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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See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
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Archive
Flawed Foundations
Peter Mares Inside Story (No paywall)"The federal government needs more than conventional wisdom to craft a national housing strategy"
We sit on plastic chairs under strips of fluorescent lighting. Spread across the tables are large sheets of butcher’s paper, sticky notes and a paper cup full of pens. Twenty-one of the thirty people who registered to attend are here in East Geelong to talk about housing.
Greens vow to ‘keep fighting’ on housing as party takes aim at Labor’s help-to-buy scheme
Paul Karp The Guardian (No paywall)Labor’s “help to buy” shared equity scheme will be the next housing bill in the Greens’ sights in the minor party’s push for a cap or freeze on rent increases.
The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, has vowed to “keep fighting” despite the minor party agreeing to pass Labor’s $10bn housing Australia future fund (Haff) bill in return for a further $1bn for public and community housing.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/sep/13/greens-ho…
# Hot topic, TUNSW in the media Australia, Campaigns and law reform.Housing Australia Future Fund set to pass parliament after deal with Greens
Georgia Roberts ABC (No paywall)The federal government's key housing policy is set to pass parliament after a deal brokered with the Greens.
Under the proposal, the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) includes 30,000 new and affordable social homes to be built in its first five years.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-11/housing-australia-future-…
# Hot topic Australia, Public and community housing.The Case for Rent Controls
Kate Shaw The Saturday Paper (No paywall)The global consensus opposing rent controls is quite remarkable, and to explain it, Columbia University-based gentrification theorist Tom Slater uses the concept of agnotology – the study of the intentional production of ignorance. Agnotology questions why humans do not know, treating some kinds of ignorance as not just the absence of knowledge but an ideological objective – think of the debates last century on the hazards of smoking that relied on research funded by the tobacco industry, or the disinformation circulating around action on climate change.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/comment/topic/2023/09/09/the…
# Must read, Hot topic Australia, Rent.The politics of Rising Rents—Rent control verses the free market
Annabelle Quince ABC (No paywall)Rents in Australia have risen sharply during the past three years, and it’s become a political issue. The Greens are demanding the introduction of rent controls, but that idea has been rejected by most federal and state leaders. What do we mean when we talk about rent controls, how effective are they at controlling rising rents and what impact do they have on the rental market
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/rearvision/rear-vision/10…
# Hot topic, Audio Australia, Rent.Coffs Harbour's Argyll Estate rezoning proposal scrapped by NSW government over social housing numbers
Nick Parmeter and Charles Rushforth ABC (No paywall)The New South Wales Housing Minister has moved to scrap plans that could have created nearly 500 new homes in Coffs Harbour on the state's mid-north coast, saying the proposal did not deliver enough social housing.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-07/argyll-estate-rezoning-pr…
# NSW, Public and community housing.Knock down a few, build one: in NSW that counts as a gain for councils’ housing targets
Tamsin Rose and Elias Visontay The Guardian (No paywall)Luxury homes built on the site of former unit blocks in Sydney are counting towards council targets for new dwellings, even where they have reduced the available housing stock by displacing multiple properties.
A swathe of interwar apartment buildings in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and inner city face the wrecking ball, to be replaced with modern residences, as Guardian Australia revealed on Wednesday.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/sep/08/potts-poi…
# NSW, Planning and development.Hamish's landlord withheld his bond over a single cockroach. He challenged them — and won
Rosemary Bolger ABC (No paywall)Sun-damaged curtains, a single cockroach, bugs in light fittings, dust on the washing line.
These are among the reasons given by landlords making a claim on their outgoing tenants' bonds.
When his landlord made a claim for $650 for cleaning and pest control out of their $2,200 bond, Sydney renter Hamish Croser took them to the tribunal — and won.
https://www.abc.net.au/everyday/bond-disputes-tenants-renters-la…
# TUNSW in the media NSW, Bond.