The upcoming national cabinet meeting in Brisbane will discuss a proposal to increase the rights of rental housing tenants.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will put the national plan to state and territory leaders next week, although each jurisdiction would ultimately determine their own rules based on a broad framework.
According to various media reports, Anthony Albanese will push for agreement in the following areas:
- Uniform principles to protect renters.
- Limiting landlords to one rent increase every two years, although each state and territory will be expected to decide the rules under their own laws.
- A ban on “no-grounds evictions”.
- Commit to planning laws that would make it easier to build one million homes over five years from 2024.
While the reforms would provide some relief to renters at the margin, it ignores that landlords have incurred large increases in mortgage costs, council rates, insurance premiums, maintenance costs and land tax.
The bigger issue is that it does nothing to address the primary cause of Australia’s rental shortage: the Albanese Government’s record immigration program.
Australia’s population ballooned by a record 500,000 people in 2022 off record net overseas migration of 387,000 people:
The 2023 federal budget projected that Australia’s population would soar by 2.18 million people over the five years to 2026-27 – equivalent to a Perth’s worth of population.
This population surge will be driven by record 1.5 million net overseas migration over the same five-year period – equivalent to an Adelaide’s worth of people.
This record population deluge is occurring at the same time as dwelling construction is falling amid widespread builder insolvencies, and soaring materials and financing costs:
If Prime Minister Anthony Albanese truly wanted to “solve” Australia’s rental crisis, he would not fire hose record numbers of migrants into Australia to compete for housing.
The number one solution to Australia’s rental crisis is to return net overseas migration to historical levels of around 100,000 people a year, not the long-term projection of 260,000 net overseas migration:
Immigration needs to be set a level commensurate with the nation’s ability to supply new housing and infrastructure. It isn’t rocket science, Albo.
