Greens to woo unhappy renters in Labor seats

The Greens are preparing to wage a lengthy campaign to win Labor seats in electorates with high shares of renters, including Tanya Plibersek’s safe seat of Sydney.

Greens leader Adam Band. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

The Greens are preparing to wage a long campaign to win Labor seats with high shares of renters, including Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s seat of Sydney.

Leader Adam Bandt says Labor’s housing policies will cost it “hundreds of thousands of votes”.

In extracts from a speech to be delivered at the party’s Victoria state conference on Sunday, Mr Bandt said targeting struggling households with promises of rent-control measures would help win seats from Labor at the next election.

“If Labor decides that the one-third of this country who rents don’t matter, they will be punished at the ballot box,” Mr Bandt said.

“If Labor doesn’t notice there are thousands of renters mobilising across the country, fighting for their collective interests, fighting to freeze and cap rent ­increases, then they’ll lose hundreds of thousands of votes, and seats, to the Greens.”

A third of Australia’s roughly 10 million households are renters, a third own their home outright, and a third have a mortgage.

Landlords have been raising rents at a sometimes double-digit pace, as the tightest rental market on record squeezes Australians who are left with little choice but to swallow the higher housing costs.

Mr Bandt identified targets such as the Victorian electorates Macnamara – where 40 per cent of voters are renters – and Higgins, Wills, and Cooper.

“And around the country, the seat with the highest number of renters is Sydney – 52 per cent renters – and where the sitting member Tanya Plibersek is also busily approving new coal and gas projects as Environment Minister,” Mr Bandt said.

“In Sydney more than half the electorate are renters, and there’s almost twice as many renters as owners.”

Greens leader Adam Bandt (left) with housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

The Greens, however, have a difficult task toppling Ms Plibersek, who at the 2022 election won with more than 50 per cent of the primary vote, or more than twice the nearest challenger, Greens candidate Chetan Sahai.

The inner-city Melbourne seat of Macnamara looks more vulnerable. Labor MP Josh Burns claimed victory last year with just shy of 32 per cent of the primary vote, against the 29.7 per cent who voted for Greens candidate Steph Hodgins-May.

Emboldened after strongarming the Albanese government into an additional $1bn commitment for public and community housing in return for passing Labor’s housing legislation, Mr Bandt said “this week we have proved that pressure works”.

“The last few months have helped get renters closer to winning, but there’s more to do,” he said.

“Now we’re preparing to campaign in the seats with the highest numbers of renters.”