Labor can’t lead the fight for housing because its policies have helped create the problem. Sam Wainwright argues that winning requires a vision for systemic change, including defending and extending public housing and strengthening protections for tenants.
Capital gains tax
MPs from both major parties have absorbed an investor–style thinking, even towards public housing. Andrew Chuter argues that naïve economic theories of supply and demand will not fix the homelessness problem.
Sydney may be in the grip of an apartment boom, but the construction of thousands of units across the city has done little to put a lid on rents, according to an analysis of the latest rental data.
Apartment living became more expensive in Sydney in the year to September 2016, after rent increases in all but three of the city's local government areas, according to the NSW Tenants' Union Rent Tracker report.
Tenants' Union advocacy and research officer Leo Patterson Ross said: "Apartment rents are growing faster than house rents at the moment."