The Greens have capitulated on their demands and will pass the two housing bills blocked by Labor, ending a long stalemate and launching a major election battle.

The Help to Buy Bill, which will allow up to 40,000 first home buyers over four years to co-purchase homes with the Government; and the Build to Rent bill, which provides tax incentives to developers who increase the number of affordable rental housing units, will now pass the Senate this week.

Housing advocates praised the Greens for putting “aside perfect policy and personality in favor of what is absolutely necessary”, as the small party pledged to redouble its efforts and rally tenants during of the next elections – expected by May.

The downtrodden Greens said they had pushed “as far as they could” and would reluctantly adopt the reforms after accepting “that Labor doesn’t care enough about tenants to do anything meaningful for them.”

The about-face came after Housing Minister Clare O’Neil rejected the Greens’ last-ditch offer to rein in their demands and pass the bills in exchange for increased funding for the social housing.

Housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather, who urged the party room to pass the bills, said it was a “tragedy” that Labor had “decided they would rather fight with the Greens rather than doing something meaningful about the housing crisis. “.

“We have done everything we can in this Parliament to get Labor to do something more than tinkering on the fringes of this devastating housing crisis, and we have come close,” he said , referring to the government’s modeling of the changes to be made. negative leverage and capital gains tax.

“We were moments away from the most positive and significant changes to housing policy in this country in generations, which would have helped thousands of renters, but the Prime Minister blinked, and it is devastating for many of people in this country.

Asked why the Greens had delayed the bill for so long only to bring it back, Mr Chandler-Mather said the party would not apologize for “trying to get Labor to care of the five million tenants that Labor wanted to leave behind.

“You can’t accuse us of not trying to fight for (renters and first-time homebuyers), and we’ll fight for them until the next election,” he said.

Ms O’Neil said while she was happy the Greens had “finally seen the light”, the party’s stubbornness and resulting delay had proved costly.

“What the Greens have done here is take away Australians’ dreams of home ownership. If they had passed this bill when it was first presented to Parliament a year ago, 10,000 people would own homes, which is not the case today,” she said. declared.

“What we have endured for two and a half years is relentless political politics that has cost Australians dearly. This cost them homeownership opportunities. This has led to a decrease in the construction of social and affordable housing in our country.

“And what really bothers me is the hypocrisy: the Greens come out and say they care about housing, but show up in Parliament and delay action on these measures.”

The Greens presented their final offer to the government this weekend, watering down their demands on negative gearing, capital gains tax and rent caps.

Instead, they called on Labor to commit to awarding more affordable housing under the Build to Rent program, building additional affordable housing under the Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) and removing requirements for reimbursement for beneficiaries of the proposed equity sharing program if they exceed the income threshold.

Ms O’Neil previously said the proposals were “absurd” and in some cases “illegal, unworkable and would result in fewer homes being built”.

Greens leader Adam Bandt said Labor had “failed on renters and first-time buyers” by refusing to negotiate, and that voters would punish the government at the next election.

“This time we will pass Labor’s housing bills, and we will push in the next election, where we will fight to keep Peter Dutton out and push Labor into the minority, to act on these tax allocations unfair and these dizzying increases,” he said.

“The problem is not going away. The Government had a golden opportunity in this Parliament to tackle the key drivers of the housing crisis in this country…and they chose not to do so.

He denied that the turnaround was a response to a decline in support in recent state and local elections. The Greens lost a seat and a campaign to significantly increase their support base in the Queensland election, with many analysts pointing to their history of blocking Labor’s housing plan.

Political strategist and Redbridge director Kos Samaras said there was no doubt housing would be a major issue in the next federal election.

In his view, the more the Greens behaved on political points and opposed the adoption of laws, the more they risked repelling the voters they hoped to attract.

Redbridge’s latest political intent survey reveals the party is becoming “quite polarizing” for those who don’t vote for it.

“It’s a problem if they try to become a bigger party in the political landscape,” Mr. Samaras said.

“They have built a very big wall between their supporters who always vote for them and the people they are trying to reach.”

John Engeler, president of National Shelter, said that while there is no silver bullet to the housing crisis, the bills’ passage is a step in the right direction.

“What we really need to do is join forces across the aisle…I think most people sitting in the pub think we have to pull out all the stops, because I hopefully some things will work,” he said.