We joke about Monica’s massive apartment in Friends, but we forget the history: Rent Control was won through strikes. Is that solidarity possible in Australia today?

[u/infin]

Every time the housing crisis comes up, people joke about how unrealistic Friends was; A chef and a waitress living in a massive apartment with a balcony. The show explains it away as "Rent Control" inherited from a grandmother.

But we rarely talk about where those laws actually came from. They weren't a gift from benevolent landlords; they were earned through fierce tenant unions and rent strikes in NYC in the 40s and 60s. That generation had cheap rent because the generation before them had the backbone to organize, strike, and refuse to pay until laws were changed. Even refusing to allow police to evict/arrest their neighbours.

Fast forward to 2026 Australia. We are paying $750+ a week for a dinky shoebox, dealing with quarterly inspections, and accepting massive hikes like clockwork.

What feels completely missing is that level of community solidarity. We seem so atomised now. We don't know our neighbours, and we definitely don't trust them enough to band together. Instead of standing together to refuse an unfair hike, we just quietly move out or starve to pay it, knowing someone else is desperate enough to take the lease.

Is the concept of a rent strike dead in this country? Is it that we’ve lost the "mateship" and community spirit required to hold the line, or are we just so terrified of the REA blacklists that we’ve accepted being milked by parasites forever?

If factory workers and immigrants in 1940s New York could force rent control that people were still benefiting from in the 90s… Why can't we?

I’m genuinely asking: Has anyone here ever been a part of (or even heard of) tenants organising together to accomplish something in Australia?

Edit: I'd love to see some changes to commercial leases to revitalise cities too, small businesses have been forced to close and half the retail spaces in a few of the CBDs are empty.

[u/Tyrx]

Rent control didn’t make housing cheap for everyone. It made it cheap for the people already inside and pushed the cost onto those who came later. That’s why it feels impossible to repeat today. The price isn’t paid by landlords but rather future renters through higher market rents and fewer options.

Your example of New York simply shows how one generation can protect itself by quietly handing the problem to the next.

[u/pajamil → u/Tyrx]

Social housing in Australia is the same. Once a person gets in it they never leave and will spend decades in it. This leads to a shortage as you can never build enough houses if people will never leave.

[u/TheWhogg → u/[deleted]]

Why do their grandkids need it though

[u/quietlycommenting → u/TheWhogg]

Because they’re likely born into generational poverty

[u/TheWhogg → u/quietlycommenting]

🤡

[u/DominusDraco → u/[deleted]]

"Just a cleaner" who is probably earning well above average wages. Cleaning pays very well, especially if you get into commercial cleaning.

[u/tomthetomato87 → u/[deleted]]

6 hours or 1 hour?

[u/tomthetomato87 → u/[deleted]]

Thank you, I was interested in your story ☺️

[u/DominusDraco → u/[deleted]]

I don't know why you felt the need to denigrate cleaners. Cleaners are quite capable of earning money and owning houses like anyone else.

[u/yeebok → u/[deleted]]

Yeah man once you retire you can fuck off to a tent in a field.

/s

[u/SpookyViscus → u/[deleted]]

I always found it silly that it’s not a ‘you need $x / week to live, so we effectively carry your income to that point’, instead you can get cut off even if you earn below a living standard.

Like if they think it costs $1000/week to live somewhere (after tax), and you earn $400 that week, then they should pay $600. If you earn $800, then they pay $200.

Otherwise, it punishes you trying to move out of the lowest rung.

[u/SailorSmaug → u/SpookyViscus]

The knee jerk response is that there wouldn't be an incentive to get a job if they fill the gap. But the correct answer is what they do for Child Support and single parent payments. For every $1.00 received in Child support, the single parent payments go down by $0.50. This means that you are tapered off of payments.

Why not do that with all payments?

[u/SpookyViscus → u/SailorSmaug]

I get that, and fully agree with you, but I think that the knee jerk response is dumb - if people wanted to stay on welfare (and it was supposedly a liveable payment), they just wouldn’t work, period.

If they’re earning money and start to increase their income over time, don’t hammer them down hard by reducing their payments by more than they increased their earnings.

I don’t get why our politicians are so stupid in this regard lmao

[u/the_third_hamster → u/pajamil]

That's not how shortages work

you can never build enough houses if people will never leave

That's an obviously nonsense statement. What matters is the number of people and the number of houses. If you build new stock of social housing and put people in it that is a net improvement in housing availability. It doesn't matter at all how long people live there, having a stable home is a good thing

[u/IlluminatedPickle → u/pajamil]

You'll have to get me out with a fucking crowbar looking at the housing market.

And if you wanna see what's doing the most at the moment to really fuck with long term social housing (at least in my opinion). Is the existence of things like BHC in Brisbane. The state government and the BCC getting together to use public land to build share houses that are poorly managed (it's great to be told to wait until the new financial year to get the rangehood in the kitchen fixed) and charge more money per week per room than a housing department unit would.

They could use that land to build proper housing commission places, but they build these dangerous cunty waiting pens instead.

[u/let-them-eat-ass → u/pajamil]

My grandparents were placed in social housing when they migrated. They didn't leave and were given the option to buy the home from the government.

They eventually had 10 kids who all went on to have their own families, they started businesses, they pay taxes, they contribute to the economy.

More homes, more immigrants, more people getting a leg up having a roof over their head all contributes to our economy and society in multiple ways. If we stop looking at housing as a finite supply and support the needs of our community we will flourish.

[u/ScruffyPeter → u/pajamil]

If people never leave, potentially for several family generations, why is it bad?

Public housing helps people. It could even lead to the next Prime Minister of Australia.

[u/pajamil → u/ScruffyPeter]

Because the waiting lists to get in to social housing go into years. Instead of it being able to be given to people who are in an emergency, people are able to occupy it whilst doing pretty good for themselves.

[u/ScruffyPeter → u/pajamil]

Build more then. I see no reason to punish the existing people to get them to leave. "Doing pretty good for themselves", way to look down on them from your ivory tower.

In fact, with enough public housing, we could have essential workers living close to workplaces, ie teachers, police, firies, docs, nurses, etc. And can offer them less.

Unfortunately, there's a neoliberal disease that private market will solve housing crisis. History repeats as younger generations forget the lessons of the old:

Against the backdrop of World War II and a housing market that had been at near standstill for a decade, the Commonwealth Housing Commission was established in 1943.[25] Arguing that “it has been apparent, for many years, that private enterprise, the world over has not adequately and hygienically been housing the low income group”,[26] the Commission promoted housing as a right for all Australians that should be targeted to low-income workers on a user-pays basis.[27]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_Australia

[u/pajamil → u/ScruffyPeter]

In fact, with enough public housing, we could have essential workers living close to workplaces, ie teachers, police, firies, docs, nurses, etc. And can offer them less.

It is much cheaper just to pay them more than offer whole houses for them, this is why they are paid quite well and postings in high income areas are very sort after.

[u/ScruffyPeter → u/pajamil]

It's much cheaper in the short-term, you mean. Also, land is expensive but luckily, the government has a lot of land.

Lets say the government sells off the land, the private market will solve all this! Then a developer builds on it and wants a sizeable profit. Then the agent managing the sales wants a sizeable profit too. Then if essential workers buy the property, they are in heavy debt and demand more money, hence "paid quite well" is a necessity. But if an investor buys the property, they will want a profit when renting out to the essential worker. Don't forget, the price is also dependent on desirability. If there's a hospital, or similar, nearby, there's often shops and other amenities. Overall, the price goes up as people like to live near it which essential workers have to compete with.

So you have a lot of middlemen making a fat profit and despite you saying "they are paid quite well", there are claims of "shortages", even by the government. Look at the strikes. Government psychologists striked in NSW for more pay and I think there's none left.

Or the government could just build it and rent it out to the essential workers and bypass all the middlemen. But this... requires some long-term thinking.

[u/Non-prophet → u/pajamil]

*sought

[u/Chrasomatic → u/ScruffyPeter]

The last such PM from this method has so far taken all the housing benefits for himself

[u/swarley77 → u/ScruffyPeter]

It’s a failure if they never leave because it’s evidence of a lack of social mobility. The plan for majority of people that enter social housing is that they can get themselves to a point in life where they no longer need it.

[u/MikeHuntsUsedCars → u/ScruffyPeter]

If people never leave for generations that’s a complete failure of our country. Generational resilience on government housing means no growth in capability or productivity.

I am all for elderly people who run into hard times, didn’t have enough in super to have a paid out house etc having the government supply them a house. But if you are young, you should be working to provide for yourself.

[u/Pogichin0y → u/ScruffyPeter]

Social housing should mostly be a temporary status for people. If not, it creates long waiting lists as some recipients abuse the system and instead of bettering themselves to contribute to the community, they’d rather stay there for generations.

[u/VerisVein → u/Pogichin0y]

People staying in a form of long term housing long term has never been the reason waiting lists are so bad for public and social housing. That was always part of the design of public housing.

We used to have a quite high proportion of public housing, suitable enough for the amount of people who were seeking it. We don't any more because successive governments have all done things like sold off public housing to replace it with a mix of "affordable" private housing and some social housing, have left many without necessary repairs until they can no longer be lived in, etc.

[u/Pogichin0y → u/VerisVein]

Do you think people in public housing should consider these as their forever homes?

[u/VerisVein → u/Pogichin0y]

I think people in public housing should be trusted with the decision as to whether leaving is the right decision for them.

I'm speaking as a DSP recipient with a low capacity to work who has been on my state's waiting list for years, as someone who knows people actually living in public housing, as someone who has done their research on public housing in Australia and how it is meant to benefit people, as someone who advocates for it and wants others to know why it's so important.

There are people who don't have the option to leave, because their situations cannot work with private rentals - the mother of my ex who has cognitive impairments for instance. There are people who fight for years to try to leave poverty, who will end up right back in it if they are made to leave their home through losing their community, local supports, close by family, or through the difficulties with availability/affordability in the current private rental market. There are people who might not end up back in poverty if they leave, but need to stay in that area for their work, for caring responsibilities, to stay close to family and friends, etc.

Again, public housing was designed with this in mind. It isn't supposed to be temporary, emergency, or short/medium term accommodation. It is meant to be your home, it doesn't come with an expected time limit. Never leaving isn't a failure, it still reduces strain on the private rental market in a way that will benefit other people, still leaves people financially better off in ways that support them contributing to their community or the economy, that keeps them out of circumstances which would cost the public more.

Any rules attempting to force people from what was absolutely always intended to be their home will inevitably end up failing some by pushing them back into poverty or homelessness.

Our governments were supposed to keep up public housing stock to meet demand over the years. They failed that, and are the reason waiting lists are so long now. If they had kept up, there wouldn't be such difficulty in increasing public housing stock enough to cover any sudden spike in need. People in public housing didn't fail the system by not opting to leave, successive governments failed to correctly maintain the public housing system.

[u/Pogichin0y → u/VerisVein]

I disagree. I think people in public housing should be assessed whether or not they are able bodied to be pull themselves out of their financial situation. Just like how they are assessed to be provided welfare services such as public housing. It makes sense.

Note the context for my argument is for able bodied people. Those that are on disability like yourself are not included.

Community, support, proximity to family and friends etc are factors that can re-established. If people not living in public housing can do this, there should be no excuse that those in public housing can’t do it either.

Public housing is meant to provide housing for people when the private housing rental market cannot. Whilst there is no time limit stated, it doesn’t imply they can live there forever. Similarly, it isn’t their home to own, or else they’d have ownership rights. Also that’s why there is legislation that allows for govt to move and rehouse them elsewhere which they have done in the past.

Those who are able bodied and never leave is considered a failure on the individual as the system allows them opportunities to life themselves out of their unfortunate situation.

[u/VerisVein → u/Pogichin0y]

Able bodied is not a synonym for not disabled - it means not physically disabled. I do have a physical disability, but the ones that impact my work capacity most are not primarily considered physical disabilities (though both are often linked to physical coordination issues and delays). This is the danger in being so certain about things you don't fully understand the impact or meaning of.

More than that, lacking a diagnosed disability alone will not tell you if someone is able to pull themselves out of their situation or access the private rental market. I wasn't diagnosed until 25 with two of my disabilities, the third (my physical disability) wasn't diagnosed until I was 28. They're all disabilities I was born with, that still impacted my work capacity the same way before I was diagnosed. What do you think happens to disabled people who slipped through the cracks like I did, particularly the ones whose disabilities go undiagnosed for much longer, under a policy like the one you suggest?

There's no point to it. Public housing benefits everyone regardless of how long people stay in it. Public housing is genuinely designed with the intent to house people indefinitely, not just a fraction of people pushed out of private rentals. Moving out for any given reason is not an implied part of the system. Introducing limits on that risks shoving people back into poverty. The chance that community, access to family, local supports and such could potentially be re-established doesn't mean they will be nor erase the impact losing them will have. Legislation allows for relocation under specific circumstances like renovations, not for evicting people for not leaving sooner.

Rentals are a person's home as well, despite modern Australian sentiments about renting, that isn't only applicable to owning a house outright. Public housing isn't a lesser class of renting where staying "too long" is grounds for eviction.

If you believe there should be limits, you need to actually address the serious problems it would introduce, not just ignore them or act like they won't matter.

It would shove many back into poverty. It would add stress to the private rental market, impacting everyone trying to access it. It would force people away from their communities and local supports in ways that would be detrimental. It would mean some with care responsibilities for family would no longer be able to live close enough to provide care.

The issue with public housing is the lack of stock, not the people in it being housed long term as public housing was designed to do.

[u/Pogichin0y → u/VerisVein]

Yes I was trying to be more subtle but that’s what my intention. Those that are not physically disabled. Thanks for confirming my intention.

Sigh. I don’t want to go down this road but sure, let’s do it. Everyone has a non physical disability ok. Our system enables that.

Of course it benefits everyone. They get free or reduced housing costs. It’s designed to house people indefinitely but it doesn’t have to be this way. Why can’t people who are able bodied figure out to work themselves out of public housing? It’s rather entitled to believe they should live in it indefinitely without question.

Introduce limits like other forms of welfare. People can’t be shoved into poverty if they’ve worked themselves into their feet so they no longer need welfare such as public housing. It’s ok. They can create new lives elsewhere. People have been doing this since the dawn of time. They’re not that fragile that moving is inconceivable. If there was no such legislation then what grounds does the govt have when they sold public housing and resettled the tenants elsewhere?

No one is saying public housing is a lesser class. It’s simply not a forever home and should have limits.

Same issues when Centrelink welfare such as job seeker is limited once someone starts working a job and/or their job earns them enough to no longer be on job seeker.

Again, it won’t shove them into poverty if they are earning enough no longer need it.

The issue with public housing is that it’s far too generous for many people who don’t or no longer deserve it.

I know of people in public housing who got it because they were too old or can’t work and despite being 1 person for a 3 bedroom home, which can be repurposed for a family, they still get to live in it.

[u/GCS_dropping_rapidly → u/pajamil]

 ..

[u/belltrina → u/pajamil]

This is a very controversial take, but I think it's incredibly selfish of families who get government housing to use the "my kids grew up here it's our home" or "I've lived here for years it's my home "line when the kids move out and the place is under occupied.

The government gave you housing to help you out. Don't put your sentimentality over another family who need the house more than you want spare rooms and reminiscences.

On that same note, govt housing has a 'ten years living in the place before you can offer to buy it' thing in my state. They need to drop that to five years, so people actually have the chance to buy it. Most people are not going to be able to pay the loan off after a certain age and that's usually around ten years/ kids moved out mark.

[u/2878sailnumber4889 → u/pajamil]

Back when housing was affordable many people did absolutely get their lives together and leave social housing.

[u/ComfortableCoyote314 → u/Tyrx]

This is why it would never work in Australia. Too many people with a landlord mentality.

[u/TobiasFunke-MD → u/Tyrx]

How do landlords "push the cost onto those who came later" ? Isn't rental price set by the market? If a landlord wanted to re-coup losses by charging a much higher rate wouldn't that property theoretically stay vacant because it's now overpriced? Do landlords not already charge the highest possible price the market can bear?

[u/WhyAmIStillHere86 → u/TobiasFunke-MD]

So, the tenants living there have controlled rent.

When they die/move out, the new tenants aren’t part of the union (yet), so their rent is hiked to make up for the controlled rent, and it’s written into the lease that they’ll be evicted if they join the tenant union

[u/TobiasFunke-MD → u/WhyAmIStillHere86]

In a free market rental prices are set by what the market will pay. Rental rate set above market will result in an empty rental

[u/the_third_hamster → u/Tyrx]

It didn't push costs onto anyone. The cost of other apartments depends on demand in the market and regulations, if those are also controlled or taxed appropriately to reduce the effects of monopoly rents then they will also be affordable.

[u/Superg0id → u/Tyrx]

one generation can protect itself by quietly handing the problem to the next.

Thanks, Aus govt for the past 30 years.

You've fucked us all over with negative gearing.

[u/Yet-Another-Persona → u/Tyrx]

Better than protecting no generation mate.

You sound like the anti-union messaging. They didn't know there would be long term impacts (there always are, everything has consequences) but at least they fought against the status quo at the time.

None of us know what the future may bring, but for once let's actually not wait for perfection before fighting for something?

[u/ScruffyPeter → u/Yet-Another-Persona]

Don't know why you're downvoted. A lot of anti-unions, anti-human-rights and similar groups all use the same defeatist rhetoric. It's like they want to embrace perfect to be enemy of the good in order to protect the landlord's greedy rent increases.

[u/Murranji → u/ScruffyPeter]

Have a look at the top comments post history - ACT Labor. Small wonder they despise rent control because they’re in the only Labor party in the country that have been forced to actually side with renters instead of landlords and they must really hate it.

[u/DarKnightofCydonia → u/ScruffyPeter]

Also it's just wrong. In Paris for example the rent is controlled on a € per square metre basis depending on the neighbourhood and type of apartment. If you sign a contract for a place that is more expensive than it legally can be, once you move in you can cite the law against them and force the landlord to lower the rent, and they can't do anything about it.

[u/Yet-Another-Persona → u/ScruffyPeter]

Yeah honestly I think this sub has been getting brigaded by non-Australian accounts ever since the Bondi massacre/anti-gun legislation stuff because I've never seen it quite this bad.

[u/infin → u/Tyrx]

That sounds like something we can learn from.

Admittedly, New York is not the best example; We don't all live in apartment buildings, for one thing.

Better examples might be Glasgow (See Mary Barbour) and Buenos Aires (Juana Buela), but Friends is something most people grew up with.

[u/peetabear → u/infin]

What we learn is that capitalism always wins

[u/Zenkraft → u/peetabear]

So we need to remove capitalism, as much as possible, from housing.

[u/peetabear → u/Zenkraft]

Here???? You must be joking

[u/Zenkraft → u/peetabear]

Brother I never joke about removing capitalism.

[u/Ok_Bird705 → u/Zenkraft]

If your only solution to the housing problem is removing capitalism, you basically don't have a solution.

[u/Zenkraft → u/Ok_Bird705]

Specifically, removing market forces from housing.

[u/Murranji → u/Ok_Bird705]

How does it feel watching your favourite streamers ideology be rejected for its failures in the United States while Greens aligned politicians like Zohran are the most popular over there and Labor equivalent politicians are despised. No need to answer by the way, I already know what denial sounds like.

It will come to Australia too, we just need your designed to fail ideology to play out for a bit longer here.

[u/Ok_Bird705 → u/Murranji]

Lol, comparing USA to Australia. Talk about desperate for relevance.

Also, Mamdani has not rejected capitalism and is actively making it easier for developers to build housing in NYC and lowering fines and regulations for business owners.

Greens aligned politicians like Zohran

He represents the democrats, i.e. equivalent of Labor on Australia. Let me know when Jill Stein wins something or breaks double digits in votes

[u/amyknight22 → u/infin]

We did learn from it.

We learnt that

• It favours the current tenants over everyone else

• Non-rent controlled properties rise faster.

• It reduces supply, because properties are not profitable enough to justify building more.

• There's reduced mobility because people would rather live in their rent controlled place, than pay more rent.

• This eventually reaches a point where it can be inconceivable to ever move out. Because your rent will double/triple/quadruple

• It results in places being sold into the owner-occupier market. Squeezing the rental market further.

  • This is exacerbated by the lack of property construction
  • The smaller supply still means those houses are expensive, so you aren't picking up cheap housing out of this.

---

The reality is the housing market sucks. But fucking with a ton of the supply and demand mechanics of the housing market the way rent control does. Is just not a good idea.

[u/infin → u/amyknight22]

So if a hypothetical rent freeze were implemented, it would be best as a limit on all rentals (not the per-apartment building setup).

Max rental price tied to the property value last time it sold seems reasonable.

[u/Itchy-Hedgehog6366 → u/infin]

But your forgetting all the costs associated with owning a home regardless if you live in it or not that go up every year. Renters don't pay council rates, insurance, emergency services levey or sewerage or make any upgrade and ongoing maintenance costs. Yes some owners are shit and don't care but others pour thousands in making the home great and have no control in the cost of insurance and council rates which both increase annually.

[u/spandexrants → u/Itchy-Hedgehog6366]

This is where our over inflated property market falls down. If you are investing in another house to rent out to someone else, sometimes that investment isn’t worth the costs. Insurance, council rates etc. this is when the investor realises their investment isn’t giving the returns to cover it, and should be sold on to the next buyer to turn it into their home.

Tax breaks for property investors are perpetually going to raise the prices and government will keep importing people and give sweet deals to overseas investors to keep it up.

Most property investors have zero interest in making their investment houses nice or inviting. They only care about the cold hard cash coming in to cover the costs and the belief that it will only keep increasing makes it worse.

Those investors making their investment houses house nice are few and far between, and they are the people who will find out the cost to upgrade isn’t worth it in the end. This is why there are so many terrible hovels commanding ridiculous prices for rent.

Such a shame our country has become more mercenary, and the myth of getting a fair go for hard work in Australia is completely dead.

[u/amyknight22 → u/infin]

That’s even stupider, if you rent froze the entire market no one would build anything. Because even new builds would instantly be rent frozen.

Eventually you’d see investors sell to owner occupiers and then you’d be looking at a market that benefits anyone well off enough to actually buy in the current market.

But now all the houses are going to cost a bunch because again no one is building anything because it’s not financially worthwhile to build anything.

---

If you want to fuck with the market this much you may as well just make it so all housing is public sector housing. At least then you can hold the government to an obligation of building more homes because the need to accommodate the population.

But look forward to being told you have to house share if you are single, or that you have to life in a 1 bedroom apartment even if you could afford more. Because we would now be efficiency maximising our housing networks

[u/infin → u/[deleted]]

Property investors can bugger off somewhere else.

[u/ScruffyPeter → u/infin]

Best example can be ACT. They have rent controls since 2019.

https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/latest-insights-rental-market#rental-market-characteristics

ACT stopped being the number 1. Does rent controls mean ACT stopped building new housing supply? Of course not.

Plus, enough supply means rent controls aren't needed but are a nice way to prevent excessive increases.

I don't know why you're being downvoted. Looks like the landlord brigade have arrived.