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
'Quasi-policing powers' for new armed NT police public safety officers spark concern
Lillian Rangiah ABC (No paywall)A plan to equip Northern Territory transit and public housing safety officers with "quasi-policing powers", including to carry guns on buses, in supermarkets and public housing, has been slammed as a "deeply irresponsible escalation" that could put lives at risk. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains the name of an Indigenous person who has died, used with the permission of their family. The newly announced police public safety officers (PPSOs) are set to replace police auxiliaries, transit safety officers and public housing safety officers in the territory next year, as frontline responders to violence and aggression in public places.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-20/nt-police-public-safety-o…
# Hot topic Australia, Discrimination.We need another housing option — between isolation and communes
Feng Xue The Fifth Estate (No paywall)Intermediate housing offers affordability, flexibility and connection – if we design for real lives, not just floor plans. As Australia falls behind on its target to build 1.2 million new homes within five years, we continue to cling to a housing ideal that no longer fits the times. The image of the detached house on a quarter acre block has long defined success, but in today’s economy, that dream is not only out of reach for many — it may also be making us lonelier, less healthy, and more disconnected from the people around us.
https://thefifthestate.com.au/columns/spinifex/we-need-another-h…
# Australia, .Queensland public housing tenants to be evicted after three warnings for serious behaviour in a year
Claudia Williams ABC (No paywall)Public housing tenants in Queensland who are issued three warnings for serious behaviour in a year could be evicted under a new government policy. The new policy, which will come into effect in July, will also see tenants who are evicted for committing illegal offences banned from reapplying for two years. Housing advocates have expressed disappointment that they were not consulted by the government, and hold concerns it could lead to the most vulnerable in the community becoming homeless.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-14/queensland-public-housing…
# Australia, Public and community housing.Seniors who call Shark Bay in Western Australia home trade caravans for a house
Lina Elsaadi ABC (No paywall)Nearly everywhere in Australia is grappling with a lack of affordable housing. The small West Australian coastal hamlet of Shark Bay, with fewer than 900 residents, is no different. Bronwyn Hook has lived in the area for 11 years in a caravan. "There was nowhere else to live … I couldn't afford rent," she said. So when the state government and Shire of Shark Bay finished construction of 12 social homes for people over 60, Ms Hook could not contain her excitement. "I've got a toilet … this shower is more than twice the size of [mine]," Ms Hook said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-04/shark-bay-seniors-social-…
# Hot topic Australia, Public and community housing.Eviction is not a housing plan: Queensland Government policies are harmful and punitive
Tabitha Lean, Debbie Kilroy and Brig H Croakey Media (No paywall)The Queensland Government’s Budget, handed down this week, includes a $5.6 billion investment in social and community housing to support its plans to deliver 53,500 new social homes by 2044. While the Queensland Council of Social Service (QCOSS) welcomes the investment in social housing, the organisation calls for more detail on eligibility for social housing, and how the Government will support those on low incomes but not eligible for social housing.
https://www.croakey.org/eviction-is-not-a-housing-plan-queenslan…
# Must read, Research alert Australia, Eviction.Rent crisis: Aussies paying people to attend inspections
Lydia Kellner realestate.com.au (No paywall)Nabbing a rental property has become increasingly difficult, but some Aussies are making money by helping others attend inspections. Adam Walker, 29 from Dee Why in Sydney’s Northern beaches, has made well over $2500 since joining outsourcing company Airtasker 18 months ago, carrying out more than 50 inspections for those who can’t attend themselves. “I work in the removalist industry, so for me it’s kind of a thing I do in my downtime,” he said. “The majority of my inspections are midweek, so a Monday or a Wednesday, but there are also agents who do by appointment only where I’ll have the whole place to myself. “Depending on the client, I could take photos of the inside and the outside. I also take video from the street and entrance of the building and a detailed video of the insight of the building.”
https://www.realestate.com.au/news/rent-crisis-aussies-paying-pe…
# Australia, Starting a tenancy.Harvey Coyne is facing triple-heart bypass surgery. His social housing provider wants to evict him
Christopher Knaus The Guardian (No paywall)Sitting on his hospital bed, his voice scratchy and strained, Harvey Coyne gives a bleak insight into what will happen if he’s evicted from community housing in Perth. “Without it, I’m pretty well buggered,” Coyne says. The Noongar elder, 66, is suffering from serious ill health. He has severe heart disease, requiring a pending triple bypass surgery, and this week had another heart attack, which left him hospitalised in Perth’s Fiona Stanley hospital. Coyne has emphysema, hypertension and is blind in one eye. Earlier this year, he suffered a fall that left him with a broken hip. He was taken from his family as part of the Stolen Generations, leaving him with complex trauma. Coyne has been forced to fight another battle, too. The provider of his community housing unit in Kenwick, on the south-eastern fringes of Perth, is trying to kick him out.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jun/29/harvey-co…
# Must read Australia, Aboriginal renters, Eviction.Reality of renting in Australia: Roaches, mould, fear of eviction and rent hikes
Blair Jackson The Australian (No paywall)Twenty per cent of Australian rentals have mouldy bathrooms, a new survey has found. Research from the Australian Council of Social Service and the University of NSW has found on top of the mouldy bathrooms, some 70 per cent of tenants are too scared to ask for repair work for fear of copping a rent increase. “This report validates what renters across Australia already know. Despite extensive rental laws on paper, this report exposes the stark gap between legislation and reality for Australian renters,” National Association of Renters’ Organisations spokesman Leo Patterson Ross said. “Weak oversight of rental costs, property standards and industry practices have denied renters the benefits of a safe, stable and healthy home.”
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/breaking-news/reality-of-rentin…
# TUNSW in the media Australia, Eviction.