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Tim READ (Brunswick) (13:02): Last week I heard from a young Brunswick resident who received notice of a 30 per cent rent increase, even though she has been asking for months for someone to come and remove the mould growing throughout her apartment. While inflation and interest rates might, for example, account for a 5 per cent increase in costs for landlords, how can anyone justify increasing the rent on an unaltered apartment by 30 per cent in one year? More than a quarter of Victorians rent their home, but that figure is close to half in my electorate, and tax breaks that treat housing as an investment are forcing so many of Victoria’s renters into poverty and facing homelessness. Most renters are paying well over a third of their income as rent, leaving too little to spend on other essentials. Landlords increased the median rent in Melbourne by 15 per cent in the year to March. I am regularly meeting constituents who are being forced out of their homes by rent rises, and for them the ordeal of househunting and moving is becoming a routine. So wouldn’t it be great if we had a government that believed unlimited rent increases should be illegal?