Thursday, 23 February 2023

Rental accommodation

Gabrielle DE VIETRI (Richmond) (17:25): (67) My adjournment is for the Minister for Consumer Affairs. The action I seek is for the minister to strengthen renters rights to curb this unprecedented rental crisis, including an end to no-grounds evictions at the end of a lease, mandatory cooling, an end to rental bidding and a cap on rents. The Greens welcomed the long-fought-for changes to the Residential Tenancies Act 1997 in 2018 to make things fairer for Victoria’s renters. Now renters can lock their doors and live with their pets. But there is so much more that needs to be done.

In the seat of Richmond more than half of our residents are renters. Many of those renters are being forced to live in places that do not meet standards set by the act, because of the acute crisis our rental market is in right now. In Victoria over 110,000 households are experiencing rental stress and the public housing waiting list is 120,000 people long. The link between housing stress and poor health has been well established academically, but I see it every day from renters who are facing an increasingly uncertain future because of the growing rental crisis: people like Lara, who have not had their leases renewed because they have asked their landlords to adhere to the rental standards that have been set by this act. They are feeling pressured into accepting properties that are too small, that are mouldy, where the roof is falling in or that are not accessible for their needs. They are competing with 30, 60 and sometimes 90 other people, many of whom will offer a higher rent just to get a roof over their heads. This rental crisis is not going away anytime soon. Building more homes will address some of the symptoms of the crisis, but we need to treat the problem to prevent more people from facing extreme rental stress. As thousands more people are growing desperate for a home, I ask that this government do everything they can to protect renters and introduce new protections for renters in the Residential Tenancies Act.