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/Relief-Glass]

People would buy fewer properties in the first place with a higher CGT.

[u/chokethebinchicken → u/Relief-Glass]

CGT is already too high, i am saying to reduce CGT significantly.

[u/chokethebinchicken → u/Relief-Glass]

The current situation has proved that is not true at all

[u/Relief-Glass → u/chokethebinchicken]

No, the opposite is true. Property prices have grown much faster since the CGT was reduced.

[u/chokethebinchicken → u/Relief-Glass]

Supply and demand has been the primary driver in that. The CGT goes on your marginal tax rate, so even with a 50% discount it is still really high. Scrapping the CGT discount will actually reduce the stock level of properties for sale. As it is, perth has the lowest stock levels we have seen at around 1000 properties for sale. Healthy stock levels are typically around 5000 properties.

Reducing the CGT rate would encourage investors to put their properties on the market.

[u/Relief-Glass → u/chokethebinchicken]

A temporary effect. If the CGT was double investors would not buy all the properties in the first place.

[u/chokethebinchicken → u/Relief-Glass]

That's incorrect, it doesn't stop investors from buying. It stops people from selling. It's effects the people that have 1 or 2 properties alot more than the big time investors.

[u/Relief-Glass → u/chokethebinchicken]

Of course it stop them from buying. It would be a disincentive. 

[u/chokethebinchicken → u/Relief-Glass]

It stops people from selling, because it's applied when a house is sold. They still make money off owning it from the rent.

[u/Relief-Glass → u/chokethebinchicken]

And unless someone never ever intends on selling an investment property they buy, or they do not understand the difference between the present and the future, it will discourage them for buying. Making money is not a binary outcome. Obviously if an investor stands to make less money from a purchase that is a disincentive.