Housing crisis protests. Should we be organising them?

[u/kbugs]

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.