Rent Freeze Now – Full Transcript of Gabrielle’s speech to Parliament:
Renters are at breaking point. A report this week from Better Renting found once again that renters are cutting back on essentials just so they can pay the rent. Seventy per cent said that they would skip meals or cut back on groceries, 50 per cent are cutting back on medication and 60 per cent do not raise issues with their landlord because they are scared of a rent increase in retaliation. That is why for so many renters, even if legislated standards are improved and even if they are given better protections, nothing will change – nothing – unless this government fixes the unlimited power that landlords have to hike up the rent and force renters out.
Just a few weeks ago I visited James. He is a Fitzroy renter whose home floods every single time it rains. Bricks in the hallway crumbled when I touched them. Holes in the walls let mice and rats in and out. It clearly did not meet minimum standards, but did the real estate agent care? Not one bit, because they know that renters have to put their life on hold and have to fork out exorbitant amounts of money and time just to have their basic rights met. And once you piss off your landlord, you can bet that they will find a way to kick you out, and that is usually by hiking up the rent so much that you give up and move out.
I have said it before, and I will say it again:
as long as landlords have unlimited power to hike up the rent and force a renter out, most renters will be too scared to ask for their minimum rights to be met
and will continue to live in overpriced, substandard and insecure homes. I am not exaggerating when I say that most renters are constantly worried about paying their next month’s rent and live in fear of their next rent increase. The situation is dire; you cannot spin it any other way. In Melbourne less than 1 per cent of private rentals are affordable for full-time workers in vital roles like hospitality, construction and early childhood education.
I know members opposite must be hearing from renters in their electorates saying, ‘I can’t get by.’ Just one property in Victoria is affordable for someone on the disability support pension, and not one property in Melbourne is affordable for someone on the DSP. There are no properties in the entire state that are affordable for a single person or a single parent with a child receiving youth allowance or JobSeeker, and here is Labor patting itself on the back, self-declaring that they are number one for renters. They have manufactured a sustained state of hopelessness, of stress, of financial precarity which takes a huge toll on renters, with substandard living conditions literally resulting in renters having a lower life expectancy than home owners.
Labor is not winning at anything. How dare you! It is so embarrassing. Labor is failing renters. In fact this year rental affordability has hit its worst levels since records began. The Better Renting report is scathing and it is right when it says Australia’s rental system causes real harm. It stops people from living their lives. It puts their health at risk. It makes them homeless. It allows domestic violence to fester. It brings instability into children’s lives.
People deserve rewarding, meaningful lives that are not just about working and paying the rent, so when Labor makes a song and dance about some basic reforms and has the audacity to take up 2 hours of parliamentary time to gloat about them, I think I would speak for the hundreds of thousands of renters in Victoria who are struggling to get by when I say
the only way to make renting truly fair is to make unlimited rent increases illegal.
What is the use of roof insulation if you are too scared to ask for it and cannot afford to keep the roof over your head in the first place? While Labor tinkers around the edges, renters are drowning in unlimited rent increases. In the last two years, rents in Melbourne have gone up by 23.4 per cent. If Labor had introduced a rent freeze in January 2023 like the Greens proposed, guess how much renters in Melbourne would have saved? They would have saved $9938 each in rent increases, almost 10 grand. Isn’t that outrageous? Labor could have saved every single renter in Melbourne 10 grand, but instead they are signing hundred-million-dollar contracts to demolish public housing and they are handing out tax breaks to developers and investors.
Here is the truth. As long as Labor take policy advice and donations from property investors, they will always be the party for landlords. Shame on you. One year after Labor’s housing statement, Victoria’s housing crisis has worsened on nearly every key indicator. More people are in housing stress in Victoria than any other state or territory, and Victoria has the lowest investment in public and community housing out of all the states and territories. Meanwhile, Labor’s landlords collectively made approximately $905,200,000 in 2020–21.
Why is Labor so determined to ignore the obvious, to turn away from renters when all they need is the stability and the security that rent controls would bring? What is the big barrier? Sixteen countries across Europe have some form of rent controls. Renters in the ACT, where the Greens have been in power, enjoy the security of rent controls. The Greens will keep fighting for a rent freeze followed by a cap on rents of 2 per cent every two years to allow wages the chance to catch up with astronomical rents. But there are models that Victoria could choose from around the world other than capping rents to a fixed rate, including tying it to rent ranges or a formula or linking rent increases to other indexes like the wage price index or the CPI.
What is the big problem, Labor? Why won’t Labor bring in rent controls?
When I asked the Treasurer last year, he said Labor could not introduce rent controls, because it would distort the market. What did he mean by that? As though the market is this perfectly formed, perfectly functioning system and that any attempt to regulate rents would disrupt this perfect balance, disrupt the natural forces of supply and demand – those very same forces that allow landlords to exploit renters, particularly when things get tough. But we know there is nothing perfect about the rental market unless you are one of the 1 per cent making a buck from it.
The Treasurer’s unwillingness to distort the market shows how this government continues to prioritise profits for landlords and developers over the basic needs for secure and affordable housing. It ignores the reality that in Victoria the housing market has already been distorted by speculative practices, home hoarding and a focus on luxury developments for investment rather than addressing the pressing need for genuinely affordable homes. What this argument fundamentally overlooks is the human cost of market-driven housing policies.
Labor is prioritising the health of the economy in terms of investor and developer profits and capital accumulation at the expense of people’s wellbeing. Housing is a human right, not a commodity to be traded for profit. By rejecting rent controls Labor is effectively endorsing a system where people are increasingly vulnerable to rising rents and displacement, with no regard for the social consequences. The real distortion is the prioritisation of a few people’s wealth over human dignity, as hundreds of thousands face housing insecurity while developers continue to profit. Instead of leaning into the status quo, ignoring renters’ real misery and listening to property developers for their policy advice, Labor should be challenging this market-driven narrative and ensuring that everyone has a safe and affordable home. Rent freeze now.
