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

I present the report of the Community Affairs References Committee on the rental sector, together with accompanying documents, and I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

As Chair of the Senate Community Affairs References Committee, I'm pleased to present the report of the inquiry into the worsening rental crisis in Australia. It's the first ever national inquiry into renting. This inquiry presented a unique opportunity for renters to directly share their experiences with parliament. The inquiry received 407 written submissions, a whopping 16,061 submissions through a simplified submission form, with over 9,000 of these being from renters, and evidence from witnesses across four hearings in Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne. Clearly, the rental and housing crisis is having a huge impact on Australians, and people are desperate for their stories to be heard.

I'm incredibly proud that we established this inquiry. Particularly, I would like to thank the Australian Greens spokesperson for housing and homelessness, Max Chandler-Mather, and his team. Without their staunch advocacy and the work of other advocates, renters would never have been such a key political issue, and a national rental inquiry would never have been a priority. I would also like to thank the community affairs secretariat for the countless hours of work they put into analysing the thousands of submissions and for the research and preparation they did for each hearing and this report. Without their work, we would not have been able to undertake such a landmark inquiry. Most of all, I want to thank all those who made submissions, provided evidence and shared the traumatic experience of being a renter. I also want to thank those who have been advocating and continue to advocate for meaningful reforms to improve renters' rights and security.

Again and again throughout this inquiry, the committee heard evidence of the dire state of Australia's housing system. We heard how right now there are 640,000 households under severe rental stress, how years of chronic underfunding and privatisation of public housing by governments have led to a shortfall of genuinely affordable housing of approximately 750,000 homes and how this has pushed many renters into the private rental market and led to a system of exponential rent increases, stress and insecurity. What was made undeniably clear by an overwhelming amount of submitters and witnesses is that we are in the midst of a housing crisis, one of the worst that Australia has ever seen. We heard how renters across the country are struggling with the same four issues: the lack of genuinely affordable housing, including public, social and community housing; unregulated and skyrocketing rents; inadequate tenant protections; and systems that fundamentally favour landlords.

Renters across the country are having to live in inadequate and unsafe conditions due to the fundamental power imbalance between landlords and tenants. One witness and renter, Leanne, told the committee:

There's inequality and unfairness in our current rental system, and it favours our landlords. The system is failing us. Asking for the leaky gas stove to be repaired or for the hole in the back deck to be repaired so we don't step through it in the dark is a risk. Asking not to have to set rat traps under your bed at night so that you can sleep is not good enough. But it's okay because the rent's cheap. Every conversation with my landlord is a mental calculation about how much this is going to cost me. I've just waited two weeks for a new washing machine. There are eight people in our flats using one washing machine. I looked on Google, and $600 is all that costs, but that's a mental calculation in my mind: where's the next rent increase coming from? The list goes on with the repairs, and I wish that the rat trap under the bed was a joke. But it's not.

Many witnesses also expressed how unrelenting and devastating rental increases can be to a person's finances and wellbeing. We heard how unregulated rent hikes have driven a family to move into a caravan and how a single mother working in the Public Service was forced to live in a share house with her newborn baby.

In response to the many distressing testimonies about the urgency and severity of the housing crisis, as chair of the committee I have put forward a suite of important recommendations to the government in my additional comments. The first and foremost of my chair's recommendations is for the government to commit to substantial further investment in public and community housing in the next federal budget, including specific funding for youth and First Nations housing. While the recently legislated HAFF was a step in the right direction, particularly the extra $3 billion that the Greens negotiated for affordable housing, evidence from this inquiry revealed that this investment falls completely short. It's estimated that the unmet national demand for social housing will be around 550,000 dwellings by 2037, revealing the total inadequacy of the HAFF's promise of 30,000 homes over the next five years. If we want to reduce public and community housing waitlists, have an impact on the extremely low vacancy rates in the private rental market and fix this housing crisis, we must reverse the years of neglect and chronic underfunding of our public and affordable housing system.

My chair's recommendations also include providing immediate relief to renters and strengthening renters' rights. Crucially, these include that the government work with the states and territories: to freeze rental increases for two years, followed by a limit on rental increases of two per cent every two years; to amend tenancy laws and strengthen the prohibition on rent bidding; to remove no-grounds evictions; to legislate a minimum set of standards for energy efficiency; and to raise the rate of income support payments and review Commonwealth Rent Assistance. We are in the midst of a crisis, and this demands crisis-level attention. Evidence was provided by many witnesses suggesting a rent freeze as a sensible and effective solution to the escalating rental crisis. Rents have gone up 33 per cent over the last three years. It's going to take a long time for wages and particularly income support payments to catch up with that.

Skyrocketing rents are dire for people on Centrelink payments. According to Anglicare's 2023 Rental affordability snapshot, zero per cent of rentals are affordable to a person on JobSeeker and Youth Allowance and 0.1 per cent are affordable to a person on the DSP. Many witnesses told the committee that the current rates of rental assistance are not enough, and we heard how CRA is poorly targeted and often fails to support people who need the most support. Recent changes to CRA and income support simply tinker around the edges of a system that fails to support people on the lowest incomes to find shelter. To truly help people have a secure roof over their head, income support payments must be urgently raised. As the Antipoverty Centre noted, doing so will support the largest number of people experiencing both housing and financial stress.

The inquiry also investigated and made clear recommendations on other issues impacting the current housing crisis, like regulating short-term rentals, reforming our tax system, reviewing planning laws and expanding the application of the Privacy Act to all real estate agencies and the RentTech business. These recommendations build upon the work of advocates, organisations and researchers who have been advocating tirelessly for meaningful improvement to renters' rights, and they also reflect the calls of the Australian Greens.

I'm incredibly proud of this report and the chair's recommendations. However, I find it staggering and extremely disappointing that, despite listening to the devastating testimonies of renters across the country, both the Labor and Liberal parties could not agree to stronger recommendations that reflected the severity of the crisis, leading the committee down the path of separate recommendations from each party in our additional comments. This inquiry made clear that the current government reforms will fail to make up the massive shortfall in affordable housing, will fail to stop skyrocketing rents and consequent increases in homelessness and will certainly fail to fix the housing crisis. By putting forward recommendations that don't address the impact of unregulated rent hikes, the inadequacy of income supports and the ongoing shortage of our affordable housing stock, both parties are revealing their indifference to renters and the housing crisis more broadly.

While I hope that the Labor government takes this report seriously and implements all 26 of my chair's recommendations, I have very little faith that they will take any meaningful action in response to this report. But know this: while the major parties may continue to ignore the calls of renters, the Greens hear you and we will continue to fight for your rights. We won't stop fighting until unlimited rent increases are illegal, there is enough genuinely affordable public housing for everyone who needs it, renters' rights are strengthened and income support payments are raised to above the poverty line. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.