housing act

A Greens MP has challenged Anthony Albanese over the opportunities the Prime Minister was given as a young adult that he says are now being denied to Australians.

Max Chandler-Mather, who has been a constant thorn in the Prime Minister’s side with his criticism of the government’s efforts to tackle Australia’s chronic housing shortage, has launched another scathing attack on the government in Parliament this week.

“People are not upset that the Prime Minister was given these opportunities, but people are upset that a Labor government in a country that is much richer than it was in the 1980s is denying the same opportunities today,” Chandler-Mather said.

The 32-year-old MP for the seat of Griffith, in Brisbane’s south, took aim at the low supply of affordable housing and the crushing student debt many Australians are currently struggling with.

“When the Prime Minister bought his first house in Marrickville it cost $146,000, or about five times the average income,” he said.

“Now a house in Marrickville costs $2 million, about 20 times the average income.”

Mr Chandler-Mather argued that when Mr Albanese bought his first home he did not have to compete with property investors who “use the capital gains tax rebate to drive up the price of housing”.

“Property investors will receive $39 billion in taxpayers’ money from this Labor government this year alone,” he said.

“When the Prime Minister was growing up, governments built enough housing so that a worker who needed it could move into a good public home and build a good life.

‘Now there is a shortage of 700,000 public housing units and people often have to wait ten years to get one.’

In addition to skyrocketing home prices, student debt is another major factor weighing on young adults today, according to Chandler-Mather.

‘When the Prime Minister went to university, he did it for free and graduated without student debt.

‘Now uni students have huge student debts and these are often mounting faster than they can afford to pay them off.

‘People are angry that it is a Labor government that is refusing to abolish student debt and make university free.

‘People are angry that Labor is refusing to abolish tax breaks for property investors, depriving millions of renters of the chance to buy a home.

‘People are angry that Labor is refusing to fund massive public housing construction, as governments used to do.

‘The government must now listen to people who are frustrated with a group of politicians who were given so many good opportunities in their youth and are now denying them to others.’

Mr Chandler-Mather has pushed to draw a distinction between the Greens and Labor on housing policy at the next federal election.

The two had previously clashed in parliament over the issue.

Mr Chandler-Mather used a National Press Club speech on Wednesday to announce a plan to build houses and rent them at well below market prices to help renters and first home buyers.

“All we’re saying is that in order to control the crazy price increases and real estate gains that are happening in the private housing market, one of the ways to solve this is to provide a good public option for housing,” Chandler-Mather told to ABC’s Radio. National.

“Because if everyone in Australia wants to build a good life, they probably need a few things – one of those things is a roof over their head.”

Based on Parliamentary Budget Office cost calculations, the average renter using the Greens program would save $5,200 a year in rent, and the average buyer purchasing one of the homes would save $260,000 compared to average market prices.

Under the plan, the developer would sell the homes to any first-home buyer at just over construction costs, while capping rental prices at 25 percent of household income.

Thirty percent of homes would be for sale and the remaining 70 percent would be for rental properties, under the Greens’ plan, with 20 percent of the rental stock earmarked for the bottom 20 percent of owners.

Homes purchased by first-home buyers could only be sold back to the government at cost plus CPI.

Mr Chandler-Mather said construction activity in Australia had reached a “decade low” as rising interest rates pushed up financing costs for developers.

“That way we can get those construction workers back to work and give the construction industry some stability that they desperately need,” he said.

According to Mr Chandler-Mather, Australians who already own a home in the private property market will not be able to access the scheme, and the eligibility criteria will not be based on how much someone earns.

He said priority would be given to people connected to local areas, such as where they work, and people of First Nations descent.

‘The government has left the supply of housing to private developers for decades, and they have failed catastrophically, making huge profits while driving up the cost of housing by deliberately restricting supply, leaving vacant houses and lots use land approved for development.

“Normally a private developer makes a big profit, but the public developer would put those profits back into the pockets of renters and first home buyers in the form of lower house prices and rents.”

According to the cost calculations, the underlying costs for the budget for the decade would be $27.9 billion.

By comparison, the federal government has spent $27 billion on rental deductions for real estate investors this year alone.

The Greens already hold the balance of power in the Senate, and after gaining two more seats in the House of Representatives in the 2022 elections, they believe they have a chance to overtake Labor in the next election, which is due in May. to get a minority government. 2025.

The announcement comes as the Greens and Labor remain locked in a war over the government’s Help to Buy scheme, which would give 40,000 first home buyers over four years the opportunity to work with the government to buy a house.

The Greens say the plan is an unfair “lottery” that will push up house prices – a point opposed by economists and the government – and want the government to instead cut negative debt and scrap tax breaks for capital gains.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has indicated that the government will not be held to ransom for its last major piece of housing policy before the next election.