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
Struggling renters are all but invisible this election
Peter Mares Crikey (No paywall)Looking at the major parties’ housing announcements, you could conclude that renters don’t vote. Instead, both sides are pitching hard to aspiring first-home buyers, telling them that a vote for Labor or the Coalition will pull the great Australian dream back within reach so they can start paying off their own mortgage instead of someone else’s. Peter Dutton’s promise to allow interest on mortgage payments to be deducted from income tax for the first five years of a mortgage, and Albanese’s offer to facilitate a mortgage on a 5% deposit, may be alluring. But I suspect voters can see the pitfalls.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2025/04/16/2025-federal-election-housi…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.‘Brutal rental market’ sees spike in number of Victorian tenants evicted because they can’t make payments
Stephanie Convery The Guardian (No paywall)The number of Victorian renters receiving eviction notices because they have not paid the rent is five times higher than in 2021, a report has found, underscoring tenants’ increasing struggles to keep up with the cost of living. The report from the state’s commissioner for residential tenancies, released on Tuesday, also found that 58% of rental households had received a rent increase in the 12 months to September 2023, up from 29.8% in the previous 12 months. The findings led Tenants Victoria to call for a “rental fairness formula” to curtail excessive rises in rents, and for more support for renters facing “brutal rental market conditions”.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/apr/30/victoria-…
# Hot topic, Research alert Australia, .No relief: the Australian battleground electorates where rental pain is worst
Luca Ittimani and Nick Evershed The Guardian (No paywall)Renters in battleground electorates in western Sydney, outer Melbourne and Perth are among those feeling the most financial pressure, new analysis shows, as experts condemn the scarce help offered to renters in Australia’s election campaign. Key seats including Western Australia’s Bullwinkel and Werriwa in New South Wales are home to suburbs with the worst rent affordability and biggest price hikes, data compiled by Suburbtrends for Guardian Australia has revealed.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/apr/30/sydney-me…
# Must read Australia, .How the Greens rebranded from environmental activists to the 'party of renters'
Isobel Roe ABC (No paywall)In Adam Bandt's maiden speech to parliament in 2010, neither housing nor renters rated a mention. The Greens leader, then-newly minted Member for Melbourne, focused predictably on the threat of inaction on climate change, calling on the parliament to "urgently master our relationship with the natural world." Fast forward 15 years to last week, where Mr Bandt fronted cameras in Brisbane wearing a shirt emblazoned with the words: "FIGHTING FOR RENTERS". When asked by the ABC to list his top priorities ahead of last night's launch, the Greens leader placed the rental crisis at number one, followed by adding dental to Medicare, then universal childcare, ending native logging, and lastly, action on climate change.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-01/greens-party-rebrands-ahe…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.As Australia votes, a housing affordability crisis is top of voters’ minds
Wing Kuang Al Jazeera (No paywall)When Mary votes in Australia’s national elections on Saturday, the country’s chronic shortage of affordable housing will be at the top of her mind. For two years, the 59-year-old former postal worker has been staying in short-term accommodations in regional New South Wales along with her daughter and her dog. Mary receives income from fortnightly unemployment assistance of 836.50 Australian dollars ($540.54) and seasonal hospitality and retail jobs, but she cannot afford the median rent on a house or apartment of 560 dollars (US$360) a week. Mary, who asked to be referred to by her first name, tried applying for social housing but was told the waiting list was “very, very long”.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/1/as-australia-votes-a-hou…
# Must read NSW, Public and community housing, Rent.Renting in Victoria: 2024 Snapshot
Commissioner for Residential Tenancies Victoria (No paywall)This Snapshot aims to improve general knowledge about renting in Victoria and to correct some of the misconceptions that exist about the scale and nature of renting. This edition is the fourth annual publication. The Snapshot provides summary data, utilising available data sets from: the Australian Census; Residential Tenancies Bond Authority; Consumer Affairs Victoria; Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal welfare agencies, and community legal services including Tenants Victoria.
https://www.rentingcommissioner.vic.gov.au/the-rental-sector/res…
# Hot topic, Research alert Australia, .Australia’s Housing Crisis Needs More Than a Renovation
Andreea Papuc Bloomberg (Paywall)Perhaps no other movie depicts the Australian Dream of owning a home more than the 1997 classic comedy The Castle, in which the Kerrigan family takes on developers to save their house. Fast-forward 28 years and nobody is laughing. For the first time, Millennial and Gen Z voters will outnumber those aged over 60 at polling stations on Saturday. Housing is a — if not the — top concern in this federal election. Most are resigned to never being able to get into one of the world’s most unaffordable markets. Policies put forward by the two major parties are unlikely to make things better.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-04-29/australia-…
# Australia, .‘My biggest mistake’: One decision lands this renter in difficult situation
Orana Durney-Benson Domain (No paywall)A Victorian renter who paid 12 months of rent in advance is now in a difficult situation after their landlord had a change of heart. “Before signing a lease we asked if the landlord has any intentions selling the property, they confirmed they did not,” the renter wrote in an anonymous Facebook post. The tenant claims four months into the lease, the landlord told them they wished to sell the property. “We explained respectfully that we couldn’t remain as tenants during the sales process,” the renter wrote.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/my-biggest-mistake-one-decision-l…
# Hot topic Australia, Starting a tenancy, You want to leave.