Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I'm chairing the Senate's inquiry into the worsening rental crisis. As of today, we have received 10,734 submissions using the simplified submission forms to that inquiry. That tells you everything you need to know about how severe the rental crisis is and how people are concerned about it—over 10,000 submissions in just a couple of weeks. We also know, from opinion polling today, how people think the federal government are going with affordable housing. Do you know that two-thirds of the people surveyed think that the government's performance on affordable housing is below average or poor? Only seven per cent think it's excellent or above average. We are in a rental crisis. People are suffering. People are homeless. People are living in tents. People are living in cars. People are living with their babies in tents and cars. We know what needs to be done. We need to have a significant increase in the amount of housing stock, actually spend the billions of dollars a year—at least $2½ billion every year—to increase our stock of affordable houses, public and social housing, and we need to make unlimited rent increases illegal. We need caps on rents. We need freezes on rents so that people can afford to stay in the homes that they are living in, not be turfed out in the face of the biggest rental increases that we have seen in 35 years. It can be done. The Prime Minister got action on energy caps. The Prime Minister can bring the states and territories together and act to put rental caps in place. Come on, Anthony Albanese, listen to the people, listen to the community who are concerned about rents and act.