‘BUILD TO RENT’ SCHEME DEMOLISHES COMMUNITIES
MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 18, 2024
‘BUILD TO RENT’ SCHEME DEMOLISHES COMMUNITIES
While the government’s Build To Rent bill proposes to put more money in the hands of speculative housing investors and building conglomerates, governments across the country continue their plans to tear down and sell off public housing.
Iconic public infrastructure that has stood for generations – like the Waterloo Estate in Sydney, once considered such an achievement that in 1977, Queen Elizabeth II attended the opening ceremony – will soon be demolished and sold off to profit driven developers.
However, similarly aged buildings in and around Sydney’s CBD – such as the famed MLC Centre, or the now luxury ex-state owned Sirius Apartments – have mysteriously escaped demolition, instead receiving complete refurbishments amounting to hundreds of millions.
Now not only will these brutal “redevelopments” displace thousands of people from what should be rent controlled homes, they will also transfer all assets and authority over to the malevolent not-for-profit sector.
While the comments from federal LNP members denouncing the Build To Rent bill as “a thinly veiled attempt to corporatise the Australian housing market” may seem positive for renters, they are simply falling in line with conservative tradition of locking Australians into home ownership, turning every family into “little capitalists” in order to smash the labour movement. We won’t be surprised when the LNP calls to scrap subsidised rentals all together.
The Renters And Housing Union demand that the Federal Government legislate:
- Affordable housing be based on income rather than market, where rent can not be more than 30% of income.
- No grounds evictions be abolished in every state and territory.
- Rent increases be frozen for 24 months.
- Future rent increases be capped to the increase in minimum wage.
- Public housing be built until the housing waiting list is empty.
Quote attributable to: Flora Smith – RAHU member, long time renter
“The private market has demonstrated again and again that it will not solve the housing crisis. Private equity is determined to continually chase profits, and the market is rife with short stay rentals, and out-of-reach luxury apartments geared towards speculation. In this country housing is treated as an investment, instead of a human right. Every day tens of thousands of people experience housing insecurity, because the Albanese government is gambling with our future.”
SPOKESPEOPLE
Harry Millward, Secretary
Alex Johann, Research and Policy Coordinator
RAHU Media and Communications
0437 227 463
[email protected]
You can read and download this whole statement online here. (517KB PDF)
