The Help-to-Buy Scheme is being touted as a lifeline to the housing crisis... Unfortunately it's a drop in the ocean with potentially damaging ripples...

• The scheme is the government taking on 30-40% of the mortgage for about 10,000 households each year. With over 4.5 million households eligible, we're talking about a minuscule 0.2% getting a helping hand. What about the rest?
• The bigger concern is this scheme could be a gift to the housing market, pushing prices even higher. The Productivity Commission's warned that assistance like this often inflates housing costs, doing more harm than good. I'm personally concerned as schemes like this often end up lining the pockets of banks and developers. Not the people struggling to put a roof over their heads...

As the Housing Australia Future Fund debate has shown, Labor will not take meaningful action on the housing crisis without the Greens pushing them. Earlier this year the Greens were able to secure $3 billion in funding for social housing and a guaranteed spend of $500 million per year.  

The Greens are ready to challenge and negotiate to bring real solutions, that have been proven in other states and overseas, to bring down house prices and rents, such as:

• freezing rents,
• regulating vacate homes, and those that are being used for short term holiday accommodation
• massive investment in public housing, and
• dismantling unfair tax breaks that fuel the housing fire.