After receiving over 1,500 submissions from people affected by the housing crisis and over 100 community organisations, the People’s Commission into the Housing Crisis has now released its final report, ‘Voices of the Crisis’.
The People’s Commission was convened by Everybody’s Home and was an opportunity for individuals and organisations to contribute to a national conversation about the housing crisis, its impacts and what can be done to fix it.
CSMC’s Policy and Communications Coordinator and Support Services Coordinator spoke at the final session of the People’s Commission into the Housing Crisis, which focused on the policy changes needed to help more Australians get stable, decent homes that they can afford.
CSMC also contributed a submission to the People’s Commission based on the experiences our members and supporters had shared with us, which you can read here.
The newly-released final report highlights the crippling toll of our housing crisis, and is a call to action for government.
The report recommends that the federal government create 750,000 social homes within two decades, abolish tax concessions for property investors, and coordinate strong national rental reform.
Other recommendations include expanding social housing eligibility, recognising housing as a human right, raising the rate of working-age payments, additional funding for crisis housing services, and improving productivity in home building by increasing the capacity of the modular housing industry.
You can read the full report here.
CSMC’s recommendations
We particularly like the report’s recommendations to:
- Recognise housing as a human right
- Ensure housing assistance meets people’s needs
- Coordinate national rental reforms that limit unfair rent increases, end no-cause evictions and enact minimum standards
- Abolish the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing for property investors.
Here’s a more detailed look at what CSMC recommended in our submission to the People’s Commission:
1. Housing must be acknowledged as a human right
- Australia’s commitment to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), signed in 1973 and ratified without reservation in 1975, should be signed into domestic legislation in 2025, ideally accompanied by a Charter of Human Rights.
- A bipartisan and whole of government approach to back this national commitment will ultimately lead both to better decision making and a population safely and suitably housed and able to turn their attention to other aspects of life.
2. The Privacy Act 1988 needs reforming
The world has changed a lot since 1988 and the digital environment in which we all operate should not be allowed to disadvantage people seeking to exercise such rights as tenancy. The use of AI and algorithms should not, for example, be a way to discriminate through selecting out potential tenants because they are single or have children.
- Clearer definitions and rules about how data is collected, used and stored will ensure fair and safe outcomes for consumers.
- Businesses including banks making loans and real estate agencies requiring such things as online applications will benefit from clear requirements and accountability measures.
3. Improving residential tenancies is key
Governments can lead cultural shifts in how Australians experience renting, for example with:
- Expectations that leases will be five, ten, or even twenty years.
- Critically & urgently, in all policy improvements such as minimum standards, the onus of proof must be placed on agents and landlords to ensure tenants are not fearful of reprisals such as a rent hike or eviction just for raising a repair request.
- Limits to how often and by how much rents can be raised by need to be in place. “Market value” has become a meaningless term, with property costs being justified solely on location rather than on functionality and quality.
- Greater capacity for tenants to make internal changes, within agreed parameters, to the properties in which they live.
- Strengthening perceptions of value and pride in renting (both for tenants and landlords) and addressing concerns such as the ability to sustain rental accommodation in old age.
- Government purchase of empty housing, along with building more good quality, environmentally sound public housing, will enable greater housing options for essential workers and those on minimum wages and government incomes.
4. Improving housing purchasing, the other side of the equation.
Governments can, and indeed must, lead cultural shifts in how Australian view the purchase of housing particularly in respect to the following:
- Changing the investment structure so that any tax concessions are reserved for investors who agree to have their properties rented exclusively at affordable levels for low-income renters (e.g. those on minimum wages or government incomes).
- Improved initiatives to assist purchasers through identifying and preventing negative outcomes such as price hikes, expanding equity schemes, and identifying means to reduce loan discrimination.
- Developing capital and repair support mechanisms for those who are on a low income and whose houses are in danger of slipping below minimum standards. Women who have left marriages but retained the house and workers who have been injured or become long-term unemployed are examples where support to repair may be a better social and economic investment than allowing further disintegration of wellbeing and productivity. This may be, at least in the first instance, a form of mortgage assistance.
What happens now?
You can still join the campaign by writing to your MP about why we need more genuinely affordable housing, why the government needs to put an end to taxpayer-funded concessions for property investors, and anything else important to you. Tell them your story and why you think the government needs to act.
