Greens push for freeze on rent increases

The Greens are calling on the Albanese government to introduce a two-year freeze on rent increases and implement national tenancy standards.

Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The Greens are calling on the Albanese government to introduce a two-year freeze on rent increases and implement national tenancy standards.

Ahead of the national jobs and skills summit, the Greens have proposed a suite of demands to alleviate rental stress and ensure homes are kept in good condition.

The party will push national cabinet to agree to new laws to ensure renters can only be evicted on fair grounds and to allow tenants to make minor improvements to the home. They will also urge the government to implement ongoing caps on rent increases of two per cent over two years following the initial freeze.

Renters are facing annual increases of nearly 18 per cent in capital cities and more than 13 per cent nationwide, according to data from SQM Research.

Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather said the commonwealth could take national leadership on the issue, and ensure states and territories complied by attaching conditions to funding. He said the government had “abdicated” its responsibilities to renters. “They go to national cabinet and make a national proposal then collectively agree to a common set of laws,” he said.

“Then the federal government could attach responsibilities to the billions of dollars it provides to the states through the national home and homelessness agreement. The federal government attaches conditions for health and education but they’ve abdicated their responsibilities despite the fact that renters are 30 per cent of the country.” Mr Chandler-Mather said new standards would boost the economy and help alleviate jobs shortages, with many regional towns unable to attract workers because of soaring rents.

A report titled Everybody’s Home released this week by Impact Economics found a lack of rental properties was one of the driving factors behind job vacancies, creating a $2.59bn economic drag on local economies each year. “We’re in the middle of the worst rental affordability crisis in history with millions of houses in rental stress,” Mr Chandler-Mather said. “We know around the world rent freezes and rent control go a long way to protecting households, and over the last few years, rents have increased seven times faster than wages.”

Anthony Albanese campaigned heavily on Labor’s platform of affordable housing ahead of the federal election, promising to build 30,000 new homes through its Housing Australia Future Fund.

During his campaign, the Prime Minister frequently referred to his experience growing up in social housing in Sydney, arguing every Australian deserved to have a “roof over” their head.

Mr Chandler-Mather said Labor’s social housing promise was “deeply inadequate” amid Parliamentary Budget Office modelling that showed 30,000 houses would address only three per cent of the demand.