Category Archives: Housing

Bring back eviction ban or face ‘catastrophic’ homelessness crisis, ministers told

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Sir Bob Kerslake calls on government to protect at-risk tenants as it did during pandemic

The former head of the civil service has warned of a looming “catastrophic” homelessness crisis caused by the cost of living unless the government reintroduces the eviction ban that protected tenants during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sir Bob Kerslake, who chairs the Kerslake Commission on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping, said a failure to act “could see this become a homelessness as well as an economic crisis and the results could be catastrophic; with all the good achieved in reducing street homelessness since the pandemic lost, and any hope of the government meeting its manifesto pledge to end rough sleeping by 2024 gone”.

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London council could seize oligarchs’ homes for affordable housing

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Exclusive: Westminster looking at compulsory purchase orders to tackle laundering of ‘dirty money’

Homes acquired with “dirty money” in the richest parts of London could be seized and turned into affordable housing under plans to crack down on oligarchs using Belgravia, Knightsbridge and Mayfair “to rinse their money”.

Labour-controlled Westminster city council is examining the use of compulsory purchase orders in extreme cases where it finds properties are not being used for their stated purpose, as part of a push to “combat the capital’s reputation as the European centre for money laundering”.

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Vested interests can’t be allowed to dictate Queensland’s response to the housing crisis

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Developers are being touted as saviours to the state’s housing woes but greenfield development won’t affect affordability

About six years ago, the Brisbane city council sought to forcibly remove a growing number of homeless people staying underneath the Go Between and Kurilpa bridges in South Brisbane.

A few years later, the Queensland government placed a series of large boulders under the Kurilpa Bridge to prevent rough sleepers from returning.

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Calls for 50,000 new social houses in Queensland before 2032 Olympics

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Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announces 200 new crisis accommodation units as prelude to upcoming housing summit

Social services organisations have welcomed the Queensland government’s moves to source urgent crisis accommodation for a growing number of homeless people, but warn that only long-term measures can ultimately fix the state’s housing crisis.

The state’s premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, on Friday chaired a roundtable with housing industry groups, local government and the social services sector. The meeting was a prelude to a housing summit next month.

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‘The scariest thing is insecurity’: Australia’s renters over 50 fear uncertain future, report shows

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Anglicare Australia finds a couple on age pensions could afford to rent only 1.4% of properties advertised

Nearly three-quarters of renters over 50 fear an expensive and unstable future with spiralling housing costs resulting in insecurity, according to a new report by one of Australia’s largest charities.

Anglicare Australia recently polled 500 over-50s about their housing circumstances, hopes and fears. The subsequent report, Ageing in Place: Home and Housing for Australia’s Older Renters, released on Tuesday, revealed housing costs are the biggest barrier to older renters staying settled in the same place as they age.

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Australia news live: review into Stuart Ayres over Barilaro hiring finds no breach of ministerial conduct

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Ayres stepped aside as deputy NSW Liberal leader and trade minister after a separate report into the controversial trade posting of John Barilaro. Follow all the day’s news live

Australia’s high commissioner to the UK meets with King Charles

Australia’s acting high commissioner to the UK Lynette Wood has had an audience with King Charles III.

Really what matters is we have the best possible person for the job, who can advance Australia’s interests in the best possible way, and that certainly needs a thorough and robust process to choose that person.

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Federal Icac legislation to be introduced to parliament next week – as it happened

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Gallagher says Labor has not changed position on tax cuts

And on the stage three tax cuts, Katy Gallagher echoed the line the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, started last week and continued yesterday – which is effectively Labor playing dead on the $243bn cuts:

I have been asked this a number of times. You know, we haven’t changed our view on stage three. They don’t come in until 2024.

My sole focus at the moment is putting a budget together for October and what we can do in the short-term to relieve pressure on families. That is what I’m focused on everyday.

Well, the budget we inherited was heaving with a trillion dollars of Liberal party debt. We got deficits as far as the eye can see.

We got some programs that weren’t funded in an ongoing sense that clearly are programs that need ongoing funding.

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Australia politics live: RBA interest rates decision due; climate bill to pass Senate with Pocock amendments

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Labor’s signature climate change legislation will pass the Senate with some minor changes

Delayed rate pain

While the interest rate increases are hitting those already on variable rates, those who are on fixed rates which are about to expire are going to feel a lot of pain, when their repayments jump to include the cumulative increase all at once.

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Increased migration must come with planning and expanded services, councils say

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Fairfield mayor says ‘people are suffering’ due to lack of affordable housing in migrant communities as PM pledges $575m investment

Increasing Australia’s migration intake without improving key services will increase the strain on housing, hospitals and schools as well as inflation, councils in migrant communities have said.

The Albanese government on Friday announced at its jobs and skills summit it would lifting the migrant intake to 195,000 in 2022-23, from the current 160,000 cap, addressing calls from businesses for more skilled workers to be brought in to Australia to meet shortages. A review planned for next February would set intake levels for coming years.

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Australian house prices falling at fastest rate since 1980s as ‘sharp’ downturn widens

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CoreLogic says every capital city except Darwin fell in August, with Sydney dropping 2.2%

Every capital city in Australia except Darwin is now in a housing downturn, according to a new report, with values falling at a trajectory not seen since the 1980s.

CoreLogic’s home value index shows national housing values are falling rapidly, after rising about 29% during a period of sharp growth.

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NSW introduces seven-star energy standards for new homes

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Renovations valued at more than $50,000 will be subject to the new NSW government planning policy

Tougher energy standards for new homes will be introduced in New South Wales, but small residential blocks and shopping centres won’t have to adhere to them because of developers’ concerns about added complexity and costs.

Under a new policy announced on Monday, new houses and high-rise towers will need to have a seven-star energy rating, while large office buildings must show the ability to become all-electric-powered.

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Electric car-ready homes will help firm up the power grid, Ed Husic says

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Governments urged to plan for emerging technologies that will allow bidirectional charging so vehicle batteries can power homes

Australia’s first mandate to make new apartment buildings “electric vehicle-ready” should be extended to all new housing, potentially turning entire suburbs into virtual batteries supporting the power grid, the federal science minister said.

Ed Husic helped helm Friday’s gathering of federal, state and territory building ministers in Sydney, where it was agreed to amend the national construction code to require new apartment blocks to be capable of charging cars in all their parking spots.

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Australia news live: Peter Dutton labels robodebt royal commission and Morrison ministries inquiry ‘witch-hunts’

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Qantas engineers begin industrial action today

Qantas engineers will delay their shifts by one minute as an industrial action strategy, according to the ABC.

The one-minute strike is to protest Qantas’s inaction over negotiations for a 12% pay rise over four years, equivalent to 3% a year, and is designed to send a message to management: patience has run out.

The engineers’ strike over wages comes on the same day Qantas releases its annual profit results and in the same week management attempted to win back customers disgruntled over delays and lost baggage with $50 travel vouchers.

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Tougher seven-star energy efficiency standards for new Australian homes set to be approved

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State and territory building ministers will meet on Friday amid fierce debate about when and how new regime should begin

New Australian homes could have to comply with tougher energy performance standards within a year, with ministers set to agree to boost the required rating from six to seven stars.

That could cut the thermal energy use of homes by about 25%, experts say. But there’s fierce debate about when and how the new regime should begin.

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Albanese government urged to freeze rent rises for two years to avoid ‘national tragedy’

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Greens plea comes as research finds skyrocketing regional rents are contributing to unfilled job vacancies

The Greens are urging the Albanese government to impose a nationwide rent freeze for two years, saying the issue of rental affordability should be elevated to national cabinet ahead of next week’s jobs and skills summit.

New research from the Everybody’s Home advocacy group has found increased rents in regional areas are contributing to unfilled job vacancies, with some areas recording rental rises of more than 40% in the past two years.

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Brad Pitt foundation agrees on $20.5m settlement to owners of faulty post-Katrina houses

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Lawsuit was brought by owners after Pitt’s supposedly sustainable, flood-proof homes were plagued by mold, leaks and rot

It sounded like a dream come true, complete with a handsome prince riding to the rescue: the construction of 109 new, sustainable, flood-proof and affordable homes in New Orleans’s Hurricane Katrina-ravaged Lower Ninth Ward, all thanks to movie star Brad Pitt.

But the homes that were eventually built fell far short of Pitt’s 2006 promises: they were plagued by mold, electrical fires and unclean water.

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‘A hotel is not home’: Afghan families still wait for a place of their own in UK

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Families who fled Taliban rule say they are grateful for the help they have received but long for a home where they can settle

The west London hotel where Fawzia Amini, a senior Afghan judge, her husband and their four daughters have lived for the last nine months has comfortable sofas in the foyer, a restaurant serving tasty meals on the first floor, and friendly reception staff – but it isn’t home.

After the turmoil and danger of fleeing their spacious home in Kabul when the Taliban seized control of the Afghan capital, the family say that while they are grateful for everything the UK government has done for them, they long to be in a place of their own where they can cook their own food, work, study, and entertain relatives and friends.

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David Pocock to use Senate balance of power to push for waiving of ACT’s public housing debt

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Independent calls for $100m debt to be wiped as part of negotiations over Labor’s $10bn housing policy, which also faces Greens resistance

The new independent senator David Pocock will use his balance of power position in the Senate to push for the ACT government’s $100m public housing debt to be waived as part of negotiations over Labor’s new housing policy.

Legislation for the government’s new $10bn Housing Australia Future Fund also faces resistance from the Greens, with the party’s housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather saying the proposal is not “good enough” to secure support in the Senate.

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State government ‘disappointed’ as Queensland real estate peak body urges skirting of new eviction laws

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Property managers are being advised to provide notices to leave when issuing fixed-term leases

Queensland’s housing department says “best practice” advice given by the state’s peak real estate body that would see every renter issued with notice to leave at the start of their lease is “disappointing” and “not in the spirit” of rent reforms.

But the tenants’ union is calling for the state government to go further, urging them to restrict the issuing of “Form 12s” and make it harder for renters to be removed without reason.

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Queensland real estate body tells landlords how to skirt new no-grounds eviction laws

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Renters express shock as property managers told to provide tenants with notice to leave at same time as new leases

Queensland’s peak real estate body has recommended property managers issue every tenant with a notice to leave at the same time as they are offered a new lease, as a way of circumventing the state’s new no-grounds eviction laws.

Renters who spoke to Guardian Australia criticised the recommendation, which they said has left them shocked and worried about their future.

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