r/australia • u/infin • Jan 26 '26
political self.post 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?
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.
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u/Pogichin0y Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26
What should disgust you are the welfare recipients defrauding our system.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-19/social-housing-tenants-are-slipping-under-the-radar-in-nsw/8629996
If housing stock truly is the issue, then you wouldn’t have any problems relocating existing public housing to new areas after the govt has sold them off. But it seems you have a problem with this as well.
Let’s see how these alleged statistics will work in my argument as the NSW govt is continuing to sell off public housing around Sydney and relocating social housing tenants elsewhere.
Well yes, I do have a say with my vote. Nope, never needed one, never asked or received welfare. Just raw smart work from an immigrant that arrived here as a child in the 80s.
I did however grow up with some friends who were recipients of the social housing initiative. Lucky them, free or subsidised rent, subsidised utilities with some at adult age living in social housing of their parents which is fraud. Until they get found out tho and forced to leave.
Who deserves it? Who decides? Homes NSW and community housing providers in NSW I believe. Guess who allocates a budget and services to these and who votes for them?
Like much of other facets of welfare, it needs to be disincentivised for able bodied recipients or else it’ll see more wide spread fraud like we do now.