Labor leaders aiming for national plan to boost renters’ rights

Australians will be promised a national plan to strengthen renters’ rights under a deal to be struck by state and federal Labor leaders amid a growing dispute with the Greens over the housing crisis.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is seeking the deal at a national cabinet meeting in Brisbane next week while also negotiating new commitments on planning laws to add 1 million homes across the country.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is seeking the deal at a national cabinet meeting in Brisbane next week.Credit: Dan Peled

But the prime minister will leave it to states and territories to set the rules that influence housing supply and prices after dismissing calls from the Greens for sweeping federal intervention in the rental market.

Albanese is holding out against the Greens’ demands to increase the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, which is stalled in the Senate, and will instead use the national cabinet meeting to pursue other ways to tackle housing shortages and soaring costs.

“We will not be nationalising private housing in this country,” Albanese told parliament on Tuesday after being asked by the Greens to get the states to impose rental caps nationwide.

“We will not be doing things that make it more difficult rather than less difficult.”

With Labor in power in every state except Tasmania, the federal government is aiming to use the national cabinet talks to prove it can tackle housing costs even if the Greens continue to block the housing fund in Canberra.

The federal and state governments are aiming for a deal that sets uniform principles to protect renters with the expectation it would be up to each state and territory to decide the rules under their own laws.

Another goal is to commit to planning laws that would make it easier to build 1 million homes over the five years from 2024 under a national housing accord unveiled by Treasurer Jim Chalmers last October.

Albanese offered a sweetener on planning reform in June by transferring $2 billion from Canberra to the states and territories in what he called a Social Housing Accelerator that gave them more money to build community housing.

The surprise federal spending came with an understanding that states and territories would respond at national cabinet with updates on measures to increase housing supply, raising expectations for the meeting in Brisbane next week.

NSW Premier Chris Minns has vowed to ban “no-grounds evictions” in a move that would bring the state into line with laws in Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and the ACT that require landlords to show reasonable grounds for removing tenants.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has signalled further moves to protect renters after making 130 changes to the Residential Tenancies Act in recent years. There is speculation that one option would be to limit landlords to one rent increase every two years.

A spokesman for Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the state government was happy to discuss ways to increase supply and make housing more affordable.

Greens leader Adam Bandt and his colleagues have refused to pass the $10 billion housing bill on the grounds that it would add only 30,000 homes when far more would be needed, while the Coalition argues the fund should be blocked because it would take on too much debt.

Liberal and Nationals MPs confirmed their opposition to the bill at their party room meeting on Tuesday, setting up a vote to reject it a second time in the Senate and turn the issue into a potential trigger for a double-dissolution election.

Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather will warn on Wednesday that renters are paying $3 billion more each year as a result of government decisions to oppose a national rent freeze at a time of rising inflation.

The $3 billion claim is based on an analysis the Greens MP received from the Parliamentary Library about the savings from a rent freeze in July 2022 that would have prevented the rent increases seen over the financial year.

“With rents predicted by the Reserve Bank of Australia to rise another 10 per cent over the next 12 months, the analysis also shows that renters will be in for another $4.9 billion in increases over the next year,” the Greens said.

While the national cabinet deal is yet to be finalised, federal and state leaders expect an outcome that addresses criticism from the Greens and others on housing policy.

“Unlike the Greens, we will always back more social and affordable housing,” a Victorian government spokesperson said.

Andrews and his colleagues have pointed to the $5.3 billion Big Housing Build to assure voters they are increasing supply, while also promising $1 billion for a Regional Housing Fund.

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