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.
Our main email newsletter, Tenant News is sent once every two months. You can subscribe or update your subscription preferences for any of our email newsletters here.
See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
We love sharing the news and hope you find it informative! We're very happy to deliver it for free, but if you find it valuable, can you help cover the extra costs incurred by making a donation?
Archive
New pilot sees real estate agents partner with case workers to help find secure homes for victim-survivors
Isabella Ross ABC (No paywall)When Maya left a violent home and sought safety in a women's refuge alongside her young daughter, she never foresaw her child being removed from her care. Now, nine months on, she is rebuilding her life and hoping to regain custody — thanks in part to securing stable housing. Maya, whose name has been changed for safety reasons, said she experienced domestic violence from the father of her child, amid the throes of addiction. "All we'd ever known is to sell drugs and take drugs … [It was] a very unhealthy and toxic relationship that was just spiralling."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-22/real-estate-agent-help-do…
# Australia, Domestic violence, Rent.Housing is a human right, not a business activity. It’s time for Australia’s laws to reflect that
Kevin Bell The Guardian (No paywall)Housing is a human right, but our laws do not reflect that. This failure has helped drive us into a housing disaster, where homes are treated as commodities rather than as the foundation of human dignity. The housing system in Australia is failing because it is designed for profit, not people. It encourages us to treat housing as a business activity rather than as a means of meeting fundamental human needs. I grew up in public housing in Moorabbin in south-east Melbourne in the 1950s and 60s.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/25/housing-hu…
# Must read Australia, .Rent changes on way for hundreds of social housing recipients following government review
Jack McKay ABC (No paywall)The Queensland government has identified property owners who are social housing recipients, as well as dozens of public tenants earning more than the income limit. The LNP announced in June that it would begin annual rental reviews for social housing tenants to determine if they complied with eligibility rules. Since July 1, the Housing Department has begun more than 2,000 reviews, including 1,423 that have already been completed.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-26/qld-rent-changes-social-h…
# Australia, Public and community housing.Eight tried-and-tested ways to tackle a housing crisis
Rebecca Roke Architecture AU (No paywall)Amassing more than 20 years of exemplary projects, the recent Housing Actions symposium raised eight key strategies as to how we might approach the complexity and scale of Australia’s decades-long housing crisis. In response to the complexity and scale of Australia’s decades-long housing crisis, MUL’s focus on strategic interventions recognises the value of a careful, methodical approach tested in existing settings, developed in partnership with public and government bodies, and refined through a triangulation of research, teaching and practice.
https://architectureau.com/articles/eight-tried-and-tested-ways-…
# Research alert Australia, .Queensland’s ‘anti-social’ housing policy is a disgraceful attack on homeless people
Tabitha Lean, Debbie Kilroy and Brigitte Hunt Crikey (No paywall)From July 1, the Liberal Queensland government began a quiet purge. Under the guise of promoting “safe and peaceful neighbourhoods”, it launched a new anti-social behaviour policy that threatens to evict public housing tenants and cancel their social housing applications — while also banning them from reapplying for social housing for two years — if they are deemed to have breached “zero tolerance” standards for behaviour deemed “dangerous and/or illegal”.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2025/08/21/queenslands-anti-social-hou…
# Australia, .Growing divide between homeowners and renters in Australia
7 News (No paywall)Renters in Australia are facing increasing challenges, including long wait times for urgent repairs, mould, and structural defects in rental properties. Landlords are often slow to address these issues, and renters are hesitant to raise concerns due to fears of eviction or rent increases.
# Video Australia, Eviction, Rent, Repairs.Banned NDIS provider Sanjay Parasher tried to evict sick widow over $40k dispute
Julie Cross Daily Telegraph (Paywall)A flashy millionaire who has been banned from the NDIS once threatened to evict a disabled widow unless she paid him $40,000 after authorities froze taxpayer-funded payments to him while they investigated invoices from his company. Eventually some of the public money was released but a number of invoices were refused because the NDIS payment integrity team found them to be “non-compliant”. High-flying podiatrist Sanjay Parasher and his companies – the Australian Health Company and the Foot Specialist Australia – were recently banned from treating NDIS participants for three years.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/health/guides/ndis/banned-ndis…
# Australia, Eviction.Man at centre of NDIS property scheme accused of lavish spending despite having assets frozen by Federal Court
Jessica Longbottom, Ben Schneiders, Lesley Robertson and Dylan Welch ABC (No paywall)The Gold Coast businessman accused of gambling tens of millions of dollars earmarked to build homes for the country's most disabled has allegedly continued to spend lavishly despite the Federal Court freezing his assets. David McWilliams is the owner of the ALAMMC group of companies, which were marketed to investors as building accommodation for people with profound disabilities under the NDIS. However, after raising more than $92 million from hundreds of investors to build developments across the country, ASIC alleges Mr McWilliams spent much of it on things including gambling, luxury cars and a Fijian resort development.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-26/david-mcwilliams-alammc-s…
# Hot topic Australia, .