NSW’s Housing Minister reckons Sydneysiders can get a two-bedroom apartment ‘for a couple of hundred dollars’ a week

If you ever needed proof our blessed politicians are out of touch, cast your eyes to this unbelievable interview with the NSW Housing Minister.

COMMENT

Oh, man.

If you ever needed proof our beloved politicians are out of touch, cast your eyes on this unbelievable interview with the NSW Housing Minister on the topic of rentals in Sydney.

For a person whose job you’d think would involve understanding the rapidly devolving hellscape that is housing in Australia’s most populous state, it’s astonishing to see.

In an interview with the ABC, the Honourable Rose Jackson casually dropped that she thought Sydneysiders could get a two-bedroom rental for the price of four bags of groceries.

“What do you reckon is a reasonable price to pay in rent for a two-bedroom flat in Sydney?” presenter Hamish MacDonald asked the Minister.

“Sydney’s a big city, you know, I mean, a couple of hundred bucks right?” she replied.

Oof.

When MacDonald questioned where such a property might be found, Ms Jackson implored that “there are places in Sydney you can”, sounding exactly like a boomer relative who has never once scanned the rental tab on Realestate.com.au.

“Not all flats are the same,” she continued.

“This is the thing about the housing market, there’s a lot of variety, like a luxe two-bed penthouse in the eastern suburbs is pretty different to a neat and tidy, two-bedroom flat next to a train station in Western Sydney. They’re both good homes.”

Ms Jackson is clearly a very busy person and might not have the time to do a 15-second online search. So we did it for her.

Putting her parameters into Realestate.com.au came back with 38 results — all of them were parking spaces.

When you bump it up to $400 (double her estimate), you get a handful of old apartments well over an hour out of the CBD.

A quick search found zero properties within Ms Jackson's parameters. A total of 38 parking spaces under $200 were all that came up on realestate.com.au

Increase the search to $400 and you get a handful of options anywhere near the CBD. Keep in mind most in the east are single rooms for rent and not an entire property.

You might be able to wrangle $350, but you’ll likely have to get used to mould, precarious ceiling cracks and a bathroom older than the nation it’s in.

Speak to any young person in Sydney who wasn’t gifted a deposit from mum and dad, and they’ll tell you the same thing. Buying is completely off the table because everyone’s paying the cash they would normally be saving to service rent increases.

Given the fact the growth house of prices is triple compared to wage growth over the past 40 years, it’s hard for today’s generation to feel any kind of connection to homeowners lucky enough to be born in the right decade.

That generational anger can be seen all over social media. Passersbys can often be heard complaining in the street.

The issue is so omnipresent that I swear I heard a dog barking about negative gearing next door.

While the ridiculous cost of renting is at the centre of so many Sydney residents’ struggles, it’s disappointing that the person tasked with working towards a solution seems to have such a loose grasp on the issue.

But with a $333,000 taxpayer-funded salary, perhaps it makes sense that the Minister doesn’t have a great personal need to be across the price of a basic rental.

NSW’s Minister for Housing, Homelessness, Mental Health and Youth doesn’t have a clue how much a rental costs.

Ms Jackson should just get back to posting ‘brat’ memes about ‘equality’ on X and let the renters get on the tools to fix this mess.

Some might say her out-of-touch comment is grounds for immediate resignation and apology. Not me of course.

This is coming from somebody who had a three-bedroom sharehouse go from $800 to $1200 per week overnight in 2022. Young people from the regions moving to the city for university always knew it was going to be expensive, but the rental explosion following the reopening of borders post-Covid has put a bitter taste in the mouth of an entire generation.

A generation, mind you, that has grown up being told to respect public offices that “work in our best interests”.

Ms Jackson seems to claim some affinity with the younger generation, posting “brat” memes about “equality” on X. But her answer to this simple question shows that when it comes to what matters to young Aussies, she just doesn’t get it.