It Isn’t Trickling Down: Housing Stability set to further crash in 2020 Budget
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 07.10.2020
The Federal government has the capacity to provide “unprecedented support”. Instead, the rich get tax cuts, the public sector remains scrapped and our future is mortgaged.
Millions of renters are now unemployed, in insecure work and on the brink of homelessness, with unemployment set to further increase before the year’s end. Nothing could demonstrate more clearly the need for public housing to be part of the Covid-19 economic recovery.
The federal government announced $98 billion in tax cuts and business bailouts compared to a measly $3bn funding for all community housing. 31% of Australia’s population rent their homes, an increase of 51% since the last recession. Over 140,600 applicants were on the 10+ year waiting list for public housing in Australia in June 2018, and is significantly growing.
Treasurer Josh Frydenburg boasted about economic recovery, yet housing affordability remains out of reach. Frydenburg stated that property owners will have “more of their own money to spend”, but for millions of renters such measures will bring little relief.
Quotes attributable to: RAHU Members and Renters
We will continue to fall into privatised collapse without significant funding in public housing. The COVID19 crisis has shown us the necessity of stable and affordable housing for all. – Eirene Tsolidis Noyce, Secretary RAHU
Nothing in the budget made 1 in 3 households feel safe. So many of us are renters: we got no spending or stability. – Mitch Alexander, RAHU Member & Renter
More money for the wealthy through the ideological fallacy of trickle down economics – will not create jobs or stimulate economic growth. – Paddy Gordon, RAHU Media Officer, Renter
This budget means another year of reaching into superannuation, and relying on unregulated loans to cover essentials. How can we plan our lives while we’re below the poverty line? – Jesse James Frances, RAHU Media Officer
J.R. Hewitt
Media and Communications Officer
Contact: [email protected]
The Renters And Housing Union (RAHU) is Australia’s largest member-run Union of renters and people in precarious housing. We collectively organise for the right to safe and secure housing through self-advocacy, education, and frontline eviction defence.
Find out more and join RAHU https://rahu.org.au/