Melbourne electorate
Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (14:37): (186) My question is to the Minister for Consumer Affairs. In March I got a heartbreaking email from Natalie, who lives in my electorate with her young son. She had just received a notice from her real estate agent saying her rent was increasing by $200 a week. In just two years her rent has gone from $400 to $650. That is a 62 per cent increase or a more than 30 per cent increase per year. Natalie is desperate. She moved back to Melbourne in 2020, fleeing family violence. Now she cannot afford the rent increase and will either have to fight it or move her son again. In her email she told me, ‘What really broke me was just knowing that they were allowed to get away with it, and that makes you feel isolated and alone’. Several kids in her son’s class have already left school because they have been forced out of the city by the rent increases. Minister, why won’t the government introduce a rent freeze to protect people like Natalie from unfair rent increases? We need action now.