Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to give a big shout-out to the Hobart City Council. This week they voted to double the rates for owners of short-stay accommodation. Courage—good on you. Hobart has lost nearly 10 per cent of rentals to short-stay accommodation. Of course, Airbnb are out there clutching their pearls and warning that will impact on tourism. What a load of rubbish! Tassie's tourism rates were already going up way before Airbnb took over by stealth. We know Tasmania is the eighth great wonder of the world. Everybody wants to come to the island of Tasmania.

Don't get me wrong; some people Airbnb a room in their house—or just do it when they're on holidays—and I have no problem with that. I have a mate who Airbnbs her house, and she stays in the granny flat. It gives her some extra income, and she's not taking a house off the rental market. But this thing of buying a house just so you can make lots of cash on the weekend, instead of renting it out to a family in need, is beyond shameful and it's full of greed. There are politicians in Tasmania that have Airbnbs, and I would ask them to examine their own conscience. Do you really need to Airbnb when you are on such a big government wage and Tasmanian families are living in tents and cars?

Short-stay doesn't only take rentals off the market, like for fly-in fly-out workers; it also hurts the communities. Another story I was told by a woman in Hobart was that seven houses in her street are now Airbnbs. That means she no longer knows her neighbours, and that close-knit community she's lived in all her life feels empty to her now. Short-stay accommodation isn't the whole problem, but it is certainly adding to the problem that we're having in Tasmania and around the rest of the country. Well done to you, Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds and the Hobart City Council. Let's only hope that the other councils—27 or 28 of the ridiculous ones sitting out there—have taken note and have got the courage to do the same as Anna Reynolds and the Hobart City Council have done.