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Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather has spoken about the party’s housing policy, which proposes a federal housing department to build 360,000 affordable homes over five years for people to buy or rent.

The Greens politician will announce the policy during a debate with Property Council of Australia boss Mike Zorbas at the National Press Club today.

Speaking about the policy on ABC Radio National this morning, Chandler-Mather said the government would establish a public property developer that would hire architects, planners, and builders to construct homes.

“The government could put [them] to work building good quality homes and selling them and renting them to renters and first-time buyers at prices they could actually afford because this public property developer would cut out the big profit margins,” he said.

The Greens MP said around the world, the government’s in countries like Singapore and the Netherlands built homes for middle-income workers.

“It’s a crucial piece of the puzzle along with phasing out the massive tax handouts for property investors that are denying millions of renters the change to buy a home,” he said.

Under the Greens’ plan, property developers would stand to make $2.2 billion in the first five years of the scheme alone to manage and maintain the properties, and billions more building them.

Seventy per cent of the homes would be rented out, with a fifth of those reserved for the lowest income earners. Rent would be set at 25 per cent of the national average household income, with that money flowing back to the government. The other 30 per cent of homes would be sold to owner-occupiers at 5 per cent over the cost of procurement. The houses could only be sold back to the government, at cost price plus inflation.