Awaab Ishak died in 2020, eight days after his second birthday, following ‘chronic exposure’ in Rochdale
A coroner has said the death of an “engaging, lively, endearing” two-year-old from prolonged exposure to mould in his family’s flat should be a “defining moment” for the UK’s housing sector.
Awaab Ishak died in 2020, eight days after his second birthday, as a direct result of black mould in the flat he lived in.
Continue reading...One councillor accused of ‘fear-mongering and smears’ over comments about crisis accommodation residents as families worry about future
A proposal by Resilience NSW to construct 40 modular homes for flood survivors on a sports field in the New South Wales northern rivers town of Lismore has been rejected by the local council, leaving the town divided.
The proposal had been scaled back after an initial plan was voted down by Lismore council two months ago, six votes to five.
Continue reading...State opposition leader Chris Minns also pushes for tighter rules around evicting tenants without reasonable grounds
Almost a million renters in New South Wales would be able to transfer their bond from one property to the next and couldn’t be kicked out of their homes without reasonable grounds given, under a plan proposed by state Labor.
The pledge ahead of the 2023 election comes amid soaring rents in Sydney and rising accommodation costs in regional areas, with NSW’s median rent increasing from $386 to $420 a week between 2016 and 2021.
Continue reading...Industry minister says gas companies are ‘not picking up the signals’. Follow all the day’s news live
Gas supply not a problem, ‘glut of greed is’, industry minister says
Husic:
This is not a shortage of supply problem; this is a glut of greed problem, that has to be basically short-circuited and common sense prevail.
The pricing mechanism is the one that I think needs to be seriously examined.
The LNG exporters are offering gas to the domestic market at prices they couldn’t reasonably expect on the international market.
We have the ACCC looking at that [code of conduct] and that code of conduct is to help better guide the way in which these contracts get negotiated … in terms of the other areas, we want to work through that internally.
If you look at what the treasurer has said over the last few days, he is examining those type of options and again that will be in the mix of things he thinks through.
I think the bigger focus long-term is the price mechanism.
Continue reading...Tenants Queensland says the hike is far more than the average increase of 35% that renters seek advice over
A Brisbane tenant has been asked to pay a 60% rent increase, as Queensland renters advocates say some landlords are hiking prices well above normal market rates.
Nicolas* moved into a two-bedroom apartment in South Brisbane earlier this year which he currently rents for $470 a week.
Continue reading...Experts say Australia is ‘definitely still in a rental crisis’ but there is only so much people can pay
Twelve months ago, during the height of rental market demand, Carley Eder was issuing lease renewals with price increases of up to $80 a week. Now, her clients will be lucky to have tenants approve $25.
“The market has definitely shifted,” the Central Coast rentals principal said.
Continue reading...We’ve been bringing you some of the news about rain causing more flooding in NSW. Here are some visuals from Wagga Wagga in southern NSW and the Newell highway in the state’s central west.
Jacinta Allan avoids question of whether families returned from Syria would be welcome in Victoria
The first group of families the wives and children of Islamic State fighters arrived in Sydney over the weekend from Syria and are now living in the community in Sydney. Will Victoria accept returnees?
I was with the premier [Daniel Andrews] on Sunday at a at a media event… where the premier was asked this direct question and I’ll give to you the answer he gave on Sunday which is these are very sensitive security matters. They are primarily the province of the federal government, it would not be appropriate -
As a matter of principle, will you accept them [in] Victoria? Or have you asked for them not to come during the election campaign?
We’ve not, Patricia. There is a … As I think we’ve seen from the media reporting around this issue, this is a very careful matter. There is a very -
Sure, but as a matter of principle, do you think returning citizens – they’re Australian citizens – should be allowed to live in Victoria?
I would really direct you to the federal government and the federal … I think you would appreciate that this is not a simple yes or no proposition because there needs to be robust and careful assessments that are not undertaken by the Victorian government. They’re undertaken by the federal government and the federal Department of Home Affairs.
And if they do all the checks and balances, should they be welcome in Victoria?
Firstly it’d be entirely inappropriate to cut across that and secondly, I am in no position to run a commentary.
Continue reading...If residents choose not to move their home or if it is not possible, they will be sold or stripped for materials
In the nine months since floods gutted Harper Dalton’s South Lismore home, he has been waiting for two things: a land buyback and the ability to pick up the redwood home and move it to higher ground.
On Friday it emerged that northern rivers residents eligible for buybacks under a new joint federal and state $800m housing scheme will be allowed to do just that.
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Continue reading...Bulldozers were halted after activists and First Nations people held a smoking ceremony at the site
Clearing has begun on land in south-eastern Queensland upon which Indigenous protesters claim the bones of their ancestors lay and an unrecognised massacre took place.
Bulldozers on the former Deebing Creek Aboriginal reserve were halted on Friday, however, when the protesters held a smoking ceremony on the site on Ipswich’s southern outskirts.
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Continue reading...Kiama mayor says chosen site has no support infrastructure and viable alternatives for development were overlooked
A portion of the famous rolling green hills near Kiama, on the New South Wales south coast, is under threat from a housing development, after the state government overrode Kiama municipal council zoning to allow a 440-house development.
The South Kiama project is part of a push by the Perrottet government to ease housing pressures, but the Kiama mayor, Neil Reilly, said viable alternative sites on non-rural land were ignored, including an old quarry at nearby Bombo and vacant land within Kiama’s town boundaries.
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Continue reading...Decline comes as RBA documents indicate values may sink as much as 20% nationally from their February peak by end of 2024
Sydney’s property prices have fallen by more than 10% since their mid-February peak, shedding almost $450 a day in value on an average home, and leading other major markets lower, CoreLogic said.
The 10.1% decline for home values in the harbour city so far comes as documents from the Reserve Bank of Australia indicate average property values may sink as much as 20% nationally from their recent highs by the end of 2024. That decline would be the steepest since the 1980s if realised.
Continue reading...Exclusive: The partial indexation of funding aims to help community organisations cope with rising costs
Community organisations such as housing, Indigenous and domestic violence services will receive an extra $560m over four years in Labor’s first budget since its re-election.
The partial indexation of funding revealed by the finance minister, Katy Gallagher, aims to help community services keep up with rising costs.
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Continue reading...Amid falling house prices and interest rate rises, agents are turning to increasingly frenzied measures to hunt for sellers
The first time Neha Samar received a handwritten note in her letterbox asking if she would be willing to sell her home, she threw it in the bin and forgot about it. The third time she received a similar note, it felt “creepy”.
Samar has lived in her Shepparton property, north-east of Melbourne, since 2018, but this is the first year real estate agents have come knocking.
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Continue reading...Repurposing of existing accommodation and other facilities to be suggested at government-convened housing meeting
Hotels and motels would be repurposed to house homeless people under a proposal to be tabled at Queensland’s affordable housing summit on Thursday.
The proposal is among a string of ideas to be floated for urgent relief for the tens of thousands of people who are on the state’s social housing waiting list, couch surfing or sleeping in cars or on the streets.
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Continue reading...Agency claims most tenants ‘are agreeable’ to the rent increases, which Tenants Queensland calls ‘opportunistic price-gouging’
A Brisbane real estate agency has urged landlords to consider raising rents by more than 20%, as Australia grapples with a worsening rental crisis.
An email, sent by Ray White West End, asked landlords if their properties were being “under-rented” before advising them to increase rents by more than double the rate of inflation.
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Continue reading...High ownership of multiple residences among state MPs has prompted accusations they are ‘blind’ to the escalating rental crisis
More than half of MPs in the New South Wales lower house own multiple residential properties, prompting concerns the state’s politicians are “blind” to record increases in rental prices.
Amid a fresh push for reform to the rental market, an analysis of MP disclosure records show landlords are disproportionately represented on Macquarie Street.
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Continue reading...Seventy flood warnings in place across Victoria, with 10,000 people without power and 40 schools and childcare centres shut. Follow the day’s news live
‘Walk the talk Labor’: Spender urges government to help households decarbonise
Independent MP Allegra Spender has taken to social media to urge the Albanese government to take action supporting Australian households as they decarbonise:
Our families and businesses are hurting. Sovereign risk is not a defence when the super profits are being made because of a war.
Continue reading...Greens bill will see investors pay 5% levy on all residential property left vacant for more than six months
The Queensland Greens say their proposal to tax investors for vacant homes could see tens of thousands of properties returned to the rental market during a nationwide housing crisis.
The bill, introduced into parliament on Thursday, proposes charging investors a 5% levy of the “capital improved value” of all residential property and land that has been vacant for six months or more in a year.
Continue reading...Queensland police say officers had been called to Edmonstone Street in South Brisbane around 3pm. This blog is now closed
Treasurer says surging electricity costs will make inflation ‘hang around longer’
We brought you the grim news on the blog yesterday that the head of Alinta energy has predicated a 35% increase to retail electricity bills next year, as energy providers juggle phasing out fossil fuels alongside investment in renewables.
I think one of the reasons this inflation will hang around longer than we want it to is because there are expectations around these electricity price rises being more problematic for longer.
You’ve said the government would put the economy above politics, can you really say that’s what you doing if you leave the stage-three tax cuts in place as they are?
I can say that, and I think what people will see in the budget in two weeks’ time is some difficult decisions in difficult times.
Our job is to make sure that our budgets are perfectly calibrated to the economic conditions as we confront them.
Continue reading...Annual tax could be paid for almost 20 years before it equalled the value of a stamp duty payment in parts of western Sydney, calculator suggests
First home buyers could save tens of thousands of dollars under the New South Wales government’s proposal for an optional land tax but housing experts say the “vanilla” plan falls well short of the “revolution” it had initially promised.
On Monday the government said it would introduce its plans for an overhaul of stamp duty into the state’s parliament this week.
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