Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Right now, Perth is facing its biggest housing crisis ever, and it's hitting renters especially hard. We in the Greens have knocked on thousands of doors across Perth in the last few months and heard so many stories from people about how they are having trouble finding a new rental. There are home openings with hundreds of people, with bidding in rental exchanges and auctions, and people are now expected to bid as part of that process as a standard course, rather than an exception—and that is even if you can find a place you can afford at all. This is becoming more and more unlikely as places and prices to live increase drastically without any sort of control, forcing people into homelessness and financially ruinous situations. There are people who can't find a place to live and are being forced to compete with each other in bidding wars for a place to rent somewhere that is safe and clean.

In the suburb of East Perth, the median weekly rental price is nearly $800, and that has increased by nearly $200 a week in the last year alone. In Joondanna, prices have increased by 15 per cent over the same price period. In Dianella, prices have increased by nearly 17 per cent. In Balga and Stirling, rents have increased by $120 a week to nearly $700—that's $700 a week! This is completely unsustainable for people to endure. This is breaking human lives. What this means in reality, on its most human level, is that people in Perth are struggling to keep up with the cost of living and putting a roof over their heads. It is putting them more and more into a dire situation.

We've had stories from people like Alec and Emma, who live in Mount Lawley, who have seen their rent go up by over $200 a week in the last two years, and they have also recently been hit with HECS indexation. They could try and move, but any savings would be quickly swallowed up by the cost of moving house and transportation and being forced to live so far from work. Then there's the story of Justine, a single mother, who's been forced into homelessness after her landlord sold her rental to property developers and she couldn't find a new place to live.

These are the devastating stories that are no longer unique in the electorate of Perth. Everyone in Perth has a story or knows someone who is suffering right now because of the rental market in this country and its fundamental brokenness. It is not designed to work for renters; it is designed to work for property investors, and this government knows it. This government knows it and has actively chosen to do nothing that works for renters, to do nothing to be on the side of renters. Instead, they work in this place on behalf of their property development mates and their donors.

In the lead-up to the last election, the coalition and ALP took tens of thousands of dollars from property investors, real estate agents, corporations and developers. After taking this money, they then come in here and have the sheer, bald-faced audacity to try and pass off legislation that does nothing for renters as a solution to the housing crisis. I would say shame on you, but it is clear you have no shame. Renters in Perth are becoming homeless. People like Alec and Emma are struggling with massive rental increases on top of HECS debt increases. Yet we hear from people like the current member for Perth nothing but the opportunity to go on Sky News and have a go at people in his community who are pushing for more and better. Well, the Greens will continue to fight on the side of the renters of Perth and all those across the country in calling for rent freezes and rent caps now.