In a wealthy country like Australia, everyone should have a good, affordable place to call home.
But right now Australia is in the middle of a massive housing affordability crisis.
Rents have increased seven times faster than wages over the last year, while millions remain locked out of the housing market, waitlists for public housing skyrocket, and hundreds of thousands remain on the brink of eviction. Meanwhile the government is failing to invest in even basic maintenance for existing public housing.
Labor’s housing plan will literally see the housing affordability crisis get worse. There is currently a shortage of 520,000 public homes across Australia, and that shortage will increase by 70,000 to 590,000 in the next five years. Labor has proposed to partially fund the construction of 20,000 public and community homes over five years, which means their plan won’t even match the increase in need.
The Greens are fighting for the millions of people Labor’s plan leaves behind, struggling to pay the rent or buy a house, stuck on waitlists, or homeless.
Our key demands in exchange for our support for Labor's bill are:
- Build 275,000 well designed public and community homes over the next five years
- Introduce a national 2 year rent freeze as part of new national tenancy standards
- Invest $5 billion in maintenance and upgrades for existing public housing, to improve accessibility, energy efficiency, and ensure better heating and cooling
- Introduce minimum design standards for all new public, community and affordable housing to ensure nation leading architectural, energy efficiency and accessibility standards