Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Housing is an essential service and a human right. Everyone has a right to safe, accessible and affordable housing. Yet, in the midst of Australia's cost of living crisis, millions of Australians are struggling to make ends meet, while also paying increasingly high rental prices. We have seen the biggest annual rent increases in 14 years. The cost of rent is increasing seven times faster than wages. That's insane. It's crushing people. This is a housing crisis, and we know that the implementation of a nationwide rent freeze is essential. It would press pause on rent increases and allow wages time to catch up and would stop the profiteering by landlords from becoming even worse.

During this debate we've heard about strategies for increasing the number of houses in this country, helping people into home ownership, but that is not going to help the family who can't afford their rent this week, and there are hundreds and hundreds of people across our country in that situation. This is a national emergency. That we have parents, carers, families and children sleeping in cars, sleeping in tents, at risk of being evicted from their housing because their rent has been put up and they can't afford it, is something that every single person in this place should want to move heaven and earth to fix today. That's why we need to freeze rents, and it's why we need to cap increases to two per cent each year thereafter.

We are currently undergoing one of the most significant transfers of wealth from non-property owners to property owners. It is deepening economic inequality in this country. Our current willingness to accept skyrocketing rental costs is creating a growing generational wealth divide as young people are forced to rent for longer, at higher prices and at lower wages. Tenants are being saddled with the cost of increasing interest rates through these rent increases. A rent freeze is one of the most important things we could do to alleviate the cost of living pressures of Australians. Let's get it done.