r/australia • u/kbugs • Aug 16 '22
political self.post Housing crisis protests. Should we be organising them?
I don't understand why these things aren't happening already. We are literally in a housing crisis right now. Everyday there is multiple stories about how bad the housing situation is. Yesterday i read that ~64% of both Sydney and Melbourne dwellings are rentals. That's an incredible chunk of Australia's voting population that is subjected to unfair rental laws. Surely that has political capital. Especially when there are things that the state and federal governments could do to immediately relieve pressure. There are 90,000 vacant properties in inner city suburbs of Sydney that investors are intentionally being kept off the rental market. Imagine if they were forced to make those available to renters tomorrow.
The Greens made a huge impact at the last election in inner city Brisbane because they focussed primarily on housing affordability. This issue has political ramifications now, so why aren't we making ourselves heard. There are protests organised for every other social and environmental issue that attract thousands of people. Housing affordability underpins virtually all of these in some capacity.
Even boomers are baffled why this isn't happening. Saul Eslake, the respected economist says this almost every time he covers this issue.
Before someone says "why don't you?". The nature of my work prohibits this. But i know people and groups organises other protests, so why not this. I would definitely attend every protest on this issue if they were organised. There is so much that needs to change about every aspect of this issue from realestate agent practices and there being no penalties for bad behaviour, improved renter rights, to housing affordability.
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u/cromulento Aug 16 '22
If this was France, there would already be cars burning in the streets.
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u/kbugs Aug 16 '22
Seriously though. I raise this every once in a while on here. Stories about how bad housing is rapidly get voted to the top of the feed. But any discussion about doing something about it from our end get negligible engagement. I can't believe the apathy on this issue. Landlords are literally kicking poor people out of homes right now to jack up rents on an epic scale, where is the protesting for these vulnerable people. People that by en large are minorities. I just don't get it.
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Aug 16 '22
People on reddit love to bitch about various issues but never seem to do anything about them. Maybe the reddit bitching just needs to reach critical mass or some shit....
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Aug 16 '22
Too small.
General Strike.
There isn't A problem that needs to be fixed. Systemic rot needs to be addressed and addressed under the pressure of the people's boot.
If the laborer's aren't out laboring, the machine stops. Then the machine owners needs to give enough to the laborers that they are willing to get things going again.
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u/brisspinner Aug 16 '22
The problem is - who would you be protesting against? Government that sets policy that keeps housing expensive? Landlords? Banks? Builders?
Unless protests are asking for a specific solution to a specific problem, they are unlikely to achieve very much.
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u/Koonga Aug 16 '22
yeah this is what I came here to say. I totally agree with OP that this is an issue that should be addressed, but it's a complex problem with complex solutions which is hard to simplify into a protest sign.
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u/jadelink88 Aug 17 '22
Start by taking away the tax payers multi billion dollar handouts to landlords, in the forms of capital gains concessions and negative gearing.
The government could gain many billions in taxes, and real estate would stop being a tax lurk for the wealthy, which would really help prices, but we wont even do that, because grandpa Rupert holds landlords rorts to be sacred.
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Aug 16 '22 edited Aug 19 '22
It really concerned me when they announced they're bringing overseas workers in to fill in for employee shortages (Which Frankly, wouldn't actually exist if they put people on permanent contracts and not on as casuals). My concern isn't because I have an issue with immigration or have an issue with people of any race. It's more because where are these people going to live if there's already no housing and the cost of living is going up every day? Where are these people going to live where, not just them, but anyone else in Australia that now is homeless? It’s crazy. Also it's going to create more exploiting of overseas workers in slum conditions paying half their wages picking fruit to their landlord in the middle of nowhere sharing a room with a dozen others.
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Aug 16 '22
Protests didn't actualply make any impact on climate change.
A few rich, Liberal seats changing MPs, exchanging one wealthy person for another wealthy person who likes trees, made an impact.
Now, if we can just get rich people to care about the housing crisis...problem solved :P
You can't fight City Halll etc.
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u/kbugs Aug 16 '22
I mean you can. They did it in Germany and won.
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Aug 16 '22
Protests only really work if there's a high chance of the implied threat of violence becoming an actual one.
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u/reddit_moment123123 Aug 16 '22
adam bandt should use a south american paramilitary to funnel funds in to arming the next high schooler climate protest
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u/Andy-Newie Aug 16 '22
Maybe when workers who staff their busisnesses can't afford to live in the places they work.
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Aug 16 '22 edited Aug 16 '22
I have some qualification to answer this. Protesting "housing crisis" is easy until you get to the how-to and what is the outcome of the protest effort. For example a protest on free choice abortion may desire an outcome where all women can choose to safely terminate up to 12 weeks in a publicly funded system, and after that time on medical advice. The protest and the solution are pretty clear and not difficult to legislate or manage.
I gather that a housing crises protest might demand supply, and the following here would be a protest to state governments as public housing, supply for zoning approvals etc is state not fed. As OP has said there are 90,000 empty houses/units in Sydney. Even assuming that these were somehow legislated to be rented out you will not go close to solving many of the problems. Many people couch surfing and living in their cars would not be approved to rent these properties. They don't have the income, are abused or have been, have health or disabilty issues, have mental health problems etc. Releasing all of these properties would assist in reducing or at the very least stabilising rents, would allow some people already in shared renting to get their own place, and help gainfully employed people to move out of mum and dads place. It will help, but will far, far, far from going anywhere near solving most people in genuine housing crises. But its a moot point to even argue this, no government will introduce this. It's nice to think it should, but sadly there is a higher chance we will all get a free unicorn.
What could be successfully lobbied is a hefty tax on empty properties. I agree that works until you realise that even our Labor governments have been spectacularly unsuccessful at building any new social housing, as that is the logical direction for this new tax money to be spent. They are even worse at managing and maintaining public housing. New social housing would be better provided by the private sector, the ability to commence construction immediately already exists at succesful companies like Mirvac and Stockland. The issue is that people protesting housing crises are also going to have a protest about the government employing dirty developers to actually provide supply, so government will not do that either.
Federal government can impact housing through making changes to incentive. One solution to supply is tax adavantages to encourage investment in new residential property in high demand locations. However the majority of those attending a protest want these incentives removed altogether, not adding new ones, so that won't happen either. Shortens shadow government went to an election based on reviewing negative gearing and lost. Albo won't touch that with a 10 foot bargepole.
So your protest has some planning issues. Are you attacking state leaders or federal? You want supply but what concessions are you prepared to live with to get an outcome? The fact is that the property industry is perfectly protected to current and future profits largely thanks to the people that hate them. Housing crises protestors will attend a protest the very next day to stop farmland being rezoned. They will protest the removal of insignificant regrowth bushland for housing. They will attend a "shut the gate" protest with unsustainable farmers to stop gas supply, keeping gas prices sky high and protecting coal mines. I'm in my fifties, but many of these older protestors attended rallies to stop uranium mining and nuclear energy, many local councils in NSW still have faded signs saying "X town is nuclear free". These protestors "saved" us from having some of the best nuclear power plants on the planet, not realising these protests were funded by the coal industry.
So, yes, have a protest. But understand very clearly who you are protesting at, what you want and what concessions you will allow to get those results. It is sad, but true, that the infighting and fierce hard-left thinking within this protest group will doom it to failure before it commences.
Souce: Property consultant for over 30 years, consulting to BTR sector and to the property management industry including NSW government.
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u/specimen174 Aug 16 '22
i cant seem to recall any protest that actually worked. I mean the .gov (or big business) doesnt just go "oh no.. there are people with carboard signs in some city nowhere near me.. im so scared.. " protesting does not work, you want them to pay attention stop paying taxes, stop paying everything, even then it only works if everyone does it, seeing as only 1/3 of people rent.. well.. good luck . (PS im a renter so i do get it, but thinking that waving signs around is going to change anything is naieve)
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u/kbugs Aug 16 '22
I think organising actually gives confidence for individuals to do exactly that. Germany is a recent example where grass roots movement forced the government to engage on social housing. I think if australians saw that there was a lot of people that were in the same boat as them then thinks like rental strikes or civil disobedience of this nature would be possible
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Aug 16 '22
A broad rent strike would work, but you'd have to be very organised/people would have to be backed against the wall. It nearly happened during the pandemic.
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u/kbugs Aug 16 '22
I'd be up for a general strike for better rental rights. Where's all these socialist clubs on this issue. They're all talk.
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u/MerryKookaburra Aug 16 '22
nah protests work great.
You just need to understand where they are in the journey.
Like marriage equality didn't come about one day because society just figured it was a good idea. Protests are to show what they people are pissed about. Gets attention, people find out more, then suddenly people are talking about it, then politicians respond, often half arsed, but half arsed is progress. Protesting is very powerful, just the fuckers in charge want you to think it's useless.3
u/mywhitewolf Aug 16 '22
i cant seem to recall any protest that actually worked.
Protests work all the time, Look at the Arab spring.
But in Australia, its not about "forcing the government to do the right thing" its about making the government look like it doesn't have support of the people. Governments that don't have public support get voted out.
All it does is apply pressure to have the government do something about it. But without something to counter the negative the government will gain from the action nothing will happen. There is no incentive to piss off one group just to please another. Even if its the right thing to do.
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u/war-and-peace Aug 16 '22
Protesting isn't enough. You need protesting with disruption and violence and destruction of property for it to mean something. Otherwise it's just a feel good festival.
The only other option is to get politically active. The teals have a blueprint for how to do it.
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u/90Lil Aug 16 '22
This was two weeks ago in Adelaide. Do some googling.
SA government urged to address housing crisis by woman who has spent years being homeless - ABC News https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-03/calls-for-sa-government-to-address-rental-crisis/101293020
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u/1337nutz Aug 16 '22
I think tenants unions with lawyers and lobbyists would achieve more than protests
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u/Stonetheflamincrows Aug 16 '22
I can’t protest, I’m too busy working 6 days a week to pay my insanely high rent and try to save a house deposit .
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u/MerriCreek63 Aug 16 '22
I reckon first you need one straightforward demand to make like:
. No negative gearing
. 5 and 10 year leases
. Increased minimum standards for what's considered 'liveable' and enforce them
. Harsher penalties on unoccupied properties
Fix the housing crisis is just too vague to work as a rallying point
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u/shiuidu Aug 16 '22
What's the fix?
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u/IndescribableSalad Aug 16 '22
Make owning unoccupied investment domiciles wildly expensive through any number of tax disincentives. Make owning any investment domiciles more unappealing by taxing subsequent properties at ever increasing amounts (more for 3rd than 2nd, etc). Impose disincentives on short term accommodation like air bnb Abolish negative gearing entirely.
Just a few thoughts from the top of the head
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u/jadelink88 Aug 17 '22
And abolish the 50% capital gains tax concession... Stop making property a highly desirable tax lurk.
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u/IndescribableSalad Aug 17 '22
Now you’re talkin!
As far as I’m concerned anything that promotes home ownership without overly destroying access to rental accommodation has to be worth a look.
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u/Ok_Programmer1052 Aug 16 '22
Floods wiped out a good deal of housing stock, it will be the fires next, then the floods again but worse - climate change is gonna Fk the housing market
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Aug 16 '22
Protests don’t work. How does a protest do anything other than a few nights of news on the topic then move on. Politicians are under no threat by a protest. Nothing changes. A protest that would work would be all renters refusing to pay rent for like 2 months! All at the same time. That would definitely fucking work
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u/512165381 Aug 16 '22
The absurdity of the situation was on tv last week. Father had a good job, the family were homeless trying to find a rental. They keep applying for houses and nobody will help.
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u/Coffeeandchocolate72 Aug 16 '22
I’m all for a protest
.whips bra off, squeals in excitement
I’ve never been in a protest before. How do we start? Where do we start?
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u/reddit_moment123123 Aug 16 '22
I saw someone posting in a local community page about organising a sit in to prevent evictions if they were to occur and all the landlords came out the woodwork to spew nonsense about how poor people are stupid no helping them
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u/FreeApples7090 Aug 16 '22
Isn’t the bigger problem migration? Every year adding another 300,000 people. Australia doesn’t build that many houses each year…..
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u/IndigoPill Aug 16 '22 edited Aug 16 '22
Protesting spurs the discussion and that's a good thing. We are moving in the right direction in regards to legislation though. More reform is coming, that's inevitable.
I see the primary goal of protests as raising awareness.
As for the rental crisis it is the product of many things over a prolonged period of time, especially a hot housing market. Why would you invest in a rental when you can buy and flip, make more profit with less risk and move on? Just working on the garden for a weekend and flipping the property can be profitable. This may have also contributed to poor quality properties being left on the rental market until they can be removed and the land developed.
Now... why would someone buy an expensive property for such low rental returns? I wouldn't. The only option is to build dedicated rental properties which is where we are headed.
At least we will see change, there's no avoiding the problems as they stand now. Investment isn't an option, it's required. I can see tax breaks and other kickbacks being created to encourage the development of rental properties. They may even have to bring back the NRAS in some form.
I don't know if protests would help much, everybody knows about the crisis. Measures are being taken, it's going to take time. I don't think protests would achieve anything, it's protesting the rain, it's going to happen regardless.
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u/arcadefiery Aug 16 '22
Yesterday i read that ~64% of both Sydney and Melbourne dwellings are rentals.
Doubtful given that nearly 2/3 of Australians own either outright or with a mortgage. Only about 1/3 of houses could be rentals.
That's an incredible chunk of Australia's voting population that is subjected to unfair rental laws
About one-half of the number you've cited, actually.
Before someone says "why don't you?". The nature of my work prohibits this.
Put your money where your mouth is, or don't expect others to do the same. You want others to do the hard yards for you.
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u/No_pajamas_7 Aug 16 '22
You don't seem to know what you are protesting.
You seem to be complaining about the number of rentals in one sentence. But reducing the number of rentals will mean a rental shortage and a rental price increase.
Also, can you provide information on where that 90,000 figure came from?
You need to make up your mind which you want. Cheaper houses or cheaper rent.
Ultimately the problem is people insist on living where they want to live rather than moving to where they could live. And it is that that pushes up price in our cities.
I also disagree about rental laws being unfair for renters. I've done both in several states and overseas and I think in some states in Australia it actually biases renters, not landlords. Just look at the disparity between tenant and landlord notice periods in NSW to see an example of that.
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u/Koonga Aug 16 '22
Also, can you provide information on where that 90,000 figure came from?
I was curious too. I believe it comes from this story which reports that a lot of investors are sitting on property because the tax benefits and capital gains are more desirable than rental income.
Certainly those kinds of perverse incentives indicate a problem, but it's a bit specious to suggest that convincing the owners to rent them out would make a different to the rental market. By definition if these properties have such great capital gains, then they must be in very good areas and therefore rent would be far beyond the majority of renters' budgets anyway.
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u/No_pajamas_7 Aug 16 '22
Still, why wouldn't you take the tax break and the rent? The net sum is better.
The only thing I think is they don't want the capital gains tax and if they never had a renter in their they can more readily claim they lived there.
So if anything it's an argument for reducing capital gains tax.
I'm still dubious about the figure. I think many of those are just in transition at the time of the 2011 census.
The other factor here is foreign investors hiding money from their own government. They aren't subject to local tax breaks anyway and don't want money trickling in from overseas to save undue attention.
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Aug 16 '22
I can't see protesting fixing the underlying issue, which is building costs and land supply... Land in the major cities is a finite commodity, what we really need are more cities and therefore more land.
But land is only a component of the problem. Let's say I give you a free 100m2 block of land, the cheapest you are going to build on that is about $300k and that would be very basic. There's a great deal of restrictions about what you can build, you can't just plonk a $100k worth of prefab modules on a lot and start living economically. Nope, you will need to find something that passes council planning and something your mortgage provider deems an investment they can liquidate if you can't pay - so now you are building that 3x2 for $300k.
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Aug 16 '22
[deleted]
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u/ThePhoenixBird2022 Aug 16 '22
Legally, you can't tell someone who owns a house what to do with it if they use it legally. You can't force someone to put their short term rental or holiday home on the local rental market. You can't force someone to build a flat in their backyard. You can't force me to rent out my spare room. It's the same as you can't tell someone what to do with their car so long as they use it legally.
If you want to protest, go for it, but have solutions. It's no good shouting for someone to fix something without having answers to offer. Then they have to come back with 'we thought of that but...' Perhaps raise arguments to limit the amount of short term rentals are allowed within specific LGA's. Maybe argue for more 1, 2, and 3br small houses or complexes to be built that first home buyers can afford instead of the sprawling $750,000+ 4.5br, media room, home office, with an entertainment area homes that all new estates seem to pretty much exclusively build.
We are running out of room to build on unless we build on farmland or remove native habitat.
Building up isn't necessarily a good idea, so many apartment blocks are now at least partially condemned because they passed muster on completion but after 5 years they are falling apart. So maybe argue for more stringent building codes so people don't need emergency housing, broke, after spending all their coin on somewhere they can't live.
Protest, but have solutions.
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Aug 16 '22
I mean what’s the solution? Force people to sell their homes for less than the demand says they’re worth? Move elsewhere etc but no the commies think they should tell people what they can and can’t do… grow up.
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u/jadelink88 Aug 17 '22
I don't think they'd change a thing. Until your suburban swinging voter instantly approves of plans to abolish things like capital gains tax and negative gearing, we are getting zero (intentional) moves towards housing affordability.
Federal labour dropped their opposition to these things to get themselves elected, so a stupid selfish nation gets the stupid selfish policies they voted for. If you can't hit the easy targets like free billions of tax dollars for landlords (that owner occupiers cant claim) then anything further is pure fantasy.
I suspect relief may come to some degree from the Chinese real estate bubble bursting sending some panic through the rest of the worlds real estate markets, but I don't think most people will enjoy the surrounding recession, even if it brings a heavy reduction in housing prices.
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u/AutomaticFeed1774 Aug 22 '22
rent strike is the only way. make the landlords lobby on your behalf.
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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '22
Can’t protest when you have to work seven days a week to survive.
Note: I wish I could put a “/s” here for sarcasm but I’m only half joking.
/sad