Airbnb should be banned within apartment blocks unless strata committees or owners corporations vote to allow the home-sharing service in the building, Liberal MP John Sidoti says.
The Member for Drummoyne’s intervention comes as Gladys Berejiklian’s cabinet is likely to consider – for the third time in recent weeks – laws applying to short-term tenancies in NSW.
The Fair Trading Minister Matt Kean and the Planning Minister Anthony Roberts were forced to cancel a press conference called last Tuesday after a backbench revolt to proposed changes that would have allowed Sydney residents to let their homes using Airbnb for 180 days a year.
The Member for Drummoyne, John Sidoti (centre) wants strata committees to have to opt in to allow Airbnb in buildingsCredit: Michele Mossop
The policy that triggered the revolt would not have allowed strata committees or owner corporations to prevent the use of Airbnb and other short-term holiday letting in their buildings.
Mr Sidoti said short-term letting should be "automatically ruled out" in strata buildings. But "if you want it you can do it, on the basis that 75 per cent of a strata committee votes in favour of Airbnb-style uses," Mr Sidoti said.
“I believe that government doesn’t know best,” said the parliamentary secretary. “Strata knows best ... It should be about empowering strata.”
It is understood that a new option being considered by Mr Kean – who is responsible for the Strata Schemes Management Act – would be to allow strata committees to opt out of allowing Airbnb. This option would differ from Mr Sidoti’s preference for allowing committees to opt in.
Airbnb’s head of public policy for Australia and New Zealand, Brent Thomas, said Mr Sidoti’s comments were "completely out-of-step with what most of the NSW community wants".
"A blanket ban on home sharing in strata communities would create a tale of two cities - those who can participate in the sharing economy and those who can’t," Mr Thomas said.
"There is a whole generation of Sydneysiders who can only afford to live in strata, and the idea that they shouldn’t have the same right as other people to respectfully share their homes is discriminatory and offensive."
The debate represents an increasingly tortuous process of settling on a scheme for regulating short-term letting. Over the past three years there has been a parliamentary inquiry, consultation over an options paper, and now an intra-party dispute.
The Herald reported last week that a submission from Mr Kean and Mr Roberts went to Cabinet on May 10 recommending a cap of 180-days be placed on Airbnb-style letting in Sydney, Wollongong and Newcastle, with no caps in regional areas.
At that meeting, Mr Kean was successful in convincing colleagues that no caps should apply. But after some Sydney Liberal backbenchers were made aware of the policy, Cabinet returned to the issue on May 17 and resolved in favour of the 180-day cap.
But when that policy was presented to the joint Coalition party room last Tuesday, enough MPs wanted to speak on the issue that Ms Berejiklian deferred the discussion. Embarrassingly, Mr Kean and Mr Roberts’ press conference to announce the reforms had already been called. MPs who have spoken against liberalising Airbnb uses include Mr Sidoti, Parramatta MP Geoff Lee, and Davidson MP Jonathan O'Dea.
Those in favour of Airbnb have pointed to research by the Tenants' Union showing it did not appear to have had a significant impact on tenants.