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
NSW government floats new tax on holiday homes, short-term rentals to address housing crisis
Jessica Kidd ABC (No paywall)Short-stay rental properties in New South Wales could be hit with a new tax under a raft of measures being floated to ease the state's housing crisis. The NSW government released a discussion paper today to examine how short-stay rentals and holiday homes could be converted to long-term rental accommodation. Housing and Homelessness Minister Rose Jackson said the government would not "shy away" from the tough decisions needed to address housing affordability. "We know the housing crisis is real and we don't want any part of the housing market to be unexamined – everything's under the microscope," she said. Up to 35,000 homes across NSW are used as "non-hosted" short-term rental accommodation throughout the year, according to the discussion paper.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-15/nsw-short-term-holiday-ac…
# Hot topic, Legal significance NSW, .Families living in 'dirty, violent' caravan parks on NSW Central Coast as housing crisis worsens
Keira Proust ABC (No paywall)Services supporting people in need of housing say they are seeing more families being forced into "unsafe and filthy" caravan parks on the New South Wales Central Coast as affordable options dry up. The latest analysis from data firm CoreLogic showed rental prices across Australia had reached a record high, forcing more people out of the capital cities and into regional areas. Rachael Glasson from the Central Coast's biggest homelessness service, Coast Shelter, said more of their clients had been forced to move into run-down tourist parks and cabin-style accommodation over the past six months with many still unaffordable. "We recently had a client who was paying $550 a week for a studio room," she said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-23/families-struggle-filthy-…
# Must read NSW, Land lease communities, Rent.Vested interest groups putting themselves before Australia is a time-honoured tragedy
Gareth Hutchens ABC (No paywall)In 1983, Gerard Henderson wrote a famous article. It was titled "The Industrial Relations Club," and it described the vested interests that had grown like weeds around Australia's wage-setting institutions and been responsible for some of the economic malaise of the 1970s and early 1980s. Henderson said the "IR Club," whose members included the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, the ACTU, employer groups, and some government departments, had far too much economic influence. He said its members often disregarded economic realities and secured excessive wage increases for workers that worsened inflation and drove unemployment higher, while leaving governments to suffer the political consequences at the ballot box. "A key sector of the Australian economy is virtually controlled by club members," he wrote.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-26/vested-interests-self-int…
# Hot topic NSW, .Sydney has a date with density. I asked a gold medal architect how we get it right
Peter FitzSimons The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)Philip Thalis is one of the nation’s leading architects and urban designers, with comprehensive knowledge of Sydney’s architectural history. I spoke with him on Thursday. Fitz: Congratulations on your honour, Philip, essentially a lifetime achievement award in your chosen profession. When did you conceive the passion to be an architect? PT: I grew up in a red-brick, three storey, walk-up block of flats in Maroubra, three boys in 100 square metres, surrounded by similar flats and, as a 10-year-old, I would walk around and think “We must be able to do something better than this”. And as we had Airfix blocks at home – a precursor to Lego – I used to make streets lined with buildings on the floor with my brother. Much later I graduated from Sydney Uni in Architecture by the mid-80s – focusing on public space, city-making and how architecture contributes to it with urban housing, rather than the more typical pathway of private houses – and went from there.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-has-a-date-with-densi…
# NSW, .Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's tenant says he was blindsided by eviction notice from nation's leader
Jake Evans ABC (No paywall)Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has defended his record as a landlord after a man renting from Mr Albanese says he was caught out by an eviction notice he says does not match the government's rhetoric on renting. Sydney man Jim Flanagan says he has lived in Mr Albanese's Dulwich Hill property for four years but received a termination letter last week saying the property could soon be sold. Speaking on ABC Radio Melbourne, Mr Flanagan accepted his landlord Mr Albanese had the right to do as he pleased, but questioned whether Mr Albanese had considered his position. He said he was not seeking to ambush the prime minister but had privately sought clarification after receiving the termination letter and not receiving a response. "As renters, ideally I guess we're just looking for a bit more of a considered and considerate approach when it comes to evictions, terminations, issuing notices to vacate," Mr Flanagan said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-16/albanese-tenant-blindisde…
# Hot topic NSW, Eviction, Rent.Tenant issues plea to landlord Anthony Albanese after receiving eviction notice
9 News (No paywall)VIDEO: A tenant living in one of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's investment properties has urged his landlord to reconsider after receiving an eviction notice.
# Hot topic, TUNSW in the media NSW, Eviction.‘Sims-like’ New South Wales rental pic taken down by Ray White
Grace Ellen Macpherson news.com.au (No paywall)Housing justice campaigner Jordan van den Berg, known by his social media moniker ‘purplepingers’, has outed Ray White for posting a digital bed recreation in one of its new listings. In recent weeks, Mr van den Berg has become well known for posting the addresses of vacant houses for people in need and calling out what he calls “s**t rentals” on his TikTok account. On Tuesday, purplepingers posted a picture of a Ray White listing on Erskine Street in Riverwood, New South Wales, which shows a digital recreation of a bed inside a real bedroom.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/renting/simslike-new…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent, Starting a tenancy.‘Freezing my tits off on Liverpool St’: The unfiltered history of Kings Cross
Helen Pitt The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Sex worker Julie Bates moved from Melbourne to Kings Cross not long after NSW became the first jurisdiction in the world to decriminalise prostitution in 1979. The suburb known as “Sin City” was then home to Sydney’s first strip club, the Pink Pussycat, drag cabaret at Les Girls and the Bourbon and Beefsteak, where revellers would party throughout the night. Beyond the neon glow though, police corruption and organised crime were at their peak in the 1980s. Heiress Juanita Nielsen had just disappeared, presumed murdered, and Bates’ friend and fellow sex worker Sallie-Anne Huckstepp was about to meet the same fate. Bates was arrested more times than she’d care to count because a quirk in the reformed laws still made brothels illegal.
https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/freezing-my-tits-o…
# History NSW, .