Housing News Digest
Housing News Digest
The Tenants' Union Housing News Digest compiles our pick of items from all the latest tenancy and housing media, sent once per week, on Thursdays.
Below is the Digest archive from November 2020 onwards. From time to time you will find additional items in the archive that did not make it into the weekly Digest email. Earlier archives are here, where you can also find additional digests by other organisations.
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Archive
Queensland solar program aims to reduce power bills for renters
Rachel Stewart ABC (No paywall)A solar panel rebate program for Queensland rental properties announced by the LNP more than a year ago will roll out by the end of the year, aiming to save renters up to $700 a year on power bills. The state government's $26 million program will run over three years and offer grants of up to $3,500 for landlords towards the installation of solar on rental properties. The "cost-of-living relief" subsidy was an election promise made by the LNP in March last year ahead of the state election, which the party went on to win in October.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-07/queensland-solar-program-…
# Hot topic Australia, .Rent-to-buy scheme to make home ownership a reality on Palm Island
Lily Nothling ABC (No paywall)Leon Coutts has lived in the same three-bedroom home his entire life. "There's a lot of memories — it's Christmases, its birthdays," the Bwgcolman man said. "I could never imagine living anywhere else." The 49-year-old carpenter's father moved into the house on north Queensland's Palm Island in the late 1970s. But the family never had the option to purchase their own home. Of the island's 480 properties only one is privately owned. Everyone else lives in state-run social housing.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-06/indigenous-home-ownership…
# Must read Australia, Aboriginal renters, Public and community housing.Women-only support service helps former prisoners return to community
Rachael Merritt ABC (No paywall)After spending three months in prison, Sarah's transition back to community life and motherhood was nothing short of difficult. "To come from being in prison to back out in society … you're wanting to do the right thing," she said. "I struggled a little bit … especially with housing." Sarah, whose name in this story has been changed, was released from an Adelaide prison earlier this year. It is an increasingly vulnerable time for women, according to advocates, as they struggle with the stigma of their time spent behind bars and join growing waiting lists for social and affordable housing.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-03/support-for-women-transit…
# Must read, Hot topic Australia, .Stressed, scared, overwhelmed: the election issues weighing on young Australian voters
Rafqa Touma and Ima Caldwell The Guardian (No paywall)“There is a general sense – it sounds melodramatic – of, well, the world is ending, we have no way to deal with that, so we are just going to get on with life,” Axel says. The 25-year-old is describing a feeling shared by his friends in their mid-20s. “I know that I need to prepare for the future but also it doesn’t feel like there is much of a point … when we don’t know what the impact of climate change is going to be in five years’ time, let alone 10; we don’t know if the wealth gap is going to keep getting deeper, if I am ever going to be anything more than very stressed working class. “Why wouldn’t I just spend my time doing things I love with people I love?”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/apr/09/australia…
# Must read Australia, .The Brisbane nanny: ‘I had my rent under control, but now they are raising it’
Joe Hinchliffe The Guardian (No paywall)Holli Brunckhorst’s rent is about to go up again. The 23-year-old nanny believes her budget can probably absorb another rise. Brunckhorst is quite certain, however, that her studio apartment in Windsor, above a six-lane highway that runs like a spine down the seat of Brisbane, is not worth what she will soon be paying for it. The roar of the road resounds through her apartment block’s communal balcony, which looks south towards the city’s towers, beyond the service station below and past a tangle of toll roads and busways.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/apr/10/the-brisb…
# Must read Australia, Rent.Queensland Rail transforms old crew quarters into affordable housing
7 News ()Queensland Rail is transforming its old crew quarters into affordable housing for vulnerable women. The initiative aims to address the growing issue of homelessness, particularly among women over 55, who are at a higher risk of homelessness, especially those fleeing domestic violence. The first site is set to open by Christmas.
https://7news.com.au/news/queensland-rail-transforms-old-crew-qu…
# Hot topic Australia, Domestic violence.Thousands in Spain join nationwide march to protest against housing crisis
Stephen Burgen The Guardian (No paywall)Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Spain in the latest protest against housing speculation and to demand access to affordable homes. Organisers claim that up to 150,000 joined the protest in Madrid while smaller demonstrations were held in about 40 cities across the country. Protesters from Málaga on the Costa del Sol to Vigo in the Atlantic northwest chanted “end the housing racket” and “landlords are guilty, the government is responsible”. Valeria Racu, a spokesperson for the Madrid tenants’ union, called for rent strikes such as those mounted recently in some Catalan coastal towns.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/05/spain-protest-marc…
# Must read International, Rent.And the award for zero self-awareness goes to second-home owners raging about higher taxes
Gaby Hinsliff The Guardian (No paywall)Should you have the world’s tiniest violin to hand, prepare to play it. This week, English councils gain the power to double council tax on second homes, and the holiday-cottage-owning classes are fuming. “Nothing but a racket,” thundered the Daily Telegraph, dismissing a supposedly “vindictive” raid on weekenders that was (gasp) “socialist” to boot. Its Sunday sister paper further tugged on readers’ heartstrings with tales of homeowners who had inherited a second place somewhere lovely from their parents, and bridled at being asked to pay a few thousand pounds more a year to keep it in the family. In the Times, a retired barrister who felt forced to give up the seaside pad she had bought in her mother’s native St Davids complained of the tax “destroying generations of community-building”, as though houses sitting empty all winter were the one thing really guaranteed to bring a thriving community together. To which one can only say: people, learn to read a room(s). You’ve certainly got enough of them.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/01/zero-self-…
# Must read International, .