Anthony Albanese has revived the ghost of Gough Whitlam to push through his signature $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) by raising the prospect of a rare joint sitting of Parliament after a double dissolution election.

The Prime Minister till now has been pursuing more of a small target strategy, delivering on his election promises and refusing to be bolder in a number of areas like tax reform and climate change.

Ironically, it is this framework that has pushed him to emulate one of Labor’s heroes, Gough Whitlam, who achieved his landmark reforms – including the original version of universal health insurance – only by dissolving both Houses of Parliament in 1974 and then using the constitutional device to break a deadlock blocking his agenda.

Albanese told ABC radio that a double dissolution trigger – where the Senate twice rejects an identical bill in a three-month period – “doesn’t necessarily provide for an early election, it could go into 2025”.

But the Prime Minister said, “it could be a focus, and then you have a joint sitting after a double dissolution is held”.

Break the deadlock

That presumes Albanese Labor would achieve a similar result at the polls to Whitlam in 1974 where the government’s combined numbers would give it a majority to break the deadlock caused by the Coalition and the Greens blocking the HAFF.

So far, the Greens aren’t blinking, though its housing spokesperson Max Chandler-Mather says they are up for negotiations and frustrated that “it’s the government’s way or the highway”.

Albanese denies this, citing successful negotiations reached with the crossbench in the House and the Senate.

He said: “We’ve made sure there’s a floor of at least $500 million a year available if the fund’s investments don’t deliver the projected dividends, and it will be available not just in the major cities but across the states and territories as well as in the regions.”

Labor accepts that the HAFF isn’t the whole answer, but an essential building block that takes into account current supply-side constraints and guaranteed stream of social housing financing in the future.

Tasmanian independent Senator Jacquie Lambie is convinced, and attacks the Greens for wasting time pointing out that it takes up to two years to get houses built once finance is in place.

Libs put nothing on the table

The Liberals have no interest in coming to the aid of the government, and unlike the Greens have put nothing on the table to solve the crisis.

Indeed, their refusal to acknowledge the contribution of overly generous negative gearing and capital gains tax exemptions is only making the crisis worse as younger and lower-income earners are locked out, and forced to compete with advantaged investors.

The Opposition gives no credit to the government for delivering a $20 billion budget surplus, which ignores the basic economic reality that in the financial year to June this huge amount of money was kept out of the overheating economy.

This alone is a significant contribution to fighting inflation and constraining interest rates.

Something the Treasurer, no doubt, will be privately hoping the Reserve Bank Board takes into account at its meeting on Tuesday along with other evidence of a slowing economy.

Greens want surplus spent

Chandler-Mather, on the other hand, is calling for the surplus to be spent to solve the housing crisis – which the government says would only inflame the situation.

Recent polling suggests voters are on Albanese’s side in this argument, though the Prime Minister says he is in no hurry to test this at an early election in October if the Senate then again rejects the HAFF bill.

For one thing, the referendum on constitutional recognition of First Nations people is almost certainly to be held in that month.

Dutton will be looking for Albanese to suffer a double whammy of defeats, while the Prime Minister will need time to assess the situation.

Dutton’s worries

Peter Dutton himself may not emerge unscathed, and besides he has a new inquiry into the governance of the Department of Home Affairs during his time as minister to worry about.

Dutton has rejected reports that the Australian Federal Police warned him they were investigating a businessman for bribery one month before the department awarded him a $9.3 million detention facility contract.

The Opposition Leader says there is no record of such a briefing in his files.

The businessman was subsequently charged and convicted, but Dutton says the departmental procurement procedures were the same ones in place as when Labor was in government.

There is a lot of huffing and puffing but just whose house will be blown down is still to play out.