NSW Premier Chris Minns has warned that sweeping rental reforms are the only way to provide housing certainty to young people, who are fleeing Sydney and putting further pressure on small businesses that are struggling under the weight of the worsening worker shortage.
The Minns government has committed to ending so-called no grounds evictions on fixed and periodic leases, which will see landlords banned from kicking out tenants without “commonsense and reasonable reasons”.
New data on evictions, compiled from the government’s End of Tenancy Survey, shows that there are 320,000 tenancies that end each year in NSW and 73,000 of those, or 23 per cent, are “landlord led”. Of those 73,000, about 32,000 are no ground evictions, or 10 per cent of all tenancies that end.
In an exclusive interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, Minns said it would have been politically impossible for a government to overhaul how landlords deal with tenants a decade ago, but the housing crisis in NSW was now so dire that there was no other option.
Housing is the most pressing issue facing the NSW Labor government and Minns said while boosting supply remained a key part of the puzzle, the rental market was an “equity issue for young people” that cannot be ignored.
“I think if a government tried this on 10 years ago there would have been a big, big political backlash,” Minns said.
‘You can’t build a career or a family or join a community with so much uncertainty over your head.’
NSW Premier Chris Minns
“I think the reason the politics has changed is if you own a small business, anywhere in the state, you’re dying, you just cannot get access to young people for skilled or unskilled labour, construction sector, retail, hospitality, cafés, restaurants, nightclubs, you name it.”
Minns said the state cannot “craft a future” if NSW was not home to the “best and brightest”.
“You can’t build a career or a family or join a community with so much uncertainty over your head, and everyone, literally everyone you speak to, has been kicked out of two, three or four rental properties,” Minns said.
“Young people feel, and this is by any measure and by anyone you speak to, that they’re getting pushed out of the city that they grew up in and that the opportunities for them to have a roof over their head are next to non-existent.”
Queuing for a rental property. It’s a landlords’ market.Credit: Paul Rovere
Sydney is losing about 7000 people a year aged between 30 and 40 to the regions or interstate. Between 2016 and 2021, Sydney lost twice as many people in that age bracket as it gained (35,000 came to Sydney, but 70,000 left).
Under the rental reforms, homeowners will need a reason to end a tenancy for both periodic and fixed-term leases, such as under existing rules where the renter is at fault for damage to the property or non-payment of rent.
Other reasons include if the property is being sold or offered for sale with vacant possession or if the owner decides to move into the home.
Minns said the government had four planks in its housing policy: sweeping changes to planning laws including its transport oriented developments (which the Coalition is trying to kill off), the “largest ever” investment in public housing, the sale and development of surplus government land and rental changes.
NSW Premier Chris Minns says the housing crisis is his government’s biggest issue.Credit: Nikki Short
“Those four things together are the bedrock, and we’ll just keep coming back to them,” Minns said.
The opposition has accused Minns of pursuing a privatisation agenda through its policy of selling surplus government land for housing, but the premier said Labor had a mandate after taking the plan to the election.
A government land audit is underway, and it has identified the first of 44 sites for housing including North Eveleigh, Kellyville, Camden and Camperdown.
In the June budget, the government announced 30,000 well-located homes would be built by agencies and the private sector on sites identified through the land audit and other previously rezoned sites. It was part of a $5.1 billion commitment over the next four years to deliver 6200 additional public homes.
Despite Minns’ insistence that no grounds evictions are crucial, the policy faces major push-back from some investor groups, who told a parliamentary inquiry last month that landlords will invest elsewhere if the changes are forced upon them.
The inquiry, chaired by the Greens MP for Newtown Jenny Leong, heard from the Property Investors Council of Australia, which warned that no grounds evictions laws introduced in 2021 in Victoria “caught most property investors off guard” and “thousands” were leaving the market.
“The data reported in December quarter 2023 indicated a net loss of 11,789 rental properties in the calendar year, in the latest March quarter data that net loss of rental properties has now increased to 15,607,” the council said in a submission.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.