Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Tasmania is gripped by a housing availability and affordability crisis. Hobart is the second most unaffordable Australian city in which to rent. It has gone up by 15 per cent in 12 months. Relative to wages, it costs more to rent in Hobart than it does in Melbourne or Brisbane, and that's if you can find somewhere to rent. We've had lines of people desperate to secure a rental, offering over and above the odds. It's not just in the capital city. Things are tight in the regions too. In recent weeks, I've been dealing with a constituent in Westbury who faces being homeless in a week.

Mel lives in a Meander Valley town, in Westbury, with her elderly mother and their ponies. They've rented their home for 4½ years. They've always paid the rent on time and they've never had an issue. But a couple of months ago, Mel mentioned to the council that their sewerage wasn't working properly. The council inspected and said the septic system was noncompliant and ordered the landlord to fix it. Mel and her mother were then given a notice to vacate on the basis that major works had to be done. Mel said the septic works shouldn't need her to leave her home, and that she and her mother were prepared to put up with the inconvenience. But the landlord, through the property manager, insisted that he wanted them out. Mel has learned that he intends to relet the property and that she need not bother applying. Mel believes the landlord is annoyed at having to pay for a new septic system and that he blames her for the cost. Mel, her elderly mother and their ponies have to be off the property by next Friday. They have sought help from the courts, but the courts have sided with the landlord, who is within his legal rights.

Mel and her elderly mother have been searching desperately for somewhere to rent in Northern Tasmania but have had no luck. They are both pensioners and currently pay $320 a week in rent, in a regional town. They have found a new place nearby, where rent is $360 a week, which they are adamant they will be able to manage, as they live relatively frugally. They just need assistance with the bond. Anglicare had initially said yes, but now they believe the rent is too high for them and that it puts them well over the line of rental stress—and they're probably right. They will be in rental stress. But what is the alternative? Shooting the ponies? Living under a bridge? This couple, this elderly mother and daughter, will have nowhere to live in a week, unless they are given assistance. Mel can manage the two-weeks rent in advance, and one week's bond, but without Anglicare helping with the three-weeks bond, which she gets back at the end of the lease, she is afraid she will lose this new house.

Anglicare's management is having an emergency meeting, and I can only hope, with fingers crossed, that it approves the bond payment. I know that they're doing the right thing and that they've got policies to put in place to keep people out of rental stress, but I implore Anglicare to help this couple, who have been trying so hard to find a new place. I have tried in vain to speak to the landlord. When you have stable, long-term tenants who look after a place and cause no trouble, I think it's pretty rank to turf them out, especially when one of them is elderly, if it's your intention to simply let the place out to someone else. But I do accept it's his legal right.

This one case underscores the depth of the housing availability and affordability crisis sweeping Tasmania, and the federal government has not helped. It has abolished affordability assistance schemes, slashed funding for homelessness and failed to appoint a minister with specific responsibility for housing. The state government in Tasmania is, frankly, floundering. A 20-week wait for public housing has blown out to 72 weeks, after just four years of Liberals in power. Waitlists have grown from 2,400 to 3,500—and that's just for public housing. More than 150,000 Tasmanians are in housing stress, with their rent or mortgage costing more than 30 per cent of their income. It has become the new normal.

We need to build more houses. We need to focus more on the welfare and health of buyers and renters, and less on investors. Labor has a suite of measures that we plan to introduce if elected to government, and I look forward to seeing them enacted, so we that can get on top this terrible crisis.

In the few seconds left, I'd just like to add my two cents to the parliament's united response to the disgraceful speech by Senator Anning. That speech may well turn out to be one of the great own goals of politics: in seeking to divide Australians, Senator Anning has forged us closer together. Thank you.

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