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
High Court rules in favour of Aboriginal land council on unused Sydney bowling club
Nabil Al-Nashar ABC (No paywall)The High Court of Australia has ruled in favour of the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council, affirming its claim on disputed Crown land in Paddington, in Sydney's east. Three out of the five justices on the bench agreed the land was not "in use" by the current leaseholder Quarry Street Pty Ltd on the site of the now shut-down Paddington Bowling Club. The Aboriginal Land Rights Act allows Aboriginal land councils to claim Crown lands that are unused.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-03/la-perouse-aboriginal-cou…
# NSW, .Women go from homeless to 'tiny home' owners with a once-in-a-lifetime deal
Vanessa Gorman ABC (No paywall)Single mum Lauren De Groot was house-sitting when she saw a Facebook post offering homeless or at-risk women $55,000 to help build a tiny house. The catch — you had to be involved in the building process. "I thought it was a scam," she recalls. "Why are people going out of their way to offer a bunch of strangers a heap of money?" She applied anyway, desperate to scrounge something back from her "three years of hell".
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-24/tiny-homes-houses-builds-…
# NSW, .New housing incentives for granny flats in Lismore
Lismore City Council (No paywall)Lismore City Council has introduced new incentives to encourage the development of secondary dwellings, also known as granny flats, in urban areas across the city. Council will waive 100% of its developer contributions for secondary dwellings in sewer-connected areas until 30 June 2027. This means residents will no longer have to pay the additional levies normally charged on top of standard development application costs, making it significantly cheaper to add a granny flat to their property.
https://www.lismore.nsw.gov.au/Council/Latest-news-and-updates/L…
# NSW, .There’s a nasty collision of hate and housing
Elizabeth Knight The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)There was a concerning tenor to the mass anti-immigration rallies over the weekend, one that is bleeding into the mainstream debate on housing – a nasty collision of hate and housing. There were extreme and disruptive elements among the thousands who joined the protests, but there were also moderate people who believe they have been locked out of the housing market by several years of post-COVID, above-average immigration.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/there-s-a-nasty-coll…
# Must read, Hot topic Australia, .Tax breaks for investors unfair but there’s no quick fix, housing affordability boss says
Patrick Commins The Guardian (No paywall)Generous tax breaks for property investors are leading to “deeply inequitable” outcomes, the chair of the government’s National Housing Supply and Affordability Council (NHSAC) has warned. Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz, a former chief executive of property developer Mirvac, said there was no easy or quick fix to Australia’s housing crisis. NHSAC’s state of the housing system report in May estimated that Labor would fall more than 260,000 homes short of its 1.2m target over the five years to 2029. “We shouldn’t be happy with 938,000 (estimated homes built), or 1.2m either,” Lloyd-Hurwitz said. “Certainly the more housing we can produce the better.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/aug/28/tax-break…
# Australia, .New research shows where to build well located social housing
AHURI (No paywall)New AHURI research has identified priority locations for building ‘well located’ social housing. Well located homes are in places where tenants can easily access amenities including health care, schools, public transport and jobs. The research mapped where social housing is located compared to local services across Australia. The research found that 70% of well located suburbs had less than 5% social housing. For example, suburbs like Haymarket (NSW), Melbourne CBD (VIC) and Brisbane City (QLD) each had only 0.3% social housing. In comparison, many suburbs with poor access to amenities had much higher rates of social housing.
https://www.ahuri.edu.au/analysis/news/new-research-shows-where-…
# Research alert Australia, Public and community housing.The amount of personal info Australian renters have to hand over is ‘staggering’
Lina Przhedetsky Pursuit (No paywall)The New South Wales government has introduced a bill to better protect renters’ personal information when they apply for properties. But other Australian states and territories are lagging behind, leaving many renters with little choice but to hand over excessive amounts of personal information when they apply for properties. As median rents continue to climb, and the national vacancy rate hovers around 1.2 per cent, renters report feeling pressured to use third-party rental apps when applying for a property.
https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/the-amount-of-personal-i…
# Hot topic Australia, Starting a tenancy.Negative gearing on short-stay rentals costs Australia up to $556m a year, report estimates
Cait Kelly The Guardian (No paywall)Tax breaks for investors using houses as short-stay accommodation could be costing Australian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars per year, according to a new report by Everybody’s Home. The short-stay subsidy report estimates that the budget could be losing between $111m and $556m in forgone revenue this financial year through negative gearing deductions claimed on short-stay rental properties.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/sep/01/negative-…
# Australia, .