Housing News Digest
Housing News Digest
The Tenants' Union Housing News Digest compiles our pick of items from all the latest tenancy and housing media, sent once per week, on Thursdays.
Below is the Digest archive from November 2020 onwards. From time to time you will find additional items in the archive that did not make it into the weekly Digest email. Earlier archives are here, where you can also find additional digests by other organisations.
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Archive
Slater and Gordon launch class action lawsuit against WA over housing conditions
Duncan Evans news.com.au (No paywall)Indigenous Australians living in remote Western Australia have launched a massive new class action lawsuit against the WA state government, alleging they have been subjected to substandard housing conditions. Shocking photos attached to the lawsuit show rundown houses with mould and cracks on the walls. Law firm Slater and Gordon, representing thousands of Indigenous tenants living in public housing across remote WA, has filed the action in the Federal Court, accusing the Housing Authority and the state, as lessors of public housing in remote Aboriginal communities, of breaching multiple residential tenancy, contract and consumer protection laws.
https://www.news.com.au/national/western-australia/slater-and-go…
# Must read Australia, Aboriginal renters, Rent, Repairs.Near 'impossible' homeownership leaves generation rent with dire future, expert warns
Yashee Sharma 9 News (No paywall)Homeownership has become near impossible for most Australians as new data shows that it would take the average person about a decade to save for a deposit. The 2024 Helia Home Buyer Sentiment Report found it would take 14 years to save up for the traditional 20 per cent deposit for a home in Sydney and nine years for a home in Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra. In Adelaide and Perth, it would take eight years. In Hobart, it would take seven years and in Darwin, it would take six years.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/near-impossible-homeownership-…
# Video Australia, Rent.Albanese government have ‘offered nothing’ on housing policy: Max Chandler-Mather
news.com.au (No paywall)Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather has accused Labor of offering “nothing” in negotiations over housing policy. “To the Prime Minister, the Greens will work with Labor to cut rents, phase out negative gearing and the capital gains discount and invest the savings in a mass build of public housing,” Mr Chandler-Mather said during Question Time on Tuesday. “We don't expect to get everything. We are ready to negotiate but you have offered nothing."
https://www.news.com.au/national/albanese-government-have-offere…
# Must read, Video Australia, Rent.$2 billion housing deal ripped up at abandoned Sydney towers
Madeleine Bower and James Willis Daily Telegraph (Paywall)A $2 billion agreement to build almost 5000 new homes in Sydney’s west has been torn up, with the State Government describing it as a “dud deal.” The 13-hectare site in Telopea, known by locals as the “Three Sisters”, will instead be refurbished and reopened as public housing, as a search begins for a new developer. An agreement to transform the three towers on Sturt Street was announced by the Coalition with Frasers Property Australia in 2019. The “Telopea Urban Renewal Project” promised to provide 4700 new homes, including 22 per cent for social housing, plus a new library and community centre.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/2-billion-housing-dea…
# Hot topic NSW, Public and community housing.Appalling details in Sydney rental slammed: ‘Is this illegal?’
Hayley Taylor 7 News (No paywall)A sublet vacancy in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs has been slammed after a picture of an unmade bed in a cramped space was shared online on Sunday by a social media user who asked if the arrangement was even legal. The room in the South Coogee sharehouse on Arden St — living with nine other people for $95 per week including bills — is “substantially cheaper than most other rooms available in the area” according to the Tenants’ Union, and comes with some “glaring red flags.”
https://7news.com.au/news/is-this-illegal-horrific-rental-in-coo…
# Hot topic, TUNSW in the media NSW, Rent.Eviction rates highlight rental struggles in NSW’s outer suburbs
Rowan Crosby Elite Agent Magazine (No paywall)Tenants in Far Western NSW and outer Sydney suburbs are facing the highest risk of eviction, according to a heat map created by the Tenants’ Union of New South Wales. The map, based on NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) data, shows stark disparities in eviction rates across the state, with some areas experiencing significantly higher rates than others. According to the data, Bourke Shire, Central Darling, and Walcha had the highest proportion of eviction applications, at three per 100 rental households.
https://eliteagent.com/eviction-rates-highlight-rental-struggles…
# Hot topic, TUNSW in the media NSW, Eviction, Rent.Revealed: The NSW housing reform that has disappointed most voters
Alexandra Smith The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Voters overwhelmingly believe the NSW Labor government has failed to do enough to help tenants, as rental prices spiral and vacancy rates remain at an all-time low amid the housing crisis. More than 18 months after the Minns government came to office promising sweeping reforms to rental laws, including banning no-grounds evictions, Labor is yet to pass legislation protecting tenants from being kicked out of rental properties without “commonsense and reasonable reasons”.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/revealed-the-nsw-housing-ref…
# Must read NSW, Rent.‘A future of dead plants’: Pitch to scrap unit sunlight standards criticised
Julie Power The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)A call by the NSW Productivity Commission to remove a requirement that most apartments have some direct sunlight would create two classes of residents, critics say: those who can afford to live in the light and those who will dwell in the dark. The commission’s review of housing supply last month backed the relaxation of design requirements for apartments that its stakeholders, mostly builders and developers, argued would reduce costs and improve supply and affordability.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/a-future-of-dead-plants-pitc…
# Must read NSW, Rent.