This week NSW heads into a tougher lockdown. For many renting households, especially renters who are casual workers, this is going to have a significant impact on their income and ability to make rent and cover other essentials. In this blog, we run through in more detail the support package for renting households that was announced last week.

The Tenants Union of NSW, with the NSW Council of Social Services (NCOSS) and Homelessness NSW, have written to Premier Berejiklian and Treasurer Perrottet, asking them to ensure measures are in place to support the most vulnerable during the current lockdown. “It’s really important that the restriction on forcing people to move is seen as part of the health response. It is entirely avoidable. We can and should be preventing people from being evicted or made financially desperate and forced by that to move during lockdown.”

We don’t only need to talk about the relationship between tenants and landlords – we also need to talk about the landlords themselves. A key flaw exposed through the response to COVID‑19 is the profile of those who act as landlords in Australia. They are heavily indebted. They are mostly without training or expertise. As a result, they were scared and desperate and clinging firmly to the one power dynamic they felt they had control over. The need for a more compassionate response to tenants was as apparent to everyone as were the barriers.

"Isn’t there supposed to be a ban on evictions at the moment?"

Two weeks ago Prime Minister Scott Morrison, following a meeting of national cabinet, announced states and territories had agreed to put a moratorium on evictions for the next six months for people in financial distress, unable to meet their rental commitments. Local Tenants Advice and Advocacy Services have been flooded with calls the last few weeks from people seeking advice in the context of the COVID19 health crisis.

There’s a lot of phrases being used at the moment to describe some kind of change to the way we’ve gotten used to renting happening in Australia. People are discussing all sorts of ways for government to step in. Some of these phrases though, might not mean what people think they do.

Negative gearing remains a major issue for tenants - we've written more than 50 articles about it! This article has been one of the most widely read over the last few years, and now we've updated the data. In summary: negative gearing does not cause an individual landlord to charge less rent; negative gearing does not create net additional rental housing; negative gearing has contributed to more higher-income households renting; negative gearing has contributed to low-value properties dropping out of the rental market.

The Federal ALP conference is happening in Adelaide at the moment, and one of the big early announcements was a plan to build a lot of 'affordable' housing. This can probably be treated as the first big housing announcement of the coming election campaign. It has been met with near-rapturous support from community housing providers and their supporters, like the Everybody's Home campaign. Others, like ACOSS have been more circumspect. And some on twitter have raised some concerns. Let's dig in to what the policy is, and what we might expect to deliver.

Everybody's Home is a new campaign by a coalition of organisations in the housing and community sectors. The campaign will bring national attention to reforms urgently needed to fix Australia’s housing system. The TU is happy to be supporting this campaign aimed at improving housing for everyone, including renters.