With elections looming across the nation, the focus on housing in Tasmania's poll suggests governments are ready to take more radical steps to deal with our housing crisis.
Housing is a key issue in the Tasmanian election, after a rocket rise in prices and a steep hike in rents.
Queensland, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory have elections in 2024. Western Australia and the federal government must go to the polls by around this time next year.In Hobart, where Emily Bresnahan is in her final year of university study, the market has shifted drastically.
The election policies might not answer all of the problems as quickly as people need, but they acknowledge the breadth of the issue: from people experiencing homelessness through to those with multiple investment properties."Traditionally, particularly state governments used to focus on a narrow range, usually first-time buyers. But now we're seeing that the problem really isn't just amongst first time buyers. It's right across the market.
With transport costs, most household budget items like food, petrol and clothes are more expensive than in mainland Australia. But she worries about how the worsening housing situation is affecting the community she's moved in to, where short-stay accommodation has shrunk the pool of rental properties and meagre protections mean people renting have few rights."But I've certainly seen it with renters. It's very tough, it's very tough on them. And it looks like there's very little help for them.
End no-cause evictions, strengthen laws to prevent unreasonable rent increases, increased rights for renters to own pets.With the potential for a minority government — meaning a party doesn't win enough seats on its own and must negotiate legislation — there's the potential for more than just one group's ideas to get up.
"So in a place like Central Hobart, something like 9 per cent of the old rental stock has been replaced by short-term rentals. And that really has had a sharp impact on rents, but also availability," he says."We've really seen levels of penetration of rental markets much higher than we'd see in Sydney and Melbourne," Professor Phibbs says, whose research notes the 'density' of short-stay accommodation in Byron Bay is approaching 50 per cent.
"They just cannot afford anything in the private rental market. They're completely locked out of it.""In Tasmania, you would never see someone beg before," she says. Ben Bartl, principal solicitor at the Tenants' Union of Tasmania, says renters are paying about $7,000 more per annum today, compared to five years ago."We get calls every day from people who are struggling to find affordable rental properties. They're people who are living in their cars on people's couches, and in many cases, struggling to find some way to sleep that night.
Saul Eslake says, "while people across the whole of Australia have been confronted with cost of living pressures — more intense than at any time in the last 30 years — in the past two years, those pressures are, if anything a bit more intense in Tasmania than they have been on the mainland." Student Emily Bresnahan might not know where she's sleeping tomorrow night, but says she feels lucky."I think a lot of people when they're experiencing times of stress, especially financial stress, they're quite embarrassed by it. But I think that's really unfair," she says.
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