Prime Minister Anthony Albanese leaves door open on double dissolution over housing, environment Senate fights

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has left the door open to a double dissolution election, as the Government forges ahead with housing reforms and environmental law changes currently doomed to fail. Labor’s shared equity scheme, “Help to Buy”, will be voted on in the Senate on Tuesday, but is set to fail, given the Government has failed to garner support from the Coalition, the Greens or the crossbench. Technically, it could be the first step in triggering a double dissolution, if the Government was to put it to a vote in another three months and it failed again.

Labor has also reached a stalemate on its Nature Positive reforms with Mr Albanese ruling out meeting the Greens’ demand of a climate trigger and no deal yet reached with the Coalition. When asked whether he was considering dissolving the entire Senate and House of Representatives, Mr Albanese put the onus back onto the Greens and the Coalition to prevent a double dissolution, labeling them an “unholy no-alition” and calling on them to support the legislation. Katina Curtis Katina Curtis “Well, we’ll wait and see .



.. I’ll tell you one way to avoid a (double dissolution),” he said.

“It’s for the Coalition and the Greens to vote for legislation that they support. There’s nothing in the legislation, on the Nature Positive Act that they say they’re opposed to.” Housing Minister Clare O’Neil meanwhile accused the Greens of “absolute rank hypocrisy” over its reluctance to support the government’s housing reforms “For two years the Greens have run around the country, crying crocodile tears for people who can’t get into home ownership, when they have a chance to do something about it, work with the Labor government, they’re going to say no,” she said.

“This attitude of politics first, second, and third is not the way for us to help deal with this crisis facing our country. What we need is for once the Greens and the Liberals to put politics to the side and help us make progress on the aspiration Australians have to own their own home. More to come.

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