Category Archives: Renting

Australia news live: voice support strong in Victoria because state ‘about ideology not common sense’, Nampijinpa Price says

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No campaign ‘offers no solutions and no vision’: young Indigenous leaders

The youth declaration urged Australians to educate themselves on the change, claiming “the no campaign offers no solutions and no vision for our young people’s futures, or our families and communities”.

We are excited that our Uluru Youth Dialogue, as the leading and only youth-led campaign, will be at the forefront of this referendum working alongside the senior leaders of the Uluru Dialogue.

These statistics are important. They paint a picture of a media debate that has shut out young people and their voices. Especially the voices of First Nations young people.

It is our future. Young people are crucial to this movement. We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors, carrying forward the spirit and legacies of warriors before us.

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Leaking sewage and no water: Victorian renters’ compensation claims stall in tribunal backlog

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One family is among 13,000 waiting for their application to be processed after nightmare tree change left them with uninhabitable housing

When David*, his partner and young daughter moved to a regional Victorian property close to two-and-a-half years ago, they just wanted a tree-change. What they got was a nightmare rental experience, a hole in their bank account worth more than $20,000, and a prolonged dispute that is still without resolution.

David, who asked that his surname not be used, is just one of nearly 13,000 people waiting for his bond and compensation application to come before the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (Vcat), where backlogs still persist and the median wait time is more than nine months.

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Renters worse off as landlords begin evictions to skirt new Queensland laws, tenants group says

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Government says new regulations stipulating rents can not be raised more than once a year will be reviewed

Landlords seeking to avoid new Queensland laws limiting rent increases to once a year have left numerous renters worse off, according to the state’s tenants’ rights service

The Palaszczuk government on Thursday said it would review the laws – just two weeks after they took effect – amid reports landlords had evicted tenants in order to get around the regulation.

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Senator says she has been ‘excluded’ from writing pamphlet – as it happened

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Patricia Karvelas challenges Littleproud’s Covid reasoning behind the Murray-Darling Basin delays on ABC RN this morning.

“This isn’t a new problem … Your government was in power when a 2019 Productivity Commission report warned that there had been limited progress returning the water to the environment,” she says. “Why didn’t you change course?”

This is a very technical piece of legislation … The 450 is additional to the 2,750 gigalitres of water in the plan, the Productivity Commission looked at the 450 gigalitres, there’s only been 2 gigalitres recovered on the 450 …

Because the neutrality test on social and economic impact on rural communities have not been passed to get more water back out of it – that’s a test the Labor government put in place, that we adhere to that the states agreed to.

He [is] going down a path that’s divided the country and meant that the attention has been taken away from managing people’s cost-of-living crisis, and focused on trying to win a referendum in which he has overreached in conflating a voice with constitutional recognition.

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Rents rise again across Australia with Sydney seeing fastest rise in 20 years

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Median unit in harbour city now costs more than median house in every other capital, Domain says, as immigration adds to rental ‘pressure cooker’

Rents continued to climb across Australia in the June quarter, particularly in the biggest cities, with a median unit costing more to rent in Sydney than a median house in every other state capital, data from Domain showed.

A record migrant intake that will swell the nation’s population by 715,000 people over two years and a return of overseas students and temporary visa holders will add to the “rental pressure cooker”, Domain said in its quarterly report. About 127,000 additional dwellings will be needed this financial year alone.

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Could rent controls ease Australia’s housing crisis?

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Advocates say caps or freezes may help reduce pressure on renters but experts warn they are not a simple fix

Renters are bearing the brunt of Australia’s housing crisis, with stories of extortionate rent increases for poor quality homes making headlines all too often.

One solution being flagged by advocates is to control rents, either through freezes or caps on how much landlords can increase the amount.

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Australia news live: NSW premier refutes cover-up allegations over police Tasering of 95-year-old woman

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PwC should not be banned from government work but should face ‘significant sanction’, Dutton says

Following the damning interim Senate report into PwC, Dutton says he does not believe the consultancy firm should be cut from all government work, but says a penalty needs to be incurred for the breach of trust:

I think where people have breached a contract, they’ve breached trust, there’s a penalty and the price that should be paid. I don’t know whether that’s the company or whether there’s a solution that the government can provide to it but there’s there’s a significant sanction that’s that’s required – no doubt the government will be looking into that right now.

All of the pollsters at the moment, and credible commentators, believe that it’s either going to fail in October or, best case scenario for the yes case, that gets up 51-49. And in that scenario, our nation is split down the middle.

I think there’s an opportunity to unite our country here instead of divide, and that is that we should proceed with constitutional recognition.

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Labor under pressure to freeze rents as Greens and Coalition back inquiry into housing crisis

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Greens urged to back government’s fund as advocates say housing is needed now and politicians need to ‘start taking action’

The Senate has set up an inquiry into the rental crisis, a process designed by the Greens to pressure the Albanese government to agree to freeze or cap rising rents.

On Monday the Greens voted with the Coalition to delay consideration of Labor’s $10bn Housing Australia Future Fund (Haff) until 16 October, despite pressure from housing groups to pass the bill after the government pledged $2bn of direct funding for social and affordable housing.

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Greens and Coalition unite to refer bill to its own inquiry

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Albanese takes swipes at the Greens

The Midwinter Ball was held overnight. It seems to have been a fairly staid affair but I am still ferreting out info.

Consulting firm PwC engaged in a “calculated” breach of trust by using confidential information to help its clients avoid tax and engaged in a “deliberate cover-up” over many years, a Senate committee has found.

PwC should be “open and honest” by promptly publishing the names and details of its partners and staff involved, the finance and public administration committee has recommended.

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Australia politics live: Mehreen Faruqi says housing fund standoff ‘not about playing political games’

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Independent Kooyong MP Dr Monique Ryan said the crossbench was distressed by the past week in parliament:

I can speak for other members of the crossbench because we talk to each other after each question time because we found it distressing, and we wanted to stand to our feet and say that we felt it was conduct unbecoming parliament, and I think if we learn nothing from this, we have to decide as a society whether we want our parliament really to be dragging people who have gone through really difficult experiences through that sort of experience again. It wasn’t ideal. It was – I actually felt it was shameful.

I think there were serious questions that needed to be asked in the face of a minister misleading the Senate and we asked questions about who knew what, when, what was done with that information – all very legitimate questions, and this issue, when it was last in parliament was pursued ferociously by the then opposition and I think we were very careful as we could be with our tone, but to also ask legitimate questions of the government and their ministers, not just around who knew what when but also around the swiftness of the compensation payment, why some evidence in that process was explicitly excluded, and that, you know, the substantial nature of it – all legitimate questions and the right thing to do.

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Australia politics live: Don Farrell warns delaying housing bill could lead to double dissolution election

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Chalmers to herald record job growth

Treasurer Jim Chalmers will no doubt take a dixer on this today – the Albanese government has “had the strongest job growth in the first year of any new government on record”.

The number of Australians with a job is now more than 14 million for the very first time.

Australia’s participation rate is 66.9% – the highest on record, primarily driven by record high participation for women (62.7%).

The share of women in work is at a record high – with the employment to population ration for women at 60.5%.

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Greens renew push for rent freeze as housing bodies say ‘time is of the essence’ to pass Labor bill

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Nick McKim to introduce private member’s bill in Senate to promote market intervention

The Greens will continue to push for a national freeze on rents and interest rate rises, declaring there is more the Albanese government can do to address Australia’s housing cost crisis.

Their call comes as the country’s peak housing bodies call for the debate deadlock to be broken and for Labor’s Housing Australia future fund to be passed this week.

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No pets allowed: NSW pushed to act on ‘urgent’ need to make rentals more animal-friendly

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Animal Justice party will put forward an amendment to the government’s bill that further strengthens laws allowing renters to own pets

The New South Wales government is being pushed to make rentals animal-friendly sooner as pet owners find it increasingly hard to find a home and pounds see an influx of renters giving up their pets.

Labor promised in the lead-up to the election that it would make it easier for renters to own pets, with plans to give landlords 21 days to respond to a renter’s request to own a pet. If the landlord refuses within the timeframe, they must put their reason to the yet to be established rental commissioner for a final decision.

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Australian renters facing ‘pre-application’ for properties before inspecting

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Applicants asked for proof of identity, rental and financial history, and references, with some listings being snapped up before first showing

Renters looking for new homes are being forced to “pre-apply” before inspecting properties, a process that can take hours and involves providing personal details, financial information and references.

Cassandra, who did not want her last name published, is looking for a place to rent in Melbourne after getting a job in the city. She said several listings she has come across during her search asked for pre-applications.

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How gentrified is your postcode? Search our map of Australia’s capital cities

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Exclusive: A third of suburbs in Sydney and Adelaide are already highly gentrified, and other capitals are on a similar trajectory

More than a third of Sydney and Adelaide suburbs and a quarter in Brisbane are affordable only to the most wealthy, and Hobart and Melbourne are following a similar path, analysis of census data on income and housing costs has found. Almost half of Darwin suburbs are either at risk or already well on the way to being “gentrified”, with a similar figure in Perth.

Researchers at the Australian Urban Observatory, who created a gentrification index from the data, say many of the areas most at risk of being gentrified are relatively recent greenfield areas in what were once outer suburbs, where many lower income families were able to find affordable housing. These families now run the risk of being displaced even farther afield.

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Political point scoring over latest RBA rate rise won’t help those feeling the ‘painful squeeze’

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How high must rates go to choke inflation? Blaming Labor’s budget, price-gouging businesses or the national wage increase isn’t an answer

The Reserve Bank is all about “seeking to keep the economy on an even keel” as it cranks up interest rates to crush inflation – but the effect of multiple rate rises is anything but even.

The central bank again surprised most economists and investors on Tuesday by hiking its cash rate another 25 basis points to 4.1%.

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Can your suburb help fix Australia’s housing crisis? It all comes down to density

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Despite adding millions of people and dwellings over the past decade, our cities are well behind globally in terms of population density

Skyrocketing rents and a projected home shortage have sparked fierce debate on the most effective ways to address Australia’s housing crisis.

Experts say one of the most effective fixes is to increase the supply of housing, specifically infilling urban areas to increase the density of areas where people actually want to live.

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Rental units only $39 cheaper than houses per week as demand soars for affordable options

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CoreLogic says units are now the only option for many tenants but supply is limited, forcing up rents

Renting a house in Australia costs just $39 more a week than renting a unit, compared to a difference of $64 a year ago, new research shows.

Kaytlin Ezzy, an economist at property data firm CoreLogic, said Australians have been increasingly turning to units amid sky-rocketing rents. This has caused the rental price gap between houses and units to shrink as demand for units outstrips supply.

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Australia’s rental affordability drops to worst levels in nearly a decade

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New report shows average households are spending a third of income on rent while lower income families pay more than half their earnings

Australian rental affordability has dropped to its worst levels in nearly a decade, with the average household spending a third of its income on rent, as the impacts of the Covid pandemic continue to be felt on the market.

Lower income households pay even more, with more than half of their income going towards their rent, according to new research from ANZ and CoreLogic.

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‘Doesn’t make any sense’: call for Queensland home park rent caps to apply to all tenants

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Advocates for renters say state shouldn’t play favourites with proposed limits on rent increases

It’s “unfair” that a proposed rent cap for Queensland manufactured home park residents will not be considered for tenants in the wider private housing market, advocates say.

Manufactured home parks are marketed as retirement villages for those over 50, where residents lease the land from the park owner, with rent going towards shared facilities and utilities.

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