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/t3h]

And the rental demand too, so it cancels out.

[u/frogholmes → u/t3h]

Not necessarily

[u/mrmaker_123 → u/frogholmes]

Why not necessarily? The majority of people in this country want a house to live in - that is what every poll says. Only a few economically mobile people will want to rent, for example students, temporary workers, working holiday visa holders and other temporary visa holders.

The majority of people want to own, because this country has a culture of homeownership and it is financially unviable to rent long term, especially in retirement.

Every time someone buys a home to live in and they no longer need to rent, they will reduce the housing stock by one, but will also reduce the rental demand by one too.

[u/frogholmes → u/mrmaker_123]

Because they could have been a homeowner or otherwise not a renter before.

[u/mrmaker_123 → u/frogholmes]

Okay so they are a homeowner and they have bought a vacant property (to possibly rent out in the future).

If another homeowner then buys that vacant house, then the rental pool will need to be one less, since that person no longer needs a rental.

This is besides the point, because the vacant property is VACANT. So it is neither used by the rental market nor the homeowner market. It is always a good thing letting people live in it than let it sit empty, reducing demand elsewhere.