Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to speak once again in this place about the continuing and, I believe, growing crisis in housing affordability in many parts of Australia. I will focus my remarks particularly on my own state of Queensland, but it is certainly a serious problem in many other parts of Australia as well. I have been meeting with a lot of people who are active in housing issues—for example, people who work out in the community in a range of different ways as housing providers in the housing market, those who work with those in emergency shelters and others that have to deal with the consequences of the lack of available stable or affordable housing.

A few points need to be emphasised when we debate housing affordability. I hope we debate it frequently and often but also rationally and comprehensively from now right through until election day. Firstly, there is a lot of variation from one region to another as to the nature of the housing markets and the way housing availability, affordability and adequacy manifest themselves. But, despite those differences, there is a lot of similarity. A key bit of similarity is the significant growing problem with regard to affordability—the ability of people to access housing that will not cost them a massive proportion of their total household income. Secondly, it is important that housing is accessible in a place that is suitable in terms of access to services such as transport, employment, health and education. Thirdly, it is important that that accommodation is secure.

I have been on record for many years in this place and in the wider community calling for a national affordable housing strategy. I think that it has been one of the major failings of the Howard coalition government over a long period of time to simply refuse to take responsibility in any way for an overarching affordable housing policy. Breaking down housing issues into discrete, disconnected policy areas like interest rates, rent assistance, funding through the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement for public housing or the first home buyers grant is not a housing strategy. They are a range of disconnected, individual policy initiatives and measures that do not necessarily knit together terribly well and have lots of gaps in between them. Certainly there is clear responsibility at state level and, to a lesser extent, at local government level in terms of issues like land release, local planning laws, costs with regard to stamp duty and the like. I am not in any way dismissing or ignoring the responsibility of state and, to some extent, local governments with regard to those costs, but the simple fact is: we have a national problem, a national crisis, with housing affordability. One person I met amongst a group of people in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, last week quite accurately described it as a ‘catastrophe’ rather than just a crisis, and that is what we are really moving towards. Huge numbers of Queenslanders and other Australians are now being massively hurt by skyrocketing housing costs, whether a high purchase price for people trying to buy their own home or high and increasing rents.

One area where it is still definitely a responsibility of state governments is residential tenancy law. There was a Senate committee inquiry many years ago, I would suggest probably last century—although I have not checked that; it certainly feels a long time ago—that examined housing issues. It looked at the aspects of tenancy law and tenancy issues. Recommendations were made by that committee about moving towards a more consistent national standard. It did not suggest that we should have a national takeover, as it is quite fashionable to suggest these days, and have a single set of laws that apply everywhere. There are arguments for variations in different regions but it is important to have some baseline standards that apply across the board.

I argue that this is more important than ever, given the growing proportion of Australians who have their homes provided through the private rental market and the fact that the cost of private rental is increasing significantly. The 2006 census showed that the proportion of Australians renting their homes was over 27 per cent—more than one in four Australians have their homes provided through the rental market. A demographer has estimated that within a decade 50 per cent of people on the Gold Coast, just south of Brisbane, will be renting. There is nothing wrong with renting. Many people rent, and more and more people are renting for prolonged periods of time. Some of them do it through choice; some of them have no choice because they are incapable, for financial reasons, of accessing homeownership. The simple fact is that more and more people are renting, and one of the big problems is the impact of the housing affordability crisis on people in the private rental market.

I draw the Senate’s attention to the story in the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin—today, I think—which mentioned a pensioner renter, Jo Tynan, who has had three rent rises in the past year. The simple fact is that, under the Residential Tenancies Act in Queensland, people’s rent can go up at the end of each lease, and leases can be for quite short periods of time. There is no limit on the amount that a rent can increase. I am not suggesting that we implement a system of rigid rental controls but I believe that having some degree of limits on the frequency of rent increases and the total amount of the rent increases is something that should be considered. The Queensland state government is currently reviewing the Residential Tenancies Act, and I think this is a key area that needs greater focus, particularly because more and more people are living in private rental accommodation and because they are having to pay rapidly rising rents.

We need to have some limits on the number of times rents can be put up for private accommodation. We need to consider having controls on extortionate rent increases and controls against people being evicted for no reason. Currently, if people are on a periodic tenancy—that is, they do not have a fixed term lease—they can be evicted for no reason at all with a certain number of weeks notice. I think it is four weeks notice under Queensland law at the moment, but I might be wrong about that. There does not need to be any reason given. That leaves people in an extremely vulnerable position. It makes it harder for them to enforce their own rights in relation to the repair of the property or other sorts of things. A very tight private rental market in many parts of Queensland leaves people doubly vulnerable. Having to find a new home in a very tight rental market in the space of three or four weeks is something that I imagine most of us would not want to have to do. To suddenly have to pull up roots and move, find new accommodation and do all the sorts of things that need to be done—including shifting everything—in the space of four weeks would be hard enough for any of us let alone for those in financially stressed situations.

We see reports of property price hikes in the double digits each year. When looking at the Gladstone paper today I saw that even in the last quarter there have been 16.8 per cent, 12.7 per cent and even 44 per cent rises in different parts of Gladstone and surrounding areas. These are huge increases. They are continuing time after time. It might be great if you are a property investor from down south, overseas or within Queensland, but it is not good if you are trying to afford somewhere to live. This crisis has continued too long. It is rampant throughout most parts of Queensland—including many parts of regional Queensland—and the rest of Australia, and it is essential that all political parties focus on ensuring that a comprehensive national affordable housing strategy is developed and implemented as a matter of urgency.