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
Structural supports put in Sydney apartment tower to ensure safety
Matt O'Sullivan The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)A Sydney apartment tower has had temporary support columns installed to ensure the safety of hundreds of residents, 10 months after an engineer raised serious concerns about its structural integrity. Unit owners in the 10-storey building in Canterbury have taken out a loan to pay for the back-propping work after developer Toplace and its experts disagreed that it was needed. ... The tower is in a complex known as Vicinity that has about 276 apartments over three buildings, and was completed about seven years ago by Toplace. A structural engineer hired by owners warned last October that the tower – known as Building C – was at serious risk of collapse which, if it occurred, would lead to “catastrophic damage” to the two other apartment buildings in the complex.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/structural-supports-put-in-s…
# NSW, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.Australia has been crying out for a national housing plan, and new council is a big step towards having one
Emma Baker and Andrew Beer The Conversation (No paywall)The federal government’s confirmation on Monday that it will set up a National Housing Supply and Affordability Council has not received much media or public attention. But, dollar for dollar, it might be the year’s most important and impactful housing announcement. The announcement by the minister for housing and homelessness, Julie Collins, at this week’s National Homeless Conference is a major step towards a considered and long-overdue national plan for housing. Australia’s approach to the challenges of housing supply and affordability over the past decade could easily be described as “ramshackle”. This has meant policies, interests and outcomes have clashed.
https://theconversation.com/australia-has-been-crying-out-for-a-…
# Must read Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Affordable housing, Federal Government, Home ownership, Homelessness, Housing affordability, Housing market.Why the cost of negative gearing tax breaks is likely to rise
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)The cost of negative gearing tax concessions is set to soar as interest rates rise, meaning Australian taxpayers could spend billions of dollars to offset private landlords’ lost income in coming years, experts say. Abolishing the contentious tax policy is one of the fairest and least economically damaging ways to help repair the public budget, top economists say. Read also Greg Jericho's article entitled: 'Australian tax data is absolute proof of the gender pay gap across the entire economy' in 'The Guardian' at: [https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2022/aug/10/australian-tax-data-is-absolute-proof-of-the-gender-pay-gap-across-the-entire-economy] Here, he states: 'Record low interest rates meant only 10.7% of the 14.9 million individuals who submitted a tax return negative geared, [but] as ever the more you earn the more likely you are to negative gear'. You can view Australian Taxation Office's 'Taxation statistics 2019-20'and previous years at: [https://www.ato.gov.au/about-ato/research-and-statistics/tax-and-superannuation-statistics/]
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/why-the-cost-of-negative-ge…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market, Tax.Labor plan to ease housing crisis will create just 3% of dwellings needed, Greens warn
Paul Karp The Guardian (No paywall)Labor’s five-year housing construction plan will deliver just 3% of the social housing units needed over the next decade, the Greens have warned. That is the conclusion of parliamentary library research, which estimates Australia has a shortfall of 524,000 social housing dwellings this year, set to increase to 671,000 by 2032. Labor has countered that its investment from a $10bn social housing fund for 30,000 social and affordable houses will come on top of the efforts of the states, set to build 15,000 more in the next two years. The stoush comes after housing and homelessness minister, Julie Collins, indicated in a major speech on Monday that the commonwealth will take greater responsibility for housing and challenged Australians to stop resisting solutions “in their back yard” to the homelessness crisis.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/09/labor-pla…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Federal Government, Homelessness, Housing market.When ‘having it good’ leaves you with nothing: life as a renter on the poverty line
Kristin O'Connell The Guardian (No paywall)For those of us who rely on the whim of a landlord for safe shelter, there’s no relief in sight until politicians decide to act. ... The thought of leaving my home makes me sick. Moving house is stressful for anyone, but my executive function hindered by disability, the task is guaranteed to destabilise. The real estate agent could hear the deep relief in my voice when she offered a six-month lease. Finally, a modicum of certainty. She moved quickly to ensure the feeling didn’t last: “But it’s not all good news. We need to put the rent up $90 a week.” As I processed that nauseating figure, she added that it was “well below market … you’ve had it good for a long time.” Her statement was both true and ghoulish in its cruelty.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/08/when-havin…
# Australia, Rent, Disability, Housing market.Urban Indigenous homelessness: much more than housing
Deirdre Tedmanson, Selina Tually, Daphne Habibis and Alwin Chong AHURI (No paywall)AHURI Report ... This research examines the causes, cultural contextual meanings and safe responses to homelessness for Indigenous Australians in urban settings, using Australian policy, practice, and academic literature, together with interviews with stakeholders in four case-study sites.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?pli=1#inbox/WhctKKXgjHHBkmpScX…
# Research alert Australia, Homelessness, Race and ethnicity.Got a rent increase notice? Know your rental rights and how to negotiate a better deal
Rafqa Touma The Guardian (No paywall)With rents skyrocketing, it’s more important than ever that tenants understand their options when dealing with their landlord. ... “When a renter gets a rent increase, they should check that they have been given all the information that makes it valid,” policy and advocacy manager at Tenants’ Union of NSW, Jemima Mowbray, said. ... [She] suggested speaking to other renters in your area. “It can be a lot of work, but go and talk to your neighbours renting a property like yours to get an understanding of what is happening with rent.' However, she warned that negotiating or challenging a rent increase can be “quite an undertaking”. ... [Chris Martin of the University of NSW city futures research centre says] most jurisdictions restrict rent increases during a fixed term tenancy, [but outside of this] "generally, all states and territories say that rent can be increased so long as they are not excessive to the general market level of rent comparable practice,” he said. The ACT is an exception: rent increases are capped at the rate of inflation in Canberra rentals plus 10%. Landlords have to apply to the civil and administrative tribunal to lift rent above this threshold. In NSW, Greens MP for Newtown, Jenny Leong, has introduced a bill to NSW parliament that suggests a similar cap on rents in line with the consumer price index.
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2022/aug/11/rent-increase…
# TUNSW in the media Australia, Rent, State Government.Northern NSW flood report probing government response to be released today
ABC (No paywall)A report from a parliamentary inquiry into floods that hit Northern NSW earlier this year is due to be made public today. Over the past few months, an upper house committee chaired by Labor MLC Walt Secord took evidence at a series of public hearings in the Northern Rivers and Sydney. Members looked into the response of various government agencies including Resilience NSW and the State Emergency Service (SES). The report will include recommendations on how emergency response strategies can be improved.
But it will not have detail about proposed buyback or land-swap schemes. It is understood this will be outlined in a separate much-anticipated report, which the state government is yet to publicly release.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-09/northern-nsw-flood-respon…
# NSW, Housing market, State Government.